‘Nina is twenty-eight years old and this is Nina’s second day of freedom…’

Based on the real-life story of Katy Morgan-Davies and the so-called Lambeth slavery case, Ewan Morrison has created an intriguing and moving novel. It reminded me of a mix of Mark Haddon’s ‘Curious Incident’, with its childlike view of the world something akin to an autistic view, and Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’, which is much more related in terms of subject matter. I don’t know the ins and outs of how much Morrison has consent to write Katy’s story, or if he has met the original Katy, so this is not the place to discuss exploitation or manipulation. For me, it didn’t come across as either.

The novel’s structure is split between Nina as a child - known simply as The Project, trapped in a Marxist-Leninist cult led by Comrade Chen – and the older woman who has now escaped the cult and is trying to fit into a society whose rules and routines are totally alien to her. The cult has tried to literally beat the notion of individuality out of Nina, and the book plays on her referring to herself in the third-person, erasing and deleting references to herself as ‘I’ in her diary entries from her childhood. It takes some getting used to as a reader, and at times it verges on the annoying when the author uses different colour of type to indicate thoughts and words to be erased. I understand why he has chosen to do this, but it could be accused of simply being a gimmick. To be honest, I’m on the fence about that one.

Where the book succeeds is creating a naïve, childlike perspective of horrific events: abuse, rape, violence, brainwashing and death. And as Nina is caught up in the social work system as an adult, and the trappings of modern life – journalists and ‘no win no fee’ solicitors, medical and psychological tests, the benefit system, sheltered housing – her life in the ‘real world’ comes to be as much of an ordeal as her life in the cult. Whether it was intended to be, the book turns out to be a quite damning indictment of the system designed to protect the vulnerable in our society.

However, it is not unremittingly bleak; there are obvious opportunities for comedy as Nina comes to terms with modern life (TV, supermarkets, mobile phones, etc) and there is genuine compassion in some of the individuals who try to help her, Sonia and Cas in particular. It becomes, somehow, a coming-of-age story as 28-year old Nina starts to live her new life, and learns to come to terms with what her recovered memories of her life in the cult actually mean.

A rewarding read, if at times a little harrowing, that ends with some sort of positivity and hope for the future. 4 stars from me.
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