Undone

Undone by John Colapinto

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Wow, where to begin. The horrible plan to destroy the life of popular crime author Jasper Ulrickson is conceived by a desperate fellow named Dez, who is more or less hiding out in upstate Vermont with Chloe, his barely legal young girlfriend, after his compulsive need to fraternize with young and barely legal girls gets the best of him professionally. We already see what a jerk Dez is during the opening of the book, when he is incapable and unwilling to even bother to console Chloe in her grief over the death of her mother in a car crash.

He sees the author in question on his favorite talk show (“Tovah!” —like a Jewish version of the old Oprah show) one afternoon in the days after Chloe’s mother has died. The subject of the show is Jasper’s new memoir, Lessons From My Daughter, in which the crime author tells of his life at home with his wife, Pauline. Pauline has suffered a stroke during the birth of their daughter, Maddy, rendering her immobilized and unable to speak, alive but essentially trapped in her body. Jasper has written of their lives, and their wedding vows, and their promises to each other to be faithful and take the vows seriously. In short, Jasper has remained celibate and written a book about it and comes off like a saint to the heavily female audience. Off-handedly, Chloe mentions that her recently passed mother once had a fling with an author…in fact the very author being interviewed on "Tovah!"….

Thus, Dez’s mind gets working, as he develops a plan to both ruin the life of this man and to acquire his fortune….Let’s just say it involves the young Chloe in a plot that will take advantage of Jasper’s celibacy, his good nature, and the faint possibility that Chloe could possibly be his daughter. Throw in a faked DNA test and you see how far down Jasper is thrown from his perch on the "Tovah!" show…

Oh, it’s awful. And I mean that in the best possible way. What ensues is nothing short of a brilliant, well-plotted, well-thought out, evil page turner. I got through all 390 pages in about a week due to my strong motivation to see if this horrible trip that Jasper goes on can possibly resolve itself or just continue to get worse. The author dances on the edge, then dives right into a very uncomfortable subject (incest…or in this case the appearance of incest) and like the proverbial train wreck…well, you know how that goes.

Undone is probably not Hollywood material. It’s rough. There are no winners, there are few heroes, a fact that usually turns me off from a story. Jasper suffers like Job in the Bible (indeed, the Book of Job is cited at the beginning of the novel) and the way he suffers and tries to endure is less inspirational and more painful. I admire the balls it took to spend this much time writing a book that may never have seen the light of day. According to the acknowledgements, the idea for Undone was conceived in 2001, the writing started in 2009, took about 4 years to finish and then had massive problems trying to sell to an American publisher…or really, any publisher, due to its implied subject matter. And it is not a book I would recommend to everyone. It’s dark. It’s uncomfortable. It only gets worse as it goes along. And yet, you really can’t put it down.

If you've ever watched Oprah or Dr. Phil or any daytime TV, saw some self-help specialist or some know it all describe his/her perfect and inspirational-yet-kind-of scolding message to a passive and unquestioning audience, and been filled with hatred and disgust for said individual and dreamt of destroying that person's life...well, then Undone might be the book for you.




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