White diaspora Book

This was my choice for the second of fifty prompts in the Ultimate 2015 Reading Challenge, the prompt being 'non fiction'. I read a lot of non-fiction anyway, so my difficulty later in the year may be limiting my choice to just one! I lean towards crime and mystery books, so this book is perfect for me; Where Was Rebecca Shot? is essentially a collection of mysteries. I stumbled across it in a charity shop, and had to buy it; the cover features the word ‘shot’ and a picture of a revolver, after all!

The book picks apart various curiosities of several twentieth century novels, everything from D H Lawrence’s Women in Love to Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. John Sutherland delves into all sorts of mysteries within the texts themselves, like the age of Poirot in Agatha Christie’s Curtain, and the question about Rebecca in the book’s title. In many cases, you will need to have read the book already, or risk some plot spoilers, but there are warnings along the way for major tips.

There are 38 ‘mysteries’ in total, ranging from only a couple of pages (‘How old is Beloved?’), to longer essays. The final chapter records responses from some of the authors, from the helpful to the inscrutable. In answer to Sutherland’s question on Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, ‘Is Jeanette’s Mother Gay?’, author Jeanette Winterson responds as follows:

Dear John Sutherland,
Who knows?
Best wishes, J.W.
It’s a fascinating read, and a great reminder that there’s more to reading a novel than rushing headlong to the final page.

This review first appeared on my tumblr blog.