{"id":396,"date":"2021-04-01T17:10:03","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T16:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/?p=396"},"modified":"2021-04-01T17:10:03","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T16:10:03","slug":"three-things-about-elsie-by-joanna-cannon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/2021\/04\/01\/three-things-about-elsie-by-joanna-cannon\/","title":{"rendered":"“Three Things About Elsie” by Joanna Cannon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joanna Cannon\u2019s second novel Three Things About Elsie <\/em>is set in a home for the elderly. The book takes place across a single evening just after 84 year old Florence has taken a tumble. For the duration of the novel, she\u2019s lying on the floor of her flat waiting to see if anyone\u2019s going to come and offer her help. As her mind skips backwards and forwards between her early life and the more recent events which have brought her to this place, the reader goes on a journey with Florence, piecing together a very old mystery. Florence is clearly living with dementia. She\u2019s frequently confused and often forgetful. There\u2019s a wonderful scene where a cleaner opens her kitchen cupboard to reveal she\u2019s been inadvertently stockpiling Battenberg cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florence is troubled by the sudden appearance of a new resident in the old people\u2019s home. Though this man claims to be someone else, she\u2019s absolutely convinced he\u2019s a man she knew when she was a girl. A man she\u2019s incredibly afraid of. A man whom she thought died fifty years ago. Florence begins her own investigation though it\u2019s increasingly hard for her to keep track of what\u2019s true and what\u2019s not. She\u2019s ably assisted by her friends Jack and Elsie though by the novel\u2019s conclusion we realise Elsie is not exactly what she seems. None of the staff in the older people\u2019s home take Florence\u2019s concerns seriously. She\u2019s frequently dismissed, often ignored and lives in constant fear of being sent to live in a specialist dementia care facility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Things About Elsie<\/em> is very similar to Elizabeth is Missing<\/em> in tone, theme and approach. It\u2019s part of the increasingly large canon of fiction using dementia as a trope within crime fiction and thrillers. It\u2019s a pleasant enough read if somewhat unsurprising. You\u2019ll spot the big twist coming from quite early on. At times it feels like the symptoms of Florence\u2019s dementia fit all too neatly around the plot. She\u2019s confused when the plot requires a little ambiguity and at other times crystal clear and more insightful than many of the other characters. Without giving away too many spoilers I think Cannon effectively handles the conceit of having Florence imagine people who aren\u2019t really there. The reader gets to see both sides of the conversation. The other characters only hear what Florence says. I also enjoyed the aspects dealing with how the care staff perceived their roles and felt the ongoing issue of older people being dismissed and infantilised was handled very well in this novel. It\u2019s not the best dementia narrative I\u2019ve ever read but it is an enjoyable read and you\u2019ll not regret spending time with the characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Things About Elsie was published by Borough Press in 2018 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joanna Cannon\u2019s second novel Three Things About Elsie is set in a home for the elderly. The book takes place across a single evening just after 84 year old Florence has taken a tumble. For the duration of the novel, she\u2019s lying on the floor of her flat waiting to see if anyone\u2019s going to come and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[52,30,4,17,14],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-crime-fiction","tag-english","tag-novels","tag-residential-care-facility","tag-woman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}