Brooklynite Ann is “penniless, childless, and technically homeless”. Justin, meanwhile, is rich, vaguely cultured and works in a loosely defined real estate business upstate. They meet in a bar, sparks fly, and before too long they are on the way back to his mansion.
It’s like a fairytale! It can’t possibly be real! And, of course, it’s not, but in a bonkers way that runs on soap opera energy and, sometimes, telenovela logic. Ann should probably have gotten out of there by the second time her Mr. Big-shaped collection of red flags says, “It’s not what you think…”. Because Justin is married to Deborah who is dying of an inoperable brain tumour. He’s ready to mingle again despite his wife still being alive, all of which the lovestruck Ann makes her peace with.
Indeed, the ability of the characters to rationalise bad choices is almost mesmerising, and readers are going to be obsessed with arguing about who is right and who is wrong.
This is especially true when Deborah inevitably recovers after Ann has moved into her home and become a surrogate mother to her beloved daughter. A slow-burn first half is mirrored by a pacier second act as Edel Coffey lobs some delicious plot grenades into Ann’s fantasy life, her longed-for happy ending threatening to unravel before it has even begun. As with any soap opera, a certain suspension of disbelief is required here as Coffey’s zippy style carries both her protagonist and her readers deep into this increasingly problematic relationship, but that’s part of the fun (and, for all the drama, this is a fun read).
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Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik: It’s almost unfair for a biography to be such fun
While the temptation for some might be to focus on who “the other woman” is in this story - the quietly anxious Ann or Deborah the saint with a dark edge - pitting these two against each other overlooks Coffey’s strongest characterisation. Keep your eye on the menfolk throughout; in fact, go back and read In Her Place for a second time and concentrate on how their vacillation between debonair leading man shtick and wet-fish promises-to-leave-their-wives-eventually routine masks their manipulative behaviour.
It is a low-key villainy all the more unsettling for its mundanity. Women like Ann and Deborah deserve better, and Coffey never loses sight of that.
