An Unremarkable Body by Elisa Lodato, book review: A debut novel that shows notable promise

The story of a middle-aged woman’s life is told through her autopsy report, but a long hidden secret is fairly easy to guess not that far into the book

In her pleasingly distinct debut novel, An Unremarkable Body, Elisa Lodato sets out to tell the story of a middle-aged woman’s life through her autopsy report.

One day in February 2012, 30-year-old Laura arrives at her 51-year-old mother Katharine’s house in Surbiton, Laura’s childhood home, for lunch, only to discover her mother’s body lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, her neck broken by the fall. In the months that follow, and while Laura attempts to process her grief, questions about her mother’s life start to nag at her, namely why Katharine apparently sanctioned her husband Richard’s affair with the babysitter Jenny, for whom he eventually left his wife and kids (Laura has a younger brother).

It’s Katharine’s torn earlobe, as noted by the coroner, that first sets Laura down this investigative path. She vividly recalls the morning, back when she was only six, when Jenny’s mother Sue confronted Katharine in the school playground one morning, pulling back her hair, which, tangled up in a dangly earring, ripped the lobe. “How could you let it happen?” Sue rasps. “Allow Richard to put his filthy hands on my Jenny? She’s a child. Just a child.”

If these words shock, those uttered later that night – “quiet and firm,” rather than high-pitched and furious – confuse. “Never in this house,” Laura overhears her mother telling her father. That’s Katharine’s only admonishment, no righteous indignation of a woman scorned.

The structuring of the chapters by means of an introductory extract from the autopsy report is a rather ingenious one. Stories about family secrets aren’t exactly thin on the ground, but this organisational quirkiness sets Lodato’s work apart from the start.

Not, perhaps, that the connection is always as clear as it could be. A torn earlobe or a caesarean scar is one thing, but there are plenty of emotional wounds that aren’t inscribed on one’s skin. Without revealing any details, Laura’s on track to discover something long hidden but hugely significant about her mother’s life; what precisely, it’s fairly easy to guess not that far into the book. A little too easy, perhaps, since I was left pondering whether Laura – a journalist who specialises in thoughtful human interest pieces about the inhabitants of London – could really have been so blind for so long. Indeed, this isn’t the only example of a perspective that doesn’t quite ring true. Laura narrates the entire story; even those sections that recall episodes in her mother’s life of which Laura could never possibly have first-hand knowledge, which certainly confuses things a little.

Although not without its flaws, An Unremarkable Body is a novel that shows notable promise. Occasional over-writing – the description of a cook who “simmered dinner into submission”; or the sight of a woman crying, “her body sought to service emotion with water” – and slightly stilted dialogue are reminders that this is indeed a first novel, but I’m already intrigued to see what Lodato writes next.

‘An Unremarkable Body’ by Elisa Lodato is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.99