The Confession

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This story is told from the perspectives of Elise, Connie and Rosie and goes backwards and forwards fluidly from 1980-83 and 2017. The Confession is that rare thing: an utterly engrossing novel which asks big questions without ever once losing sight of the storyteller's need to entertain and move. Having aimed to be "a successful stage actress", by the age of 28 she had stalled in this career, and "could see the writing on the wall - the dream to be the next Kate Winslet wasn’t going to happen.

Of course it’s (much) later still we learn both the limit and extent of Connie’s feelings for Elise. In the golden city of Amsterdam, in 1705, Thea Brandt is turning eighteen, and she is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms. It is to be furnished by an elusive miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in unexpected ways . Decades later in 2017, Rose Simmons is in her mid 30s, plagued by doubts and wondering about where her life is at with her long term boyfriend, Joe, and his failing business, although her best friend, Kelly is an invaluable support and anchor. Jessie Burton’s third novel has a simple premise: 35-year-old Rose Simmons tries to find her mother, who abandoned her as a baby, by befriending her ex-lover, famed novelist Constance Holden.Elise believes that Connie ‘lured her in’ but thinks she doesn’t give her as much back as she gives to Connie. While The Muse was a novel about the creative drive of painters, The Confession is a meditation on fiction and the compulsion to invent alternative realities. One winter's afternoon on Hampstead Heath in 1980, Elise Morceau meets Constance Holden and quickly falls under her spell.

Maybe it’s not fair to do so, but having really admired her debut, The Miniaturist, I walked into the next two with certain expectations. At first glance, though The Confession is seemingly a straightforward missing-person mystery, it turns out to be a thought-provoking exploration of motherhood and female identity.Rather than having flaws the three main characters (Rose, Elise, and Connie) are merely reacting to a mean world. I appreciated the themes laced throughout and the mirroring plotline of unexpected pregnancy and the dilemmas this may lead to. Rosie is Elise’s daughter but she is not present in her life and when she was little Rosie created myths around her mother to make up for her loss. Burton is equally adept at evoking London and Los Angeles on the crest of yuppie decadence: “Women with heavy eyeliner wearing velvet dresses with warrior shoulders, rubbing against tired City boys and men whose long hair flowed from fashionable hats.