Ashleigh and Xander are high school sweethearts who were introduced by Ashleigh’s wealthy lawyer father. Fast-forward a few years and the couple, now in their early 20s, are still together, both students at Otago University, but it’s a troubled relationship.
Ashleigh hits Xander, at one point throws a rock at his head, and isn’t above using sex as a control mechanism. Also dividing them is the fact that one has family resources and the other doesn’t. Xander’s mother is struggling to pay rent in Auckland, while Ashleigh’s parents will buy their only daughter a house and have no trouble paying both students’ study fees.
For his part, Xander appears resigned to his fate. Beautiful, straight-A law student Ashleigh has even given him his adopted name, a nickname Alex has grown to loathe. “Xander was the name Ashleigh had given me, the person I’d grown into for her.”
Unsurprisingly, he becomes fascinated by a new arrival on the scene when Ronnie moves into the flat that Ashleigh shares with a rag-tag set of flatmates.
She plays guitar, quotes Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower – “Life is but a joke” – and her reading material includes A Clockwork Orange, American Psycho and The Secret History.
During the past seven years, Merriman, who works as a haematologist in Auckland, has built a solid reputation, particularly for children’s and young adult novels. Three have been optioned for film or television.
Although The Night She Fell is marketed as an adult psychological thriller, it reads quite a lot like a young adult novel.
Throughout the first half, we learn a lot about judo-obsessed Xander but not so much about Ronnie. The little we do discover is disturbing – a schizophrenic brother who committed suicide, a sexual assault, a preening need for attention and control. Its story is told predominantly through dialogue (perhaps too much dialogue) in chapters labelled Before or After, mostly from Xander’s point of view.
That delineation refers to Ashleigh’s fatal fall from her third-floor window, which we learn about on the opening page: “When I last saw Ashleigh, she was lying in a pool of blood on the concrete below her window. Her eyes wide open, staring sightlessly into the sky. I’d like to think she saw stars before she died … soaring on serotonin, dreamy with dopamine.”
Merriman presents us with a whole flat of suspects. Or did Ashleigh, who was acting very strangely in the days up to her death, take her own life?
It should be noted that Merriman takes a calculated risk here: none of these characters are at all likeable and that may be a deal-breaker for many readers.
Ronnie is damaged and much of Xander’s time is spent organising opportunities for his next hook-up, rarely pausing for self-reflection.
The remainder of it is spent placating Ashleigh, who is the epitome of the spoiled rich girl, someone who always gets her way and is very adept at taking down any woman who threatens her.
While the novel’s themes are often weighty – narcissism, female competition, toxic relationships – Merriman’s pacy writing style and variety of characters keep things interesting throughout.
The Night She Fell by Eileen Merriman (Penguin, $37.00) is out now.
