The Night Journal
by Elizabeth Crook
Viking, 454 pp., $24.95
Though the structure of Elizabeth Crook’s The Night Journal could be labeled with lit-crit buzzwords like mise en abyme and metafiction, the best descriptor available for it is the slightly awkward “story-within-a-story.” The novel has two connected plotlines, the first a frame story of sorts in which the main character reads the second story in a book. The writing of a fictional book within an actual book is a risky maneuver with numerous challenges. One must make sure to maintain two distinct voices while making them relevant to each other. In some cases, the frame story can appear to exist solely as a vehicle for the inner story; in others, the inner story can seem a page-filling, unnecessary diversion. Though it’s important that the stories relate in some way, too many similarities can make both storylines seem contrived.Crook manages to avoid these pitfalls with a simple conceit: The titular journals are those of the protagonist Meg’s great-grandmother, Hannah. The relationship between the characters allows for some resemblance between them, and the journals are read in the place they were written, which deepens the connection. Meg is a believable, modern-day Austinite: a water-treatment specialist who gets acupuncture and dates an emotionally unavailable architect. She’s spent most of her life in the shadow of her great-grandmother, whose journals Meg’s grandmother, Bassie, has annotated and published to great acclaim. Motivated by her resentment of Bassie, who raised her and “pretty well made a mess of [her] life,” Meg has managed for 37 years to avoid reading the journals with which she once shared a room. That is until she grudgingly accompanies Bassie on a trip back to Hannah’s former homestead to disinter the bones of the family dogs before a visitors center is constructed.
Meg has never been to New Mexico, her great-grandmother’s territory, and something in the air inspires her to crack open the books for the first time. Here, the book could’ve easily turned into a sappy, feel-good novel about the importance of family. There’s a little bit of that, but running through the journals is a dark undercurrent. This sense of mystery is strengthened when the skeletons they find on their trip – literal and figurative – are not canine. Using consistently fresh and detailed imagery and a strong sense of pacing, Crook has written an engrossing novel.
Elizabeth Crook will be at Barnes & Noble Arboretum on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 7pm.
This article appears in February 3 • 2006.