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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Shane Curtin’s The Mirror Thesis follows Vivian Prespertine, a wealthy young woman raised among the manicured estates and social rituals of Barrow Island. At her father’s birthday party, she notices Patrick Weilston, a brilliant young broker whose reputation has already secured him a place among men twice his age. Their next meeting reveals a man who delights in exposing what people hide from themselves, leaving Vivian repelled yet fascinated. As Patrick begins appearing throughout her social world, Vivian finds herself drawn into a relationship unlike any she has known. Yet her past still includes Claudia, the fiercely principled college friend who once made Vivian question the life she inherited. As those two worlds move closer together, Vivian must decide whose view of human nature she is prepared to believe.
Shane Curtin’s The Mirror Thesis is outstanding dark psychological fiction, and packs a huge punch given its modest word count. Curtin does an excellent job of making Vivian’s shifting view of herself fascinating to follow. Every good story has a great antagonist, and Patrick is written as a bona fide menace. Curtin even goes so far as to give him a totally impersonal apartment, where the sparse rooms reveal almost nothing about the man Vivian adores. In fact, all of Curtin's settings work within the story as extensions of the characters themselves, especially the very Gothic house that sets the biggest stage, sitting beside a moss-laden lagoon where a locked crypt watches at the edge of the dark woods. Well-written and unique, readers who enjoy psychologically sharp literary fiction about self-deception will love this book.
