Book review: Villa Pacifica

For some, a different location means a different identity. A change of place can mean the reinvention of a personality; it offers a person the chance to become what they might always have longed to be. And the more exotic the place, the greater the possibility of reinvention, so the theory goes. What happens, though, when that reinvention goes slightly awry or – even worse is imposed on someone?

Kassabova’s intelligent, psychologically compelling novel, asks just that question. How tied we are to our identities, how much we are capable of changing, how much in fact we should even try to change, are all the kind of dilemmas that crowd the pages of her sun-drenched tale.

Travel writer Ute and her husband Jerry arrive at a hotel close to the small town of Puerto Seco on the South American coast. Ute is essentially a loner, who prefers traversing the world by herself, a consequence possibly of a difficult childhood and a troubled relationship with her mother. But this time, her husband Jerry, an academic who has dreams of becoming a novelist, has decided to accompany her on the final leg of her travel write-up.

Kassabova suggests something odd straightaway: Ute dreams of her mother, an unusual thing for her. She feels drugged after her night’s sleep, and their host, Mikel, seems mistaken about when the hurricane, El Nino, hit the coast in the past. Of greater concern is Jerry’s behaviour – on that first morning, he waves her off cheerily, when she would have preferred he at least kissed her hand, though it strikes her that he has never done this.

This linking of strange geographical conditions and odd personal behaviour works extremely well as the novel progresses. It begins to matter less what the mystery about the hotel and its nearby town is, and more how the various characters, the other hotel residents, interact with each other. Max is a loudmouthed American, all too keen to throw his weight about and flash the cash; his wife Eve seems like an archetypal blonde, silent and not very bright. Mikel, the owner, is a fiery left-winger who bought the hotel partly to provide shelter for abandoned and endangered animals which live in the attached sanctuary. His wife, Lucia, is a hazy hippy-type, an adjunct to her husband.

Much of the narrative trajectory here is about the search for truth – what is the strange heavy scent that lingers everywhere? Why is Ute so attracted to Carlos? Where does Jerry disappear to in the middle of the night? And all the time, Ute herself feels that she is changing, becoming a different person,

It shouldn’t be underestimated how difficult it is to sustain this kind of tale; the slightest slip can destroy the fantastical element she is working so hard to achieve. It is to her credit that she sustains it to all the way to the intriguing, violent and appropriate double ending. A truly mesmerising read.

l Kapka Kassabova is at the Edinburgh International Book Festival tomorrow night.