Little Night by Luanne Rice

Published by Pamela Dorman Books on June 5, 2012 

Luanne Rice is a capable writer who specializes in telling stories about family dynamics.  The bare bones of a good story are buried deep within Little Night.  Sadly, a determined reader will need to dig through contrived situations and weakly developed characters to find it.

The prologue begins in 1993 with the arrest of Clare Burke after she smashes Frederik Rasmussen’s face with a burning log.  After years of estrangement from her sister Anne caused by Anne’s controlling husband Frederik, Clare had noticed Anne’s injuries during a visit.  Clare was convincing Anne to flee to a place of safety when Frederik came home and began to choke Anne.  The police do not believe Clare was protecting Anne when Anne refuses to contradict her domineering husband, who accuses Clare of attempting to murder him.

In 2011, Anne’s daughter Grit visits Clare in New York City.  Grit is a follower of Clare’s bird blog.  She shares Clare’s animosity toward Frederik.  Grit also has issues surrounding her mother’s uncaring behavior and her brother’s apparent death in a bog.  Grit and Clare nonetheless bond over the fact that they both miss Anne.  Before she fled home, Grit stole Anne’s diary which Clare reads to gain insight into Anne’s personality.

Part two begins with a posting on Anne’s blog that (with good reason) questions her parenting of Grit.  Reading it together (as well as subsequent entries) gives Clare and Grit another bonding opportunity.

Other events are scattered through this mostly uneventful novel.  Grit behaves in a self-destructive way.  She gets tattoos from an artist named Dennis.  She earns a little money by cooking for pretentious people.  Clare examines her feelings for a bird enthusiast named Paul.  Yet most of the novel’s drama is reserved for the last couple of chapters, which I thought were entirely unbelievable.

In fact, I didn’t believe much of the story at all, beginning with the setup.  I doubt Clare would have been prosecuted, much less convicted and sentenced to prison, given the fairly obvious evidence of Frederick’s abusive nature (Anne’s loyalty to her husband notwithstanding).  The subplot involving Grit’s brother is similarly contrived.

Neither did I believe that the characters were real.   Frederik is too over-the-top to be convincing.  Sure, there are people in the world who are as evil as Frederik, but Rice fails to develop Frederik in sufficient depth to make his personality ring true.  Anne is subservient because Rice needs her to be that way to make the story work, but we never learn why such a seemingly strong-willed girl changes so dramatically that later in life she betrays both her sister and her daughter for the sake of a man she doesn't seem to like.   Dennis is improbably attuned to Grit from the instant they meet.  His perfect sensitivity makes him seem more like an illusion than a real person.  Neither Paul nor Dennis is a fully realized character.  They are empty vessels, existing only to spice the story by giving Clare and Grit the opportunity for love.

Some aspects of Little Night are hokey:  a bartender’s intuitive knowledge that Clare had served prison time (a mere two years) because of her “blank stare”; the upscale soap opera that was Anne’s life before Frederik came along (fate’s punishment for her wanton ways?); Dennis feeling moved to kiss Grit while giving her a tattoo, apparently because he senses her tortured soul.  Clare’s childhood discovery that her perfect father was a less-than-perfect husband -- a realization that “broke Anne in a way that changed her forever” -- is trite.  Scenes of family drama are robbed of their potential power by cheesy, melodramatic writing (Grit “missed her mother so much she thought her head would explode”).  The characters engage in so much hand-wringing about their family problems that the narrative becomes emotionally deadening.

Rice presents some interesting information about birds and bogs.  She draws interesting parallels between nature and families, both of which are filled with beauty and brutality.  Unfortunately, Rice feels a need to explain her metaphors, as if she thinks her readers are too dim to grasp them without assistance.  That’s the fundamental problem with this uneven novel:  sometimes Rice tells us too much, other times not enough.   Rice's failure to find the right balance makes Little Night a novel of limited appeal.

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