Arthur Phillips began his literary career with a mainstream title, “Prague,” which was sort of a “Big Chill” situation set in, oddly enough, Budapest (Prague becomes something unattainable, like the idealism of the ’60s is to aging baby boomers).
With his sophomore effort, “The Egyptologist,” Phillips turned to mystery fiction. In that novel, Phillips used Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” as a model for his plot. With “Angelica,” his latest, Phillips’ literary model is Henry James (and perhaps a bit of Faulkner) and the genre this time out is not so much mystery as psychological suspense, especially since there seems to be a supernatural element at the heart of the mystery. For certain, “Angelica” is a step up in achievement, and Phillips’ best novel yet.
Narrated – in four different sections – from the viewpoint of four different characters, “Angelica” concerns Constance, Joseph and Angelica Brion, and a spiritualist named Ann Montague. Having suffered three miscarriages before her daughter Angelica’s birth, Constance is understandably reticent about sex. She is also over-protective of her daughter, who still sleeps with her parents.
But husband Joseph grows frustrated, believing that 4-year-old Angelica’s presence in their bedroom hinders the matrimonial relationship. He insists that Constance move their daughter to a separate room. When the anxious Constance notices horrible odors and sees a blue specter in her daughter’s bedroom, Joseph rightfully believes she is looking for ways to avoid him. But Constance persists, inviting Montague to their home, hoping the woman can deduce the cause of the hauntings.
All of this effectively widens the emotional fissures that have formed between husband and wife (Joseph, a vivisectionist whose work with animals scares his wife, is the more reasoned and emotionally removed sort; Constance, the irrational one, seems to operate only by emotion and instinct).
Montague, who leans more on psychology than spiritualism, begins to question everyone’s motives and everyone’s story. The author’s use of different, distinct, viewpoints – each one a well-crafted, separate voice, each one encouraging the reader’s allegiance – makes for an excellent narrative device, leaving the reader off-balance at each chapter’s end.
Are the hauntings real? Is Montague a charlatan? Is Joseph an evil, over-sexed man with designs toward his daughter? Is the strangely beguiling Angelica more than she seems? What dark secrets lie between husband, wife and daughter?
Phillips is spot-on when creating the moody Victorian atmosphere needed to sustain his mystery. And by breaking the narrative into sections, he effectively keeps his readers wondering whom to believe, so that they will remain unsuspecting when one more final turn of his narrative screws reveals that everything – and everyone – isn’t necessarily what it (or they) seemed.
“Angelica” is a dark, brooding, multilayered puzzle that expertly reflects upon the complexities of the human condition.
Dorman T. Shindler is a freelancer from Missouri.
FICTION
Angelica
Arthur Phillips
$26.95
