Translated by Jai van Essen — Readers of domestic noir will revel in Dutch writer Saskia Noort’s dark new thriller that unravels the psychological aftermath of a mother’s sudden disappearance. Set against the backdrop of Amsterdam, The Grown-Up combines the suspense of a missing persons case with the complexities of family dysfunction, shared parenthood after divorce and toxic relationships.
Noort throws us into the deep end right from the start. “Mom’s dead”, says 17-year-old Lies in the novel’s opening sentence.
Lies wakes up one morning to an uncannily quiet house. There’s no sign of her mother, Jet Verschoor. Her younger brother, Luuk, also hasn’t seen their mother since the previous evening. Jet’s car is in the driveway and her woman’s purse and phone are still in the house. Lies knows her mother won’t leave them without an explanation.
Knowing that her father will use Jet’s disappearance against her to obtain sole custody, Lies initially hides her mother’s absence from him. When she eventually voices her concern, he dismisses it as another one of Jet’s attention-seeking attempts due to her personality disorder. When the police are called in they find no evidence and conclude that Jet walked out on her old life to start anew.
Convinced her mother is in danger, Lies launches her own investigation. As she delves into psychologist Jet’s life, she unearths disturbing secrets regarding her mother’s dating life in her diary. Jet was secretly seeing a man called God, an ironic shortening of Godfried, who she met through an online dating service. Given that they had an unstable, codependent and toxic relationship, Lies believes he’s behind this.
Noort’s dual point-of-view and timeline structure, which lends to the thriller mystery genre, will keep you hooked. She fluctuates between Lies’s voice in the present and her mother’s voice through her diary, chronicling events shortly before the woman vanished. It feels as if there is an intentional blurring of perspectives here, which sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish between Lies and her mother’s thoughts. This uncertainty adds a layer of unease or frustration – depending on how much patience you have.
Lies is even more confused when the inconsistent opinions of her come from her father, his girlfriend, Jet’s friend and the grandmother. Everyone seems to know a different Jet Verschoor but none of them match Lies’s perception of her mother. So, who was the real Jet? And how could a psychologist not see the warning signs of a toxic relationship? Was she so alone and vulnerable after the collapse of her marriage that she put herself in danger or was she merely an irresponsible thrill seeker?
Lies is still just an anxious and imaginative teenager who loves scary movies, hanging out with boys, the colour dark blue, sneakers, Billie Eilish and Hip-Hop, and thrives on drama. Her voice conveys this, and it gives a young adult feel to the novel. Fortunately, it’s not off-putting, but provides a refreshing alternative perspective. Despite her young age, Lies has to be the grown-up who deals with her mother’s disappearance, not her father, his girlfriend, her grandmother or even her mother’s best friend, who are strangely unperturbed by the situation.
At the core of The Grown-Up sits the emotional fallout and the bitter animosity impacting children during a divorce. “We manage their emotions, soothe their anger, maneuver past their hatred”, Lies wryly comments. Children become the carers and mediators. The novel is reminiscent of thrillers such as Gone Girl where readers are continuously kept in the dark, no character can be trusted and a twist is a necessity. I look forward to more of Noort’s novels translated into English.
For another domestic noir with a psychologist as a main character, try Helene Flood’s The Therapist.
Amazon Crossing
Print/Kindle
£2.49
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
