Again with the flat emotional affect and the repeating characters. Jumbled, didn’t go anywhere, and wasn’t compelling enough to convince as a slice-of-life. The only things I slightly cared about were the less obvious connections to Sea of Tranquility, and I didn’t even like that book in the first place. No idea why I read this one.
Props for this bit of dialogue though:
“Vincent,” he said, “do you know what a Ponzi scheme is?” “Yes,” Vincent said. Claire, from the sofa, still crying: “How do you know what a Ponzi scheme is, Vincent? Did he tell you? Did you know about this? I swear to god, if you knew about this, if he told you…” “Of course he didn’t tell me,” Vincent said. “I know what a Ponzi scheme is because I’m not a fucking idiot.”
Plot summary
Beware: full spoilers! Also probably incomplete and possibly incomprehensible.
Vincent (remember? we only met her as having died already after her scammer husband left her) works in a hotel and is picked up by the rich dude. We see more of Paul who’s a whiny idiot, surprising nobody. He loses his job because he puts up a threatening message targeting Vincent’s future husband.
Vincent willingly becomes a trophy wife, lives the life. Meets Mirella (character in Sea of Tranquility, we know V’s husband will ruin M’s husband and life). V’s husband is being blackmailed. Vincent’s mum drowned despite being a good swimmer and going canoing all the time, so we get to see the hang-ups.
Vincent’s husband ends up in the cell Gaspery was in beforehand (the wall still says “No star burns forever”). He has vivid day-dreams of fleeing to Dubai and living there rather than getting arrested. (This is what happens in Sea of Tranquility). He starts hallucinating.
We see the investigation into Vincent’s death, but looks like she just was pulled overboard by a wave at night, while having a hallucination of her own.
