Book Review: Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

'Safety and security are commodities you can sell in return for excitement, but you can never buy them back.

Yvonne Carmichael is a geneticist, a scientist renowned in her field but one day, she makes the most irrational of decisions. While she is giving evidence to a Select Committee at the Houses of Parliament, she meets a man and has sex with him in the secluded Chapel in the Crypt. It’s the beginning of a reckless liaison, but there is more to her lover than is at first apparent – as Yvonne discovers when the affair spins out of control and leads inexorably to violence.

Apple Tree Yard is about a woman who makes one rash choice that ends up putting her on trial at the Old Bailey for the most serious of crimes. Like the highly acclaimed Whatever You Love, it is part literary investigation of personal morality, part psychological thriller.'

(plot summary from Goodreads)

I’ve only just found the time to read this book, but I purchased it a few months ago after it was recommended by relatives and received huge praise on Twitter. The blurb instantly marked it out as ‘my kind of book’ so I was expecting great things. Did it deliver? Yes. Did it live up to my expectations? That’s the question which I’m still deliberating over.

The feature of this novel which really makes it stand out for me is the description of the protagonist’s trial at the Old Bailey, which forms both the opening and the close of the narrative. I’ve never really encountered such an in-depth description of the legal processes involved in a criminal trial and it is clear that Doughty put a huge amount of research into achieving this level of accuracy. This, paired with the fascinating insight into the defendant’s thoughts and observations as she watches the proceedings unfold before her, sets Apple Tree Yard apart from other novels. Another aspect of the tale I particularly liked was the enigma of Yvonne Carmichael’s lover, whom she refers to as ‘X’ (this also, cleverly, fits in with her career as a successful geneticist- he is X, she is Y). The mystery surrounding his identity and his occupation is built up until the second part of the trial, when his name is finally revealed and it becomes clear that he is far from what he appeared.

However, the main thing that unsettled me about the novel was its narrative voice, a form of second person, where Yvonne directly addresses ‘X’ throughout. I’m not sure what it was about this that I didn’t enjoy; perhaps it felt a little over the top for me, as her emotions were expressed perfectly well without it. Also, until I read the final page, I was fairly disappointed with the ending. Avoiding any spoilers, there was a plot twist in the middle which enabled me to guess what she and X were standing trial for: from there on it was simply a matter of when and how the crime was committed.

But, as I have hinted, there is another revelation on the very last page that leaves the reader shocked, one which completely rescued me from feeling disappointed.

Overall, I wouldn’t hesitate to read more of Doughty’s novels because I think her writing is extremely skillful in the way that it steadily builds up suspense, and the character of Yvonne Carmichael was a creation that I could easily imagine being a real person- the mark of a truly talented author.

I would rate this novel four out of five stars- a brilliant book but the hype slightly spoiled it for me.