the last house on needless street review

“Come in,” Dee whispers and puts out her hand.’ ‘She kneels and comes face to face with it, the child, its silver white flesh dappled in the moonlight, its mouth a black cherry, eyes gleaming like lamps, filled with the light of death, scalp stripped and wounded, where the birds have plucked the hair from her skull. Dee sees her sister everywhere, alive and dead:

An early reference to Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847) reflects the extent to which Dee is haunted by Lulu, just as Heathcliff is haunted by Catherine. We are presented with scraps of memories and present lives, and it’s all too easy to assemble these into the wrong shape.Īs the characters chase ghosts, so does the reader, and the Gothic is always close at hand. At first, I found the structure fragmented my understanding of exactly what was happening, but this mirrors the characters’ lives: there’s no omniscient narrator, no one person who guides the reader through. The narrative is divided into chapters that focus on individuals, in turn, providing different perspectives on people and events.

Lauren is Ted’s daughter, and possesses important information about her father which transforms the character. Olivia is a cat, so has unique insight into what is happening, what has happened, and who Ted is. This story is also narrated by Olivia and Lauren. As a reviewer, I have to try to give my thoughts on the book without revealing too much, because solving the mystery of Needless Street pulled me through the story. It’s very much a puzzle narrative, and structured as one. Once I’d read the book, I returned to several sections and appreciated them even more in the light of my new understanding. The book is complex in both character motivations and the underlying truth of the matter, and neither is really apparent until the end (although Ward provides numerous tantalising clues throughout). Stories of human cruelty are always horrific, particularly when the perpetrator is trusted – even loved – by their victim.

The Last House on Needless Street is a hard read at times. This engaged me in the narrative to such an extent that I found it hard to put the book down when I did, I was still trying to untangle the narrative threads in my mind. As the story progresses, however, it becomes apparent that each remembers events with a skewed point of view. Certainly, Dee (Lulu’s older sister) holds him responsible, and when the reader hears the story from her perspective, it appears likely. Ted calls Lulu the ‘Little Girl With Popsicle’ and can’t forget the anniversary of her abduction, as even eleven years after Lulu’s disappearance, he’s a suspect – or feels like one. The story is initially told by Ted, who lives on Needless Street near the lake where Lulu disappeared. T he Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward’s third novel, begins with an unsolved crime: the abduction of Lulu, a six-year-old girl taken from her family one summer’s day.

The last house on needless street review