Morvern Callar [Paperback]

Morvern is someone no one would want to be, a member of the Scottish "working class," a woman for whom life holds no promise other than sex, music and liquor, and, in time, even those will fade. So, in a life devoid of hope, Morvern does what might seem illogical to someone not caught in her circumstances: she buries her boyfriend's body, cleans out his bank account and even submits his novel to a London publisher under her own name. All this before quitting her own dead-end job and heading down to the Spanish Mediterranean for more sex, music and liquor. That's all. There is no "hopefully more," in Morvern Callar's world.

Although Morvern may appear callous and amoral she is anything but. Warner, who captures the "voice" of his protagonists so perfectly (see These Demented Lands and The Sopranos) has captured the very essence of Morvern Callar. There is an inescapable sorrow in Morvern that all of her coolness and hipness cannot hide. This is a real person, one who is gentle and caring with her girlfriend's grandmother and her own foster father. Morvern sees herself reflected in the wrung-out lives of her elders. Her temporary escape to the warmer, more sunny climes of the Mediterranean are a desperate attempt to grab what little escape she can, and, because of this very desperation, these scenes take on a hellish, almost surreal quality. We know, as does Morvern, that whatever release she is feeling at the moment will only magnify the emptiness of her life in the long run. A clue to Morvern's personality is her favorite video: Antonioni's "The Passenger," a tale about a man who tries to make a new life by switching identities with a dead man.

A master writer, and a master at characterization, Warner never resorts to melodrama in portraying the bleakness of Morvern's life or in her reaction to it. He simply tells it like it is...exactly. And that is part of what makes this novel so perfect. Although Morvern's life is filled with hopelessness and despair, she, herself, is a woman filled with feeling, a true heroine in the finest sense of the word. Even though Morvern tries desperately to deaden the feelings that are killing her, she fails to do so.

Obviously, Morvern Callar is a character-driven novel and Morvern, herself, is fascinating enough to carry us along. There really is very little plot in the book to speak of, although Warner does hide some obtuse symbolism here and there. If Morvern, herself, weren't enough to intrigue even the most jaded reader, Warner's writing is so good that it alone makes this book worth reading even if, by some strange chance, you don't like Morvern.

Ultimately depressing and without hope, Morvern Callar will no doubt sadly appeal only to a very limited, and very literary, audience, those who read and love Irvine Welsh, for instance. This is too bad, since Warner is a brilliant and polished writer and one whose work deserves a much more widespread readership.