Hyper radiance?

The Uses of Enchantment - Heidi Julavits
New York: Doubleday, 2006

So I actually went and looked up Bruno Bettelheim when I found out that Julavits borrowed the title from him. Fairy tales allow children a safe way to come to terms with fears and darkness. Do we ever really stop being children? In Julavits' novel, which I'm not totally certain I can discuss coherently, most of the characters are engaged in similar acts of attempting to empower themselves to be the masters of their story.

There are three narratives, set in 1985, 1986, and 1999. In the "present," Mary Veal is back in New England for her estranged mother's funeral. Her family has yet to forgive her for what happened over a decade ago, but she has held out hope that maybe her mother understood and forgave. This is juxtaposed with "What Might Have Happened" in 1985, when Mary disappeared, a willing participant in her abduction, and the notes taken by her therapist during a series of sessions early the next year, when he notices inconsistencies in her story, decides it is all a lie, and makes her the case study for his theory of hyper radiance. So it's difficult enough to tell what really happened, if a phrase like "what really happened" even makes sense. But then you realize that pretty much everyone is lying, or at least willfully ignoring what doesn't fit. And by the end you are kind of dizzy. And yet.... Julavits is smart and interesting and so are her characters. I was engaged start to finish. Frustrated as often as not, but engaged.

Pause. This isn't precisely what I want to say about this novel. I started writing in one place, and ended up somewhere entirely different. (Which is maybe not unlike what happens to some of these characters are they lose and regain control of their own narratives?) But rather than edit and re-think and try to get it right, I'll just end with the recommendation to read it for yourself.