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With or Without You

OUR HEROINE Lillian Speck is an intelligent but deluded young woman who has stalked and killed the soap-opera actress she adored. The narrative alternates between the story leading up to the murder and her time in jail, awaiting trial; between literary whydunnit and Bad Girls. There are also passages from the point of view of the star’s grieving mother, who is trying to make sense of her daughter’s life and death.

   So why did a Long Island rich kid end up in the dock for murder? Part of the pleasure of this well-written novel is in the puzzle, and secondtime novelist Lauren Sanders does a great job here. I didn’t expect to believe the reason, when it came, but in fact I did. Circumstances build up to a shooting that makes perfect sense.

   But it could only happen because Lillian, deprived of healthy relationships, develops an obsession with young Brooke Harrison off the telly. With wealthy, selfish, dysfunctional parents and more interest in girls than boys, Lillian is taken under the wing of an air stewardess who lives nearby. Blair wraps her arms around Lillian in bed, strokes her hair and gives her liquor. What more could a girl want?

   It’s a shame that the plot demands that Blair abandon Lillian, because the relationship is a compelling one and the book flags a little without it. But then the stage is set: after a useless mum and a vanished mother-figure, why would Lillian look to real people for comfort?

   Still, there are other encounters ahead, especially when self centred wild-girl Edie joins Lillian’s class at school and becomes her friend. Together they get stoned and watch video tapes of the soap opera in which Brooke’s character is subjected to ever more ludicrous plot-lines. But while Edie can take it or leave it, Lillian eats, sleeps and smokes it.

   If only she’d known that this obsession was leading towards the day when she’d be saying, “Ever since I told Mimi about the fat lady in my cell, she’s been making me wear a plug up my butt.” And it’s made out of a carrot!

   Sanders has both a serious eye for the rotten fame/money/escape culture of mainstream America and a playful authorial hand. We’re never sure what she’ll deal up next, and the switch between past and present is highly effective in keeping up the tension. The intensity of adolescent crushes on older women and TV stars is all too real; thank god it didn’t land us all in Mimi’s cell block.

   The novel is far from didactic, but Sanders is constantly pointing up the hurdles that face young women with promise who try to make their way in the world. From wealthy Lillian, whose father owns an ad agency, to the poor Black and Latina women with whom she shares a tattoo needle in jail, or the star she winds up murdering, there is little hope of a “normal” life left for any of them.

   A few days after finishing With or Without You, what has stayed with me is the atmosphere of the book, which is sadder than it seems at first. The main character’s lively voice distracted me from her loneliness - and she seemed like a survivor. It took a long time before I realised the extent of her delusions about Brooke - basically, she thinks Brooke is with her all the time, if only in spirit - and even longer to see how dangerous she was. And this despite her being banged up on a murder charge. Somehow, I just didn’t want to lose faith in Lillian. I liked her too much.

Akashic, 2005, 317 pages, £9.99