By James Taylor

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In this, her debut novel, Chicago-born but now Glasgow-based novelist Angie Spoto introduces the reader to a world where affluence affords the opportunity to forego grief to the titular ‘grief nurse’.

In this world, grief nurses are conduits whose sole purpose is to harness grief from their wealthy owners, who consider grief to be a burden rather than a normal part of human existence. It is treated in a similar vein to other common symptoms of illness, an approach which echoes negative sentiments around mental health avoidance.

We are introduced to our protagonist Lynx, who works exclusively for the Asters, a rich family who own a large stately home on the private island ‘Mount Sorcha’ (a location which was inspired by Spoto’s travels around Scotland).

Since being acquired (‘acquisition’ is a theme that runs throughout) by the Asters, Lynx has remained wholly loyal to the family in their time of need. Grief nurses have a distinct look – pale skin, milky eyes and fair hair conjuring some of the familiar (if wearisome) tropes and typical imagery of witches and witchcraft.

The novel is smartly paced throughout, with the catalyst that sets the plot in motion being the untimely, strange death of Sculptor Aster. This would usually cause a crisis, potentially leading a family into a downward spiral – except in the world of the grief nurse, the family can pass on their sorrow to Lynx who makes them ‘Bright’ again.

The Asters hold a celebratory wake for the departed and Lynx is tasked with keeping the partygoers in high spirits. However, the wake is disrupted by Sculptor’s bride-to-be, who turns up with Sculptor’s personal grief nurse Karina in tow. She then makes it clear that she expects Karina to be passed onto her, which angers Ms. Aster.

The affluent Asters and their clique care little for the thoughts and feelings of their grief nurses, their wants, needs or desires – they are merely pieces of property, to be passed around and used as the Asters see fit. In this world (an imaginary Scotland depicted as a dark blend of the Edwardian and Gothic), slavery is real but appears only to relate to specific categories of person or occupation, such as a grief nurse.

“What was done to grief nurses was worse. Taken from their families, trained to work for people who saw them only as tools. They could not go where they pleased.”

During the wake, Ms. Aster offers up Lynx’s service to another partygoer. It is later explained that grief nurses must be given explicit permission to use their powers outwith the family that they belong to. This also holds true for the other servants at the manor, such as the family butler Orion, who grieves without the aid of a grief nurse, despite being a large part of the family dynamic but not part of the Aster family line.

As the wake comes to an end, a body is discovered and then, before you have time to properly settle in, more bodies pile up – setting in motion a breathlessly fast-paced ‘whodunnit’ mystery that will keep readers on their toes.

Driving the story along is an intelligent and convincing portrayal of familial conflict. At times, this is broadly comparable to the kind of conflict which occurs within many families (even your own, maybe?). At other times, you’ll be astonished by how deep the lies and deceit are etched into the Asters. This is explored well and with each reveal, you are left to ponder the depths to which a family notionally of the ‘upper’ class will lower themselves.

In one of the book’s more imaginative devices, Spoto gives each person’s individual sorrow a physical property. Ms. Aster has a snake that follows her, other characters manifest fire or water. Lynx must grab onto these ethereal (but very real) forms of sorrow, to dispel the negative feelings of the characters.

When this takes place, Spoto does some clever narrative work, taking us inside Lynx’s mind – an approach which reminded me, (albeit, from the other way around), of a different example of genre fiction, namely Hugh Howey’s “iZombie”, where the protagonist consumes the deceased and takes on their qualities for a short period.

The Grief Nurse is a capable, well constructed novel which will keep fans of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ (or even ‘Downton Abbey’) pleased and entertained. If that doesn’t hook you, there’s also an action-packed finale that defies the tropes usually associated with these genres.

Moments of drama lie in wait at every turn, with each chapter making you wonder what will happen next. The book’s island setting also delivers an atmosphere of isolation and suspense comparable to Agatha Christie’s, And Then There Were None, with the characters stuck until the next day when the ferry arrives to collect them.

Throughout this well-crafted book, Spoto creates tension in a world that we might prefer to think is but distantly dystopian but (like all good dystopian fiction) is grounded, in fact, in disturbingly familiar realities not too far from our own.

Angie Spoto was born near Chicago and lived in the Netherlands before settling in Scotland, where she studied for a PhD in Creative Writing at The University of Glasgow. The Grief Nurse is available now from the publisher, Sandstone Press, and good booksellers.

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