The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits

 The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits is a novel centered around complex deceptions.  Set in a world where occult phenomena exists, the plot follows a young woman named Julia Severn. Julia, a student at a psychic university, becomes entwined in a mystery after unwittingly entering into a rivalry with her professor and mentor.  Suffering the effects of her mentor's psychic attacks, Julia is approached by a stranger who asks her to use her impressive, if untrained, mental powers to help him find a reclusive French artist who vanished years ago. As odd events and coincidences start stacking up, Julia discovers unexpected truths about her own past and emotions.

The Vanishers is both a supernatural mystery and an examination of how people affect each other.  The bonds between parent and child are given special attention, as well as the bond between the living and the dead.  Unfortunately, for me, the deeper themes this novel was trying to explore were completely lost in Julavits' hazy, confusing writing style.  I was consistently confused while reading this.  I couldn't remember character's names, locations and relationships to each other.  I lost track of where the plot was going frequently.  I wasn't sure what was real and what was illusion.  Was this intentional on the part of the author?  Undoubtedly.  Did I enjoy this technique?  No.

Mixed in with the actual story is a lot of commentary on academia, feminism and art.  While I'm not an expert on any of those topics, I couldn't help but feel that Julavits wasn't being nearly as clever as she thought she was being.  Her writing, especially in relation to these topics seemed overly smug and self-indulgent. She did not create a world in which I felt connected to or engaged with anything that was going on, so her wry sarcasm and witty observations fell flat with me.  

This was not a good choice to read on my Kindle, simply because the Kindle doesn't make it easy to flip back and forth between pages.  I wanted to look back to remind myself about characters and situations frequently, but often didn't bother because I didn't know exactly what chapter/page number I wanted to go to and I didn't feel like flipping back page by page and losing my place.  It would have been easier to read this one in regular book format.

So, obviously, The Vanishers wasn't a favorite of mine.  However, I wouldn't say it was terrible either.  The story was interesting and the writing was sophisticated.  This novel just didn't speak to me.  There wasn't enough concrete explanation of events for me to hang onto.  I can see how other readers might fall in love with this quirky and complex story, but as it turns out, Julavits isn't writing for readers like me.  I didn't click with this one.