S J Watson: Before I go to Sleep

'Before I go to Sleep'

Imagine waking up every morning not knowing who you are. Imagine that someone else has to remind you of your identity, your past and the people you love, every single day. What if they aren't telling you the truth?

That's the premise of my most recent read, Before I go to Sleep by S J Watson.

The book begins with it's protagonist, Christine Lucas, waking up in bed with a strange man. Carefully extricating herself from him, Christine heads for the bathroom, and is horrified to find that the face in the mirror is much older than it ought to be. The man in the bed wakes and introduces himself as Ben, her husband of 20 years, and patiently explains that she was in a car accident which resulted in a severe and rare case of amnesia, something she will forget all over again once she falls asleep.

On the advice of the Doctor she has been seeing behind Ben's back, Christine has been keeping a journal, though Dr Nash has to call her everyday to remind her where it is. In an attempt to link one day to the next, Christine records her daily movements, conversations and the memories they trigger, and begins to piece together her life before the accident. Her journal gives a very different explanation to the one her husband has been telling her, and even more disturbing are the three words inscribed at the very front of her journal: 'DON'T TRUST BEN'.

The concept of the book is great and I loved the air of suspicion, confusion and desperation it instilled not only in Christine, but also myself. Towards the end, I read the book so quickly that I had to go back and read it again. So urgent was my need to find out the truth that my eyes flew over the pages, only absorbing the main details and not taking any notice of the writing style and pacing. And it was certainly worth the re-read.

Before I go to Sleep is a clever psychological thriller, filled with twists and turns which keep the reader in a state of flux. I thought I had the plot nailed down a number of times only to change my mind and then be proven entirely wrong at the end. You never quite know who or what to believe, and Christine is about as unreliable a narrator as they come, partly due to the majority of the novel's narrative coming from her journal, the validity of which she consistently questions, and, as it turns out, has been heavily edited by Ben. But of course, we don't find that out until later.

I really liked how the book's narrative was arranged, moving from present-day to Christine's journal as she rediscovers it, each entry bringing us ever closer to the truth of her situation and the circumstances that caused it. The journal sections were sometimes repetitive to read, but that is most likely intentional; Christine would have been unable to remember writing any of the previous entries and would have recorded her thoughts and feelings as if they were new to her. 

I did have a slight issue with the very end of the novel, after the shocking, violent confrontation. Christine begins to regain some of her memory, newly able to recall sections of her past which had previously been lost to her; her Doctor suggests that having experienced another trauma might be reversing the effects of the first one, to some extent. To me, that just sounds implausible, but as Watson is the one that worked in the NHS, I shan't argue. Luckily, he avoids a fairytale ending: the book closes with Christine falling asleep, not knowing whether her improving memory is permanent, or whether she will wake up as she has done for the past 20 years - with no recollection of who or where she is.

The story is not without it's flaws, as one would expect from a first novel, but they are minor and didn't impact on the story or my enjoyment of it. Overall, a brilliantly gripping début from S J Watson. I'm looking forward to reading more from him.

8/10.