The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

 

Very interesting book, but it was not for me. The story centers around a psychologically and physically abused character named Ted. The book is written through many different point of view, by that I mean, including the point of view from a cat (actually, you could say cats, as there's Olivia, Night Time, and Tabby). The chapters are ALL OVER THE PLACE. In the end, you understand why it was the way it was - because they are all different personalities of TED (including the cats). The author captured his inner madness SO WELL, but it's just not for me.

The story starts with the 11 year anniversary of the missing 6 year old, Lulu, which Ted was considered a suspect but not charged for anything. Ted discovers all of his bird feeders have dead birds in them. Someone had put glue in the feeders. (We find out later it was Dee that killed the birds because she wanted to seek revenge for her missing sister.) We are introduced to Ted's daughter, Lauren. Lauren is kind of weird. Lauren goes away periodically. Then we are introduced to Ted's cat, Olivia. We read from Olivia's point of view, who told us she was rescued by Ted as a kitten. She also often goes into her "crate", an unplugged chest freezer with holes drilled in the bottom for air. Olivia complains about being plagued by a high pitched noise throughout the book. (We find out later that the high pitched noise is from when Ted was little and locked in the chest freezer, his attempt to get out by scratching the sides of the freezer.) Lulu's sister Dee has been looking for answers for Lulu's disappearance. She decides to move next door to Ted as she suspects Ted has something to do with it. We learn that Ted has a serious drinking problem and still lives under the shadows of his mother even though she's dead. For example, he buried his mother's remains and treasured possessions in different places and calls them "gods". When he finds out the city is going to dig and build new rest areas, he digs them up and moves them so they don't get destroyed. He sees a psychiatrist but doesn't really open up. The doctor gives Ted medication but we later find out it's pills that had long been discontinued for bad side effects. The book portrays Ted as a monster, as we learn about his treatments of Olivia and Lauren, and his habit of catfishing women on the internet. Eventually, we find out that Ted isn't the monster. Ted has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) due to his abuse at the hands of his mother. He created these other identities inside him (like Olivia and Lauren) to handle the physical pain, or emotional pain, etc. For example, Lauren helps bear his physical pain, so when his mother who has a habit of cutting him up and sewing him back together without any medication, he dissociates himself from it and imagines Lauren as the one with the pain. Sometimes he trades places with Lauren when it's particularly bad. His mother Mrs. Bannerman also made him believe he's a monster, which is why he doesn't open up to others and have no social interactions. Mrs. Bannerman was eventually fired from her job at the hospital, for patient abuse, then later fired from her job at a kindergarten for child abuse. She was the killer of Lulu. When the police started closing in on her, she hung herself and ordered Ted to bury her and her "prized possessions" (the gods). Lauren and Olivia believed they needed to kill Ted to free themselves. When they stabbed Ted, they realized they live inside Ted. Dee has been stalking Ted and finds him bleeding. Dee is bitten by a snake but wants to kill Ted as she thinks Ted killed her sister. A girl's voice comes out of Ted's mouth and tells Dee Ted is not a monster. We find out through Dee's flashback what really happened on the day of Lulu's disappearance. Dee and Lulu were with their family at the lake, when Dee decided to run off and follow some cute guy. Lulu followed Dee. For privacy, Dee told Lulu to go play in the water so she could have a romantic moment with the guy. Lulu hurt her head when she fell, reaching for a pretty pebble. Dee thought she was dead, panicked and ran away when she saw snakes. When she realized maybe Lulu wasn't dead and went back to retrieve her, Lulu was gone - abducted by Mrs. Bannerman. Back to current day, Dee eventually dies from the snake bite. Ted's neighbor Rob finds Ted and rescues him. Ted starts opening up to Rob, and gets better treatments at the hospital for his mental and physical condition. Rob takes Ted to the place where Lulu was abducted. Ted finds the pebble of Lulu's. He falls, reopening his wounds and for the first time in a long time, feels pain. The pain brought out another inner personality out of Ted and has a flashback of where Mrs. Bannerman hid Lulu's body. The police recovers the body and closes the case. Ted tries to move on with his life.

After reading the whole book, I started thinking back to the part where Ted brought Lauren to buy pantyhose. Ted commented that the employees of the store gave him weird looks and he couldn't find the right size for Lauren. It sure makes more sense later on knowing Lauren is just another personality of Ted. At this incident, Lauren also wrote a note to tell the store employee that she was in danger and Ted is her abductor and Lauren isn't her real name. At the time I was surprised how Ted could have "talked" himself out of the situation. Now it makes more sense knowing they let him go because they simply thought he was crazy.