Reading, lost and found
Liz Tascio The Hunter, by Tana French, Viking, 2024. There was a time in my life when I stopped reading books. Blame motherhood and work, blame smartphone apps and podcasts, blame me for letting my habits change. I was too busy and I just stopped. Then one day a friend of mine who loves books said, “You have to read Tana French.” Murder mysteries, but not exactly, she said, and the sentences are so good. I decided I still didn’t have time to sit down with a book, but I could pop in some earbuds and listen while I did everything else. I bought her first book. From the first chapter of In the Woods I was swept into the story, and into the sheer pleasure of a gorgeous sentence. By the last chapter, I was devastated—in the best way. I immediately bought her second book, The Likeness. Part of the joy is that she is an undeniably lyrical, beautiful writer. She is also deeply interested in people, not just in the puzzle of a plot, though she’s excellent at that, too. She draws her main characters richly, surrounds them with complicated people to love and to lose, gives them a moral compass they might not follow, painful memories and blind spots. They test the limits of their morals, they sacrifice careers and relationships, and sometimes they turn their backs on what they believe about themselves when there is too much at stake to be good. French’s first six novels are linked: They are all set in a fictional police department in Dublin, a department known as the