Perception vs Reality: An Eyewitness Account and What I Thought I Saw vs What What I Really Saw

 This story isn't strictly about eyewitness testimony and remembering events but it does tell me that what one thinks one sees and what actually happened can very different.

My wife stayed up later than me and the next morning told me she had an unnerving experience when she saw flashes of light — like a camera flashing — coming from the woods behind our house. I asked her to wake me up if he flashes returned and I was asleep.

The next night, the flashing was back and she got me. I stood at the closed back door and there were flashes of light coming from the woods at random intervals. I watched very carefully but couldn't spot the point source of the flashing.

Finally I went out on the deck and into the screened room at one side of the deck. If there was someone out there, I reasoned that I didn't want to be a target. The next flash seemed to come from behind me. WTF! I turned and looked at the surrounding houses to see if some household's Halloween decorations were misfiring. While turned facing the house, there was another flash but was coming from inside the house in the dark kitchen. There is a window in the side of the screened room with a direct line-of-sight to the kitchen. Later I discovered that my wife did not appreciate the suspense/horror trope, "It's inside the house".

The kitchen has high ceilings with four recessed dimmable LED lights. I was looking around and noticed what looked like a very faint green glowing dot in one of the lights. I was wondering about the glow when, POW!, it was like a strobe light went off in my face.

I discovered that the ceiling lights had not been turned off but set to maximum dimness. For some reason, this caused one of the lights to randomly strobe. Turning off the light fixed the problem.

Here's my take-away. Both my wife and I were certain that the flashes were coming from the woods. I would have signed a sworn statement to that effect. It wasn't until I left the house to observe from a different angle that the true source of the light was discovered.  

You might wonder how we could not see that the source was inside the house. The combination of recessed lighting, ceiling height, and position of doorways resulted in a dispersed flood of light rather than a point source as you would see if you fired a flash directly toward a window. When the light strobed  it reflect back into the house as if the light was coming from outside. All it took was a change in perspective to identify what was really happening. I'm just happy that we didn't call the sheriff's department to report someone in the woods.

This event has made me appreciate that, no matter how convinced one is, perception and reality can differ greatly.

Review: Dark Things I Adore by Katie Lattari

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 I do love a good revenge story and Lattari delivers in this, her first thriller, Dark Things I Adore. 

Audra is a beautiful and brilliant art student finishing her master's project under her mentor Professor Max Durant. As Audra's star is rising, Max's own star is fading. His reputation is based mainly on past accomplishments, something he fights against acknowledging. He is thrilled when Audra invites him to her home in Maine to review her thesis collection as he expects he will get her into bed. Unknown to Max, getting him to Maine is the culmination of a plan Audra set in motion years ago. Audra has very different expectations for how the trip will turn out.

The story has an intricate, interwoven structure. In the present, 2018, we have first person narratives from the viewpoints of Audra and Max. Then there is a first person narrative from 1988 by Juniper, an artist and staff member of an artist's retreat, The Lupine Valley Arts Collective where everyone is known only by their nicknames. Interspersed among these narratives are descriptions of paintings from Audra's collection which she calls Her Dark Things. Layered within the paintings are journal entries that read like poems. Whose journal? What's the significance of these journal entries, and how do they relate to the paintings? It must have been challenging for the author to connect three different narratives and the descriptions of art work and make these elements relate in a way that builds the story in a coherent manner. Lattari does it brilliantly.

I enjoyed the way Lattari revealed the characters through the eyes of the three narrators.

From the beginning we see that Audra is presenting two faces. One is that of the devoted protégé and one is the hidden face that shows the contempt in which Audra holds Max and her steely resolve to bring him down. Outwardly Audra presents herself the way one expects to see an artist. But there is more to her: she grew up a country girl in rural Maine and is very comfortable in the woods. Why does Audra hate Max? We find out gradually but the reader can easily deduce that something happened at the artist's retreat in 1988. 

Max is a loathsome character living on his past glories. One of the worst aspects of his character is that he uses women. He draws inspiration from their pain, pain that he causes. The reader would want to see Max brought down for that alone.

Juniper's identity is held from the reader for much of the book. I didn't know who she was until the author revealed it. What we do know is that she was present when whatever happened at Lupine Valley went down. Actually, to be honest, an astute reader will be able to slot many of the pieces together by the first quarter of the book,. I just didn't do a lot of analysis as I read. If something popped out, it popped out.

Dark Things I Adore does have some plot elements that I found slightly contrived but let me quickly add that these did not distract from my great enjoyment in the book. Some of the events that take place when it kicks into full thriller mode are a bit improbable — very neatly choreographed but much could have gone wrong. There is a confrontation that takes place that I, the reader, wouldn't have had but it is entirely in the character of Audra to act that way. There is a twist that actually did occur to me that I'm not sure is entirely necessary but it is handled very deftly. If you're going to have a twist, this is a good example of one that doesn't smack the reader in the face.

Lattari has a real flair for writing thrillers with her character portraits and interwoven plot elements. I hope to see another thriller from her soon.