TELL

In a series of extended soliloquies, a rich man’s gardener tells what she knows and believes about him.

There’s plenty of interest in the life of Curtis, a British tycoon and art collector who’s gone missing. He’d already survived the death of his wife and then his own serious car crash, and both of those left him a very different man, at least according to his staff, including the unnamed narrator of this novel who speaks for them. She speaks for everyone who knew him, actually, though she acknowledges that others had very different impressions of Curtis and his familial and romantic relationships. Lily was his wife, and her keen eye for fashion helped him amass his fortune. The younger and icier Karolina had a similar eye for art, helping turn his collection into a substantial investment. Karolina and Curtis may have been involved even before Lily’s death, though the narrator insists from the start that “Lily is what it’s about, in my opinion.” Then there’s Lara, a journalist who wrote a profile of Curtis that led to a book project that attempts to bridge what he was before the accident and what he became. It has inspired some sort of film, and her series of interviews with the gardener is providing background. The gardener, who isn’t central to Curtis’ story, doesn’t have much inside information but is an attentive observer. Although she says at one point, “Things will become clearer, I promise,” things become less clear as she engages in discursive ramblings involving Curtis’ family and staff who may or may not be central to the plot, whatever the plot is. She is “a non-stop talk machine,” and her narrative is the novel’s.

A novel about the nature of storytelling, and who gets to tell and shape the story.