Maggie O’Farrell’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox makes me thankful that I wasn’t a woman living in the thirties. When Esme Lennox failed to comply with what was considered normal behavior, her family committed her to a mental asylum.
Sixty years later, Iris Lockhart receives notice from the asylum that she needs to make arrangements for her grandmother’s sister, Esme Lennox, her great-aunt, because the institution is closing. Iris, unaware that Esme even exists, is overwhelmed, not only with worry about what to do with Esme, but with the vague memories and clues she’s always known were there, but never acknowledged.
O’Farrell’s novel skillfully toggles between the present with Iris handling the situation, to Esme, both in the past and present. The story also includes Iris’s grandmother, Kitty, the favored older sister, in her past and in her present-day Alzheimer’s ramblings, which hint of an ugly secret. The early recollections of Esme and Kitty take place in India, and later in Scotland.
The story is a tragic revelation of yesteryear’s inhumane treatment of women who didn’t comply with the strict standards of the day. Unraveling the past, Iris discovers shocking secrets, which were largely the result of a family not communicating in order to preserve its reputation. At least in the upper middle class existence of Esme and Kitty’s childhood, much emphasis and engergy was spent in keeping up appearances and what was thought of as propriety.
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is a spellbinding novel of depth and complexity that I won’t soon forget.