Museum of Cathy

Anna is the author of The Pink Hotel, long-listed for the Orange Prize 2012. Set in Los Angeles following a young girl’s investigation into the love affairs of her dead mother, it is being made into a film directed by academy award winner Anna Paquin. ‘An elegant noirish mystery,’ said The Independent. ‘Completely engrossing,’ said Nylon Magazine. ‘Astonishingly good,’ said The Times. She has lived in Berlin, Los Angeles and Beijing. She writes about travel for The Observer Magazine, and can currently be found investigating natural history museums for her new novel.

I was completely swept away with this story. Stothard’s technique allows us to watch events unfold with regular insights into Cathy’s past that slowly reveal the reality of what she has been hiding from with a steadily rising sense of foreboding. I found the exploration of characters sensitively handled and yet provided enough suspense and contained a level of sinister tension that had me guessing just what each one may be capable of. This is exquisite, beautifully written prose and the use of the museum as a theme throughout with setting, a means of storytelling and metaphor, is quite brilliantly executed. It is personal, it is universal and it is something that lives within each of us and the memories we hold. Cathy’s story moved me and I so wanted her to find the escape she desperately needed. Highly recommended