I Found You: Lisa Jewell

Lisa Jewell’s novel I Found You is an engaging pageturner which centres on two men–one lost and one found. In the Northern town of Ridinghouse Bay, Alice, a single mother of three finds a man on a beach and, feeling sorry for him, takes him into her home. Meanwhile in London, newlywed Lily, fresh from Ukraine, is devastated when her husband, Carl doesn’t return from work one day.

If you think you’ve just connected the dots, then the novel has a few surprises in store.

The novel, which never lags at 342 pages, follows three narratives, and it’s the strength and connections between these narratives, particularly the two from Lily and Alice, that make this an intense, absorbing read.

Alice Lake scrapes together a living and supports her three children, all from different fathers. They live in a cramped little seaside cottage which is also shared by three rescue dogs. Alice’s life and circumstances are chaotic and shaped by her character. This is a woman whose positive characteristics–she’s loving, generous, open, trusting–have also led to her downfall. “Her whole life has been shaped, virtually destroyed, by her sexual desires.” Alice is an open, messy, book:

I’ve totally failed in the providing-a-conventional-family-unit-for-my-children department. Jasmine’s dad was a holiday romance. Brazil. Didn’t know I was pregnant until I’d been home for two weeks and had no way of tracking him down. 

Kai’s dad was my next-door neighbor in Brixton. We were-excuse the expression-fuck buddies. He just disappeared one day, when Kai was about five. A new family moved in. That was that. And Romaine’s dad was the love of my life but …” She pauses. “He went mental. Did a bad thing. He lives in Australia now. So.” She sighs. 

When walking her three out-of-control dogs on the beach in the rain, Alice approaches a man she’s already spied from her window. He’s just sitting, soaked, on the sand. After a brief conversation, Alice discovers that the man doesn’t remember who he is or how he got there. Later, Alice, takes him home and let’s him stay. Alice’s eldest daughter and Derry, her best (protective) friend, roll their eyes with concern at Alice’s latest stray male, but shortly it becomes clear that this man, nicknamed ‘Frank’ is in a fugue state.

Meanwhile in London, newlywed Lily, fresh from Ukraine, is beginning to realise what an idiot she is. She married Carl in Kiev and they returned to London. The honeymoon is still a glowing, fresh memory, when one day Carl simply disappears. At first the police don’t take Lily’s complaint too seriously, but then after they examine his passport, Lily is told that Carl Monrose, the man she married, doesn’t exist.

The third narrative takes place in 1993 and concerns a family  of four who go on holiday to Ridinghouse Bay. These three narratives rotate and eventually weave together to solve the two central mysteries of a nameless man found on the beach and a missing husband who lived with false ID. The plot is very cleverly structured and flows very well, so much so that I kept reading in the wee hours. Sometimes fragmented narratives can be annoying and manipulative, but here, the flow and tension was perfect.

Both Alice and Lily are shown to be women who took chances: Alice has made a series of poor decisions involving men, and those who care about Alice see ‘Frank’ as the latest in a long chain of mistakes. Lily has made the mistake of marrying a man outside of his environment–without meeting his family, his friends, his workmates, and she discovers, the hard way, that none of these things exist.

I had a bit of a problem with the character of Kitty, but then decided to accept her in the larger context of ‘women making bad choices,’ and the denoument wasn’t quite as smooth as the rest of the novel. Those niggling elements aside, if you like domestic suspense and are looking for a gripping read, then I Found You is recommended. Here’s Cleo’s review.

Review copy

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