Never Anyone But You, by Rupert Thomson

Rupert Thomson’s Never Anyone But You made me ask a question I have never had to ask of a book before. Why was this story written as a novel? The book tells the story of Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe, artists and lovers who weathered the Surrealist Movement and World War II, following them from 1909 to 1972. A novel about their love and co-dependency and art and subversion should have been fascinating—and yet, the way it’s written, this book is dry. Many parts read like straight biography with interruptions of dialogue. Never Anyone But You is narrated by Suzanne (who sometimes uses the name Marcel Moore), but I never felt like I was inside her head or inside their lives.

Claude (born Lucie Schwob) and Suzanne meet when they are very young, in 1909. Suzanne is instantly fascinated by Claude. Claude says the same later. When they get a little older, and Suzanne’s mother marries Claude’s father, they’re almost never apart for the rest of Claude’s life. After World War I, they dive deeply into the Paris art scene. Suzanne drops names left and right as they meet one after another of Surrealism‘s leading lights. In the 1930s, they relocate to Jersey. When the Nazis invade, they engage in a long campaign of Surrealist harassment.

This is why I was drawn to this book. Claude and Suzanne’s story sounds fascinating. They were pioneers in so many ways and I wanted to look inside the heads of two genderqueer women. I did get a sense of how uncomfortable Claude was in their own skin and how much Suzanne suffered while Claude struggled. For Claude, it seems, photography and poetry was a way to express their frustration with their body. I suspect they were also worried that they would also develop schizophrenia like their mother. They must have felt a terror at the thought of losing their mind. All this inner turmoil—and the anger that came with it—are hard for everyone. Still, Suzanne and Claude agree that they are soulmates. They were made for each other.

I understand all this intellectually, however. There are only a few moments when the characters seemed real to me. Suzanne the narrator seemed to be listing the things that happened to them rather than experiencing them. The novel raced along, only slowing down when the Nazis show up on Jersey. Suzanne never really talks about the thought process that went into their art. We see them struggle and then produce something. They never really talk about what they were trying to say. Everything I said about Cahun’s portraits above was my own conjecture. When the pace did slow down, I enjoyed the book a lot more. But I suspect that Cahun and Malherbe would have looked back on their own lives much differently than they are portrayed here.

For me, the tone of the book didn’t work. Other readers may find this book more interesting and satisfying than I did. It’s possible I was expecting too much from Never Anyone But You. After all, Cahun and Malherbe were very unusual people. It would take a lot of research and a lot of deep empathizing and thought to bring them to life on the page. Given how much research Thomson clearly did, I wonder why he didn’t just write a nonfiction biography. This book would have to be a lot more unusual, I think, to work as fiction that can capture the truth of this couple.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration. It will be released 5 June 2018.