Book Review: The Secret Life of Anna Blanc: Author: Jennifer Kincheloe

Through 46 chapters, this mastodon of a book flattered to deceive. In the beginning I was rooting for

Anna Blanc, the heroine, I still am, but this book left me disappointed. The sad part is that it has a lovable heroine in Anna Blanc, intelligent, passionate and mischievous. But for most part, her intellect is underplayed and where it is described, the author speeds up the description to get it over and go back to describing Anna's feelings and emotions, much like a kid rushing his homework so that he can go out and play.

The story idea is excellent and had a lot of potential. A young passionate and intelligent girl going after a murderer in the California of the 30's. But that is where the idea stops. The story line is handled in a casual manner.

The story is set in the US of the 20s when woman are fighting for their right to vote. Anna is a rich girl who lost her mother when she was a child. She has been brought up by her strict and loving father (nowhere in the book it is mentioned that her father is 'loving', I think I am attributing the 'loving' trait to sate my need for Gestalt). Anna has to behave like a rich woman and do the duties expected of

her like getting married, having children and doing charity work etc.

Anna is intelligent and becomes bored quickly. She wants to change the world.

The book starts at a torrid pace. By the end of the fifth chapter, Anna has already eloped with her paramour, been arrested by the police, has participated in suffragette movement, has smoked for the first time, and is planning to join the police force as a matron, which was the only police job available to women in that period.

By the 18th chapter Anna has learned typing, heard about someone killing the prostitutes, got engaged to Edward Wright, became a police matron in disguise and had her cover  blown by a policeman Joe Singer. I wrote in my diary that 'a coherent story has not come out so far. The reader roots for Anna, of course, but where is the story? Where is the challenge? In a couple of places, the author gives us a peek of Anna's deductive powers, but so far she has not used it'.

After reading thirty chapters, I wrote in my diary that " the book is still picking pace. Anna is still 'reading books', 'pacing up and down', 'finding that many prostitutes have died in recent times', 'is confused if she wants to kiss Joe Singer', and 'is lying on the bed thinking about her nether parts'. While one part of the reader's brain roots for Anna, the other part is screaming 'get a move on. You are clogging my reading target for the year. Do something' "

Too many things happen in the last few chapters of the book. Anna learns that the same monster who was murdering prostitutes has murdered her friend Eve. To catch him, she disguises as a prostitute. Even here, someone blows her cover and her photo is in the front page of the local newspaper. That was the last straw for her father to disown her.

I have never read about any person more prone to have their cover blown than Anna Blanc. Why does she disguise at all?

In the last couple of chapters Anna is taken to Edward's country house, and is found out by the real murderer. Of course, Anna sets fire to the murderer and escapes. If there is one thing that she does better than getting caught, it is extricating herself from tight situations. 

Of course I am not gonna tell you how she ended up there.

Fast narrative without going into anything in detail is the main trait of this book. Author starts with suffragettes movement, and just as the reader wants to know more, she moves on to the brothel murders, elicits reader's interest in the murders, drops the murders, and segues to 'Boyce Hill Fiend' or something. After building excitement about the fiend, with reader very eager to know how he is tracked and caught, the reader is informed, just in a matter of fact tone, that he was arrested based on his portrait that Anna got painted.

Even the heroine Anna flits from one thing to another just like a butterfly or something. Just as one gets interested in Anna's line of thought regarding the brothel murders and want to know more, she decides to go in search of Joe Singer to 'passionately kiss him'. If she is not actually kissing him, either 'she is lying helpless in is muscular arms' or 'is thinking of him and has all these unknown emotions stirring up in her nether parts'.

Anna thinks so much through her 'nether parts' that you could mistake her for a him.

Till the penultimate chapter of this big book, we have no clue about the identity of the brothel killer and the same is thrust upon the reader suddenly like a jack in the box or something. Upon realizing the identity of the killer, I was like 'wait, what?'

Till then in the book, Anna had suspected so many people of being the murderer that if the murderer himself had not confessed, and vehemently confessed again, I would never have agreed to her opinion and would have been bracing for another five chapters of 'Gauzet from the house of Faucet'

Thank you murderer for the confession.You saved me time.

The last minute spurt reminded me of a relaxed marathon runner who remembers, in his last two laps, to his dismay, that he had forgotten to switch off the gas at home and rushes to get the marathon over with so that he can go home to switch off the gas.

What I liked, and the reason I continued reading this book till the end, is the amused tone and the great language. In my mind I could see the author writing parts of the book with gay abandon with a smile on her face as she described Anna's emotions. Author throws up surprising and amusing comparisons in many places. I loved the way she writes.

There is one sentence that embodies her skilled use of language. I loved it above all else for its great use of  'show, don't tell'.  She adjusted her drawers. She adjusted her drawers again. She adjusted them and adjusted them and adjusted them, until finally, with a little cry of satisfaction, she was finished adjusting them. 

Simply brilliant!!