A mother and daughter attempt to shed their skins in Neave’s second novel, which is rich with imagery, metaphor and ephemeral beauty
While reading Lucy Neave’s second novel, Believe In Me, I was listening to Elliot Smith’s Waltz #2 (XO), a song touching on his inability to connect with his reticent mother. The chorus repeats: “I’m never going to know you now / but I’m going to love you anyhow.” It’s a melancholic refrain that offers a parallel to Neave’s narrative, concerned with the unruly bonds of persistent familial love and the extent to which we can ever truly understand another person.
Believe In Me starts in 1970s America, a familiar backdrop for Neave, who previously lived, worked, and studied there as a Fulbright scholar. (Her debut novel, Who We Were, is a cold war thriller set in the McCarthyist era.) We follow Sarah Francis, an 18-year-old from upstate New York, who is sent by her mother to accompany a missionary, Isaiah, to suburban Idaho. One night aboard the train, Isaiah rapes her, causing her to become pregnant.
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