Splinters

Jean Sylvester is not pleased with her life. Like many young adults, she looks for happiness and an affirmation of identity in those people she feels close to and the novel opens with her dearest friend leaving for a new life in Scotland. There is a counterbalance, however; her blossoming relationship with Luke, ‘Love is in the air but it isn’t on our tongues.’ When the hammer blow of his three week family holiday in Wyoming falls, her summer again loses its glow.

To multiply her woes, her father insists on moving the family to a huge, old house in order to have more room for his writing and teaching and Jean hates it on sight. Add her spoilt and irritating little sister, favoured by her mother, to the mix and the only positive factor is the anticipation of Luke’s return. This, too, is snatched away from her when he inexplicably rejects her, dating one of her sworn enemies and ignoring her publicly and completely.

Delahaye makes it clear that nothing is ever quite what it seems. Jean’s successful father is concealing a gambling addiction, Luke is nursing a dangerous secret and her difficult relationship with her mother has a reason other than the one she imagined.

When Luke contacts Jean again it is to try and gain access to her new home, in which there is a secret and dangerous talisman, an apparently non-descript mirror, left by his uncle on his death. Having refused Luke’s request, she decides to look closely at the mirror and, to her discomfiture, sees not just her reflection, but another living, breathing version of herself, a Splinter. Tired of the trials of her life she changes places with this alternative identity for a short and carefully defined time and then repeats the process with other versions of herself.

This clever narrative device gives Jean an altered perspective as she becomes a temporary part of realities which are at once familiar and off-kilter, so that she can explore and compare roles, working through her emotional preoccupations from other angles. Delahaye’s use of this allegory gives the examination of identity a graphic frisson and an opportunity for Jean to resolve her inner conflicts in a way which is a huge step removed from her normal existence.  When she is eventually tricked by a devious Splinter, she is saved from being permanently trapped in a dreadful alternative life by Luke’s intervention.

Splinters strikingly and memorably reminds the reader that independence and happiness come as a result of resilience when life hurts us most and the knowledge that we are all ultimately responsible for our decisions. A better life isn’t about new, idealised landscapes: it rests on the ability to navigate challenge and disappointment to the brighter days beyond.