I’m always drawn to campus-lit, so I didn’t need much convincing for Grace Murray’s debut, Blank Canvas. And then I read the blurb –

…Charlotte begins her final year with a lie. Her father died over the summer, she says. Heart attack. Very sudden. Charlotte had never been close with her classmates but as she repeats her tale, their expressions soften into kindness.

– and I carried the book straight to the counter (at the always lovely Ramona Books).

An intriguing premise. Charlotte’s somewhat impulsive lie, takes on a life of its own and as a result, fellow student, Katarina, comes into her orbit. Initially, Charlotte finds Katarina annoying –

…Katarina walked uncomfortably close to me, and talked incessantly. She was the internet’s poster child, endlessly weighing-in, and there was nothing she couldn’t discuss. Tennis leagues, her uncle’s psychosomatic limp, student elections. She gave summaries of global conflicts, regurgitated from ten-second videos, then launched into descriptions of her brother’s room, how it smelled of damp…

However, they soon begin a relationship. And while their romance unfolds, Charlotte’s father – who is very much alive – is living a quiet, suburban life six thousand miles away, in Staffordshire, England where Charlotte grew up.

Charlotte manages the practicalities of the lie, noting that in America lying was easier –

They didn’t have the same obsession with the past, with schools … and they didn’t refer back, in a dredging up of old summers and football games and cycling holidays.

Her situation seemingly has little emotional cost and at the beginning of the novel Charlotte proclaims that she ‘…had no standards to live up to, either. I had never been particularly honest.’

The lie gives Charlotte a sense of control in a world that was otherwise uncomfortable. But as her relationship with Katarina deepens, new emotions emerge –

There was something bottomless about being content. I knew other emotions well, sought them out. I knew how to be in them, how to occupy them, and how to cover them up, so they looked like something else, all wrapped and packaged. Happiness felt disloyal, somehow, though I did not know who I was betraying.

Given the lie, you might expect Charlotte to feel a sense of fear or shame, however, she doesn’t describe that. Instead –

I had oriented this new life around her [Katarina]. It felt ugly, my helplessness.

I was very much engrossed in this house of cards (which of course comes tumbling down). Although the ending left me wanting something slightly more robust, there are a handful of scenes where those who know Charlotte make insightful observations – this only serves to highlight the fact that she can’t see these things for herself.

What will make me read more from Murray? The fact that throughout this novel we’re in Charlotte’s head and yet, she holds us at a distance. It creates terrific tension, enough to propel what is essentially a character-driven story, along at an engaging pace.

3.5/5

Some things were not done consciously, though the woman’s vision of therapy hinged on the idea that everything, from taking a maple ham and cheese sandwich in the cafeteria to a fascination with tinted lip balms, was an insight into the soul.