I decided to start re-reading my novels by Louise Candlish, most of which I have pretty much forgotten after a period of a decade or so. I previously read ‘The Double Life of Anna Day’ in 2010, so had no recollection of the characters, and only a vague memory of the storyline as it progressed.
It’s narrated in the first person by Anna, a young woman in her early thirties. She’s quite a career-minded person, who works in advertising sales for a newspaper. She’s a team leader, and gets involved in office banter and squabbles… I found the scenes set in the office so alien to me that I mostly skimmed them, and never really figured out who was whom.
The main story, however, involves Anna’s boyfriend Charlie. They have been together for a year, but she hasn’t been introduced to his mother, Meredith. In fact, Meredith doesn’t even know that Anna exists. Charlie has been making excuses: his father died not so long ago, and Meredith is grieving. She’s likely to be angry - she managed to break up his previous relationship, and he doesn’t want that to happen with Anna. And Anna has gone along with the excuses, happy in their relationship even if they only see each other twice a week… but her patience is wearing thin.
She had set a deadline for him to make the introduction, but he’s about to go away for three months, on a college assignment in the United States, and asks her to wait until he gets back. She agrees, promising not to write letters to Meredith, or make phone calls… but she’s not happy about it.
Then her friend Viv, who has become some kind of life coach, suggests a somewhat preposterous idea… and Anna decides to take her up on it.
The second half of the story involves Anna developing a somewhat different identity, dressing differently, taking up pursuits that would not normally occur to her, and essentially leading the ‘double life’ of the title. To say more would give spoilers, but the story is well done, and Anna’s personality comes across as quite three dimensional, though I did wonder why she went to so much effort pretending to be someone she really wasn’t… although the new personality does gradually start to appeal to her.
It’s a cleverly done story, and the writing style is light; nothing to make me laugh out loud, but I smiled once or twice at turns of phrase, or conversations. Most of the minor characters seem rather caricatured - probably intentionally to make them more memorable, but I quite liked the ‘Dulwich’ crowd, who seemed more realistic, and I appreciated the gentle barbs poked at their customs and habits through Anna’s eyes.
There are some interesting discussions and insights into what makes people who they are - how parent-child relationships work, whether one can ever recover from a bereavement of someone close. I thought the portrayal of the office men was a bit sad; they all seemed very similar, and sexist in the extreme. But the different values and ideals of the important women in the story made some thoughtful reading in places.
However it's basically light women’s fiction, with too much bad language and innuendoes to be suitable for younger teenagers (or the prudish). But overall I enjoyed it, and might even re-read it again in another decade or so. Recommended if you like this kind of book; it would make good holiday reading.
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