Apple Tree Yard
Louise Doughty, 2014
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374105679
Summary
An intelligent, erotically charged thriller with deep moral implications.
Yvonne Carmichael, a renowned geneticist, public authority, and happily married mother of two, sits in the witness box. The charge is murder.
Across the courtroom, not meeting her eye, sits her alleged accomplice. He wears the beautiful pin-striped suit he wore on their first meeting in the Houses of Parliament, when he put his hand on her elbow and guided her to a deserted chapel, where she began to undress. As the barrister’s voice grows low and sinuous, Yvonne realizes she’s lost herself and the life she’d built so carefully to a man who never existed at all.
After their first liaison, Yvonne’s lover tells her very little about himself, but she comes to suspect his secrecy has an explanation connected with the British government. So thrilled and absorbed is she in her newfound sexual power that she fails to notice the real danger about to blindside her from a seemingly innocuous angle.
Then, reeling from an act of violence, Yvonne discovers that her desire for justice and revenge has already been compromised. Everything hinges on one night in a dark little alley called Apple Tree Yard.
Suspenseful, erotically charged, and masterfully paced, Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard is an intelligent psychological thriller about desire and its consequences by a writer of phenomenal gifts. (From the publisher.)
The 2017 BBC mini-series stars Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin.
Author Bio
• Birth—September 4, 1963
•p> Where—Melton Mowbray (East Midlands), England, UK
• Education—Leeds University; M.A., University of East Anglia
• Currently—lives in London, England
Louise Doughty is the author of seven novels, including the recently published Apple Tree Yard, which is currently being translated into eleven languages.
Her first novel, Crazy Paving (1995), was shortlisted for four awards including the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her sixth novel, Whatever You Love (2010) was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
She has also won awards for radio drama and short stories, along with publishing one work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year (2007), based on her hugely popular newspaper column. She is a critic and cultural commentator for UK and international newspapers and broadcasts regularly for the BBC. She was a judge for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 and is currently Chair of Judges for this year’s Fiction Uncovered promotion.
Doughty was born in the East Midlands and grew up in Rutland, England’s smallest county, a rural area that later provided the setting for her third novel, Honey-Dew. She attended Leeds University and the University of East Anglia, where she did the MA in Creative Writing course with Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter. She then moved to London and spent the rest of her twenties in a series of temporary jobs including teaching and secretarial work.
It was her experiences as a temp secretary that provided the material for her Crazy Paving, a black comedy about accidents, Chaos Theory and urban terrorism. That was followed by Dance With Me (1996), a novel about ghosts, mental illness and sexual betrayal, and Honey-Dew (1998), a satire of the traditional English mystery.
Doughty took a dramatic departure with her fourth novel, the internationally acclaimed Fires in the Dark (2003), based on the history of the Romany people and her own family ancestry. It was followed by Stone Cradle (2006) and Whatever You Love (2010). In 2007, she published her first work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year, based on her newspaper column of the same name.
She has written major features, columns and cover articles for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, and her broadcasting career includes presenting radio series such as BBC R4′s A Good Read and Writers’ Workshop. She is a regular guest on the radio arts programme Saturday Review. She lives in London. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
At the start of Louise Doughty’s taut and psychologically persuasive novel we find [Yvonne] taking the witness stand at the Old Bailey, accused of complicity in a violent crime and about to be exposed in a highly damaging and compromising lie.... This is a novel that explores the ease with which we can stray off our safe, familiar paths and become addicted to the stories we tell about ourselves. A disquieting, perceptive and gripping read.
Daily Mail (UK)
Doughty’s achievement is to imagine a horribly mundane tragedy—the kind that could happen to anyone, but a tragedy nonetheless.... It gives nothing away to state that the comprehensiveness of [Yvonne’s] public disgrace is harrowingly well-realised.... The trial itself is a masterful piece of evasion and selective disclosure.... A compelling cautionary tale of what happens when fantasy begins to occlude real life. "The trouble with stories is, they are addictive," Doughty states. In this case, she may never have written a truer word.
Guardian (UK)
Louise Doughty has written a gripping thriller that calls our own thoughts on morality into question and is impossible to put down. Intelligent and captivating, Apple Tree Yard makes you realise how one bad decision can change the course of your life forever.
Stylist Magazine (UK)
Doughty controls the progress of this narrative beautifully, parsing out information with tantalising hints at what is to come.... Apple Tree Yard is a chilling novel, in part because of the unsparing light it shines on our ability to deceive ourselves. Doughty has a particular gift for unsettling stories, for making us ask difficult questions of ourselves, and this is her strongest book yet. It’s not a comfortable read, but it is entirely compelling.
Observer (UK)
Doughty is a brilliant storyteller who knows how to build the suspense to a breaking point.
Times (London)
If a prologue to a novel is to whet the reader’s appetite, Louise Doughty provides irresistible temptation with the opening to Apple Tree Yard.... Recollection, interspersed with the growing tension as the trial plays out in the Old Bailey, provides a perfectly dovetailed structure. But within the thriller framework lies a wealth of acutely observed detail, a dissection of social attitudes and an examination of lust, trust, predatory sex, risky behaviour and responsibility.... As deftly as her lover lured Yvonne into a high-risk relationship, Doughty has skilfully led the reader to cast aside misgivings and trust her confident lead. That the result is unsettling is evidence that there is considerably more to Apple Tree Yard than thrilling narrative alone.
Herald Scotland
Doughty...drops sharp, shiver-inducing insights, like winter raindrops, on every page.... The story is compelling, but Doughty makes sure that we’re enthralled by teasing us with tantalising glimpses of future events. Her writing is piercing and potent, overpowering emotions captured in sharp, pithy phrases. For all the tachycardia-inducing detail of the plot, Doughty’s view is broad, steeping the story in authenticity. She provides convincing examples of the effects of trauma, such as the atmosphere after a vitriolic outburst at a middle-class dinner party: "ugly and baffled silence...thick in the yellow room"; and describes the larger world, such as a stranger’s personal drama on the street. The court scene is one of the best I’ve ever read, the suspense and tension building to a taut peak. A major theme is how we build up illusions about people we don’t know, and fall for our ideal rather than the individual. Others include the way female victims are treated by the criminal law system, the sly manipulation of juries, and the way a series of facts can be arranged and interpreted in a variety of ways, all telling different narratives. Riveting.
Independent (UK)
Riveting from the opening scene.... [T]this taut British psychological thriller from Doughty boasts just about everything a mystery lover could want.... Eventually, even Doughty’s cunningly constructed and cannily revealed plot can’t camouflage the emotional void at what should be Apple Tree Yard's core.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
1. Apple Tree Yard opens with a prologue that situates us very close to the end of the story. Why does the author choose to begin here rather than at some other point—for example, the day Yvonne Carmichael and her lover first meet? How does Doughty use the prologue to introduce characters, structure the plot, and create suspense?
2. The story of Yvonne and Mark is told in three parts, all titled with letters: X and Y; A, T, G and C; and DNA. What is the significance of each of these titles? How are they symbols that define the main characters and the underlying themes of truth and self-deception?
3. There are places in the narrative where Yvonne takes great care in describing her appearance—her clothing and footwear, hair, makeup, etc. Where do these descriptions occur? What do they reveal about Yvonne’s state of mind and her values, hopes, and concerns?
4. How does Yvonne describe her lover and their first meeting? What are some words and images that, perhaps, give away more than she intends? Why does she call him X? As you read her first e-mail to him, what did you think would happen in this story?
5. Do Yvonne and Guy have a good marriage? Is Guy supportive of Yvonne’s career? What is his attitude toward infidelity? Is it surprising that their marriage survives Yvonne’s affair, trial, and imprisonment?
6. How do Yvonne’s interactions and conversations with her adult children and her best friend, Susannah, illuminate her character?
7. After Yvonne is attacked, Mark Costley seems deeply and genuinely concerned about her. Does his behavior contradict how he treated her and managed their time together before the events in chapter 8? What does it say about the kind of husband and father he might be?
8. Why did Yvonne decide not to press charges against George Craddock? Might she have made a different decision if she did not think that Craddock knew about her affair? How do you feel about the decision at the conclusion of the scene where she meets with Kevin?
9. By her own admission, Yvonne waits a long time while Mark Costley is in George Craddock’s flat. What is her explanation for why she does this, for why, in fact, she does everything Mark tells her to do that afternoon? How does her version of this part of the story differ from the prosecuting attorney’s? Which version is closer to the truth?
10. We do not learn that Yvonne’s lover is named Mark Costley until the beginning of the trial. Why is this detail withheld? How does not knowing his name affect our experience of the story and what we believe or do not believe about Mark? Is there significance to his name?
11. During the trial, Witness G testifies for the prosecution that Mark Costley was rejected by the national security service because he was assessed to have “difficulties distinguishing the boundaries between truth and fiction.” What are some indications this might also be true of Yvonne?
12. At the trial, Yvonne hears evidence that suggests Mark was not in love with her but was using her (as he used many other women) to play out his fantasies of a more dangerous and interesting life. Yet he killed the man who raped her. Is this because he truly loved her or was it an extension of his fantasy life that got out of control?
13. Apple Tree Yard is the story of a woman who makes bad choices. She begins an affair with a total stranger who insists on having sex in public places. She declines to press charges against a man who violently rapes her, then encourages her lover to confront her attacker. After she and her lover are arrested for murder, she agrees to a plan to hide their relationship, which involves lying to her lawyers and the court. How does all of this fit with Yvonne’s image of herself as a happily married successful professional? What is her worst sin: infidelity, secrecy, perjury, or murder? What are her motivations?
14. In the final pages of Apple Tree Yard, Yvonne reveals two secrets. First, that the document containing her e-mails to X/Mark has been deleted, but not by her. Second, that when Mark took her to the flat she thought was a safe house, she told him she wanted him to kill George Craddock, to “smash his face in.” Do these revelations change anything you believed to be true about Yvonne? What do they say about her relationships with Guy and Mark?
15. The phrase “There’s something I haven’t told you” is central to the outcome of the trial. What are some of the many things that the characters in Apple Tree Yard do not tell each other? What are the consequences? Why does Yvonne tell us that “relationships are about stories, not truth”?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)