Notice (High Risk Books)
Lewis's third and final novel, published posthumously, is as dark and gritty as her 1994 debut,House Rules. Anonymous sex, drug use and abusive relationships abound in the story of a young prostitute whose real name readers never learn as she operates in a haze of alcohol and drugs, drifting through a series of encounters whose patterns she fails to recognize. Teenaged Nina, as she prefers to be called "in these situations," turns tricks in the parking lot of a train station before going home to her absent parents' house. A relationship with a sadomasochistic client, Gabriel, and his wife, Ingrid, eventually leads to Nina's arrest and committal to a psych ward, where she meets Beth, a sympathetic counselor. But the systems designed, in theory, to save Nina do her the most damage, as the police, the guards and Beth all forge sexual relationships with her. Her only escape is back into a world in which Gabriel's malevolent influence and Ingrid's need are unavoidable. Lewis's language is stripped to the bone, with fragmented sentences and an adolescent's vocabulary making this a chilling first-person account of an emotionally anesthetized girl compelled to continue her self-destruction. Searing, graphic and not for the faint of heart, Lewis's novel is a punch to the gut readers will feel long after the shock of its impact has subsided.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.