In her novel The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield writes of the mysterious and rather bloodless nature of genealogies. It is impossible to tell, she says, who these people were, what they liked, whom they loved. Setterfield does not seem to regret this inevitable gaps, but I sometimes do. This piece evokes, for me, a genealogy with the gaps filled in.
Or, at least, some of the gaps.
Because, of course, ironically, the story is about the one gap in the genealogy that can’t be filled in. The whole second part of the piece is about trying to figure out what happened in that gap, one story after another about why Ella might have left, each one plausible, but none of them quite convincing because, of course, there are too many other equally convincing scenarios.
It seems like both an impossible and an irresistible endeavor, to look at history–especially one’s own history–and try to figure out, not just what happened, but why, and how the people involved felt about it and this piece captures both the impossibility and the irresistibility.
