An incredibly intriguing book that is all over the place in a great way. The book begins with an investigation into a the local legend of young woman "Annie", who was shut away after being diagnosed with tuberculosis. However two-thirds of the way through the tense shifts from third person "T" to first person as the author ruminates in why she was so intrigued by the story and why stories mean so much to us.

The third section really brings the novel together and helps you understand and appreciate the narrative choices made at the start as Annie's story is investigated. a brilliant story and something quite unique.

I really loved Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi, and Fitzcarraldo is one of my favourite publishers, so I was really excited to read this. I’m glad I did. Ostensibly, it’s an investigation into the life of a young woman (‘Annie’) who, according to local legend, was shut away in a tower at the age of 18 after being diagnosed with tuberculosis. However, if you go in hoping for a neat resolution to that story, you’ll be disappointed. That’s the point. Really, it’s an investigation into why we tell the stories we tell, and about the fraught and permeable boundaries between fact and fiction. The first two sections use third person (Lenarduzzi becomes ‘T’) and outline the process of discovering the story and building a narrative for who Annie was, how she lived and what her life was like in the tower. The last section is where Lenarduzzi, after uncovering a twist in the real-life Annie’s story, questions why she was so drawn to Annie and her story in the first place. The whole thing is written in beautiful, rigorous prose, drawing on the lives of Marie Bashkirtseff and Katherine Mansfield, among other, to explore themes of identity, power and illness within the context of telling one’s own story. While at times I found the conceit of the third person, especially the quasi-fairy tale nature of its telling, a little grating, the last section, where T finally becomes Thea, helps resolve a lot of the issues I was having. It becomes a really interesting meditation on what storytelling and acts of imagination can achieve, but also how they can be limiting. Lenarduzzi has a personal stake in Annie’s story. She becomes possessive of it, sometimes to the point of arrogance when speaking to locals. It’s the gradual realisation of this, and why, which is the central premise of the book. This is pre-figured by a lot of the narrative choices in the first two sections in a way that I found really admirable and inventive. Ultimately, it’s an act of power to claim a story and use it to help tell our own.

Out in October from Fitzcarraldo Editions. Thanks to them and Netgalley for the ARC.