In
Lisa Lutz’ novel The Passenger, a woman running from her
past and accusations of murder receives help from a VERY unexpected person.
TANYA
DUBOIS was in the shower when her husband FRANK fell down the stairs in their
house and died. She tried moving his body but only smeared the blood around his
head. (He’s put on more than a few pounds.) Without really thinking about it,
she grabs the money he kept in his toolbox (his gambling stash), packs a bag
and takes off. There are only two people she regrets leaving behind, CAROL at the bar where she
works and DR. MIKE, her chiropractor and part-time lover. She can’t bother
Carol—she’ll wake her kids—but she drives by Dr. Mike’s house and lets herself
in with the key under a fake rock. He asks her if she needs an “adjustment”
(their little joke) and after they have sex, he realizes that it’s the last
time. She kisses him goodbye and gets on the road.
This
is a character study of a woman who is trying to outrun her past and her “self”
and ends up tripping over that past at every turn—and sometimes it’s not even
her own past, as when a man shows up looking for another woman entirely. Tanya is
a practical woman who has her limits and has her priorities, but we see that
she’s capable of meanness—and downright cruelty—at times. In the end, after all
the changes she goes through, Tanya has to figure out WHO she really is. But as
much time as we’ve spent with her, we really don’t know that much about her
ourselves. (Lutz puts us in Tanya’s head via copious internal monologue, but it
still feels a little superficial.)
In
the end, the big secret feels a bit familiar (and even predictable), but the
story is a page turner up until then.
