The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
Another book group choice and another novel garlanded with literary prize nominations and awards. Well, fair enough, it is well written with an acute eye for human foibles. It did, however, remind me of the Arsenal football team that Arsene Wenger put out on the pitch in his final, less successful years at the club. They passed the ball beautifully, creating stylish angles all over the pitch; unfortunately, they barely registered a shot on goal and were prone to basic errors. This rather laboured image is my way of saying that I appreciated the skill and style of much of Mendelson’s prose but it didn’t seem to amount to much, and there were things that just didn’t work for me.
The Hanrahan family is her subject in all their messy, bohemian north London splendour. Ray is the family patriarch, a sixty something artist whose early promise has long stagnated. He is also a domestic tyrant whose strong personality and early promise has enabled him to convince his wife and family that he is a misunderstood genius who has suffered at the hands of jealous fellow artists and the wrongheaded art establishment.
The Hanrahans live in arty squalor, an apt metaphor for the state of Ray’s art career. This is where Mendelson’s writing is at its best in the way that she describes the mould at the back of shelves, the faint aromas of sweat stained clothing permeating the corner of rooms and the Heath Robinson nature of the house’s fittings and fixtures. I actually felt a little dirty as the action took us through the house. Mind you, action is perhaps overdoing it – there is a plot but the book is marked by the inability of many of the characters to make up their mind and take action.
The plot then is centred on Ray’s new exhibition of work, his first for many years and a much-reduced affair with a local events room for his paintings with catering at the house. Nevertheless, the family begins to gather as well as several long-term friends of Ray – these can be seen as acolytes or hangers on. Lear, his eldest thirty something daughter who still lives in the family home is Ray’s handmaiden. Convinced of his genius, overly protective and alert to any perceived slights against him, she is trapped in a role that Ray’s erratic behaviour and artistry clearly don’t warrant. Her younger sister, Jess, seems to have escaped Ray’s influence. She works in Scotland as a teacher and lives with a colleague, Martyn.
Quick diversion here – I don’t often read about characters with the same name as me but, oh dear, he is an awful character, particularly in his admiration for Ray and his conniving to transplant himself and Jess into the Hanrahan home. So, Jess has jumped from one controlling man to another and is eaten away with irritation and anger about Ray’s repressive effect on her siblings and mother.
There is, to be fair to Jess, plenty for her to be cross about in Ray’s treatment of his long-suffering wife, Lucia. For a start, It’s her burgeoning art career and domestic works that are just about keeping the family afloat. However, she is the most frustrating character: in the book, there are two revelations linked to her personal and private life that give her an opportunity to escape from Ray’s baleful influence. Yet time and again she worries about the impact of her increasing artistic reputation on her husband’s self-esteem. Okay, he was once the charismatic artist and teacher to her student but he is also the man who had an affair with one of the medical team treating her when she was seriously ill. Nothing in this novel suggests what it is that holds Lucia in the relationship; and yet by the end we are not sure what she is going to do next. Aside from being extremely unsatisfying it doesn’t ring true – surely a talented, intelligent and sensitive woman, which Lucia is, would not behave this way.
She is not the only character who is problematic. I mentioned there was a third child – Patrick, Ray’s step son. He is treated by his father like a domestic servant, to be humiliated and exploited. Although Patrick’s damaged and fragile personality is revealed iby his incoherence and flakiness, he also has skills and an opportunity to escape - a job as a chef in a local pub – but, surprise, surprise … he procrastinates, too scared about how Ray might react. However, in comparison to his sisters he remains an under-developed character. This may be deliberate, because he has a stunted personality, but it is still unsatisfactory.
There are several other minor characters who needed fleshing out. However, Ray’s rather sporadic appearances in the novel is a deliberate move by Mendelson and this works. She skilfully makes us aware what sort of man-monster he is but she is more concerned with his effect on his family and friends rather than a detailed exploration of his monstrousness.
Ultimately, however, I didn’t care about these people and didn’t fully believe all of the personal dilemmas examined during the lead up to, and post mortem on, Ray’s exhibition. I remember feeling the same about the only previous novel I have read by Mendelson – ‘Daughters of Jerusalem’ was about a dysfunctional academic family in Oxford with characters who quiver on the edge of life changing dilemmas. So, not my cup of tea, with some aspects that were really annoying, but, nevertheless, the work of a fine writer – Wenger’s late period Arsenal, in other words.