Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

Apple Tree Yard is a profoundly unsettling novel. It starts out as a tale of obsession and sexual passion, but quickly becomes a much darker morality tale about predators and the inherent danger that can often accompany sexual fantasies.

 

Written in the first person which gives Yvonne’s voice an immediacy and a sense of realism, her story is narrated from the dock at the Old Bailey. Doughty jumps backwards and forwards to slowly tease out the story of her protagonist’s fall from grace. As I was reading it became clear to me that in any case such as this context is everything; certainly context is one of the key factors that members of a jury need to reach an unbiased decision. Doughty has a real skill in balancing the ambiguity of context in a number of key scenes, which serves to highlight the dramatic tension within the novel.

 

I found Yvonne’s measured and precise voice perfectly encapsulated her personality, the slightly passive scientist who finds herself drawn into a web of deceit that she cannot control.

 

A fellow reader whose opinion I normally value bemoaned Yvonne’s lack of depth to me. I had to disagree. For my part I didn’t feel there was a lack of depth; I was certainly able to fill in any intentional gaps. It is true that there are many things left unresolved, left unsaid. Whilst this can be mildly irritating I can appreciate why Doughty has chosen to do this. How often in life is everything neatly and fully explained? However as a reader there were a few crucial conversations that I felt were missing, particularly between Yvonne and her husband Guy. His inability to question her about her affair struck me as unlikely, given the measured personality that Doughty had constructed for him, and so I wondered why she had made this conscious decision as a writer.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel which slowly builds to its final denouement. It does not disappoint.