The lull of post-festivity January might seem a hard time for a book to come out. We’re all a bit worn out by the last year, spring is still a distant gleam on the horizon, and we have probably spent all our money on books over Christmas. However, Blank Canvas is worth adding that extra book to your to-be-read pile – I doubt this audacious and gripping debut will stay to-be-read for very long.
Grace Murrary’s Blank Canvas, follows Charlotte, in her final year of an arts school in the U.S., who decides to mention that her father died recently, when he is actually still living in her home town of Lichfield, although her friends think she’s from London, as clearly Lichfield isn’t quite on the radar of most Americans. The main plot revolves around her subsequent relationship with Katarina, a fellow student, with the steady ratcheting up of tension as lies stack up.
It is worth noting Murray’s age, for to write with such a controlled and confident voice at 22 is impressive. It is also interesting that this isn’t an art student writing about her own experiences, as Murray was studying English at when writing Blank Canvas. That makes the details, and consistently confident authorial voice, all the more impressive.
The setting is not incidental. Art, specifically contemporary art in the popular imagination, is about confidence and concept. Charlotte, in part, feels alienated as she does not have the same sense of confidence in what her art means that some of her fellow students have. The stereotypical differences between cautious Brits and loudly confident Americans also plays a part.
Purpose, belonging, and identity revolve around a lie, and so Murray skilfully uses the differing actions of Charlotte, Katarina, and their friends, to explore the boundary between the normal harmless adjustments to how identity is presented and the more problematic impact of a sustained lie.
The art school setting also provides rich opportunity for satire, with some entertainingly comedic examples of what students are working on, and the general ethos that as long as you make ‘something’, and have a bit of a spiel about what it’s about, you won’t be failed. That, alongside the detached narrative style, creates a droll tone that peaks at laugh-out-loud moments. It’s not often that a book has me laughing on an overly busy, slightly delayed, northern line train.
However, that comedy is not the focus of the novel. The comedy gives a lightness to counter the emotional depth of the issues around Charlotte’s lie, what drove her to it, and what drives her to continue it. At its heart Blank Canvas explores identity, both innate and as it is presented to the world.
That balance between building tension, comedic elements, and a gimlet-eyed look at identity creates a gripping novel that once started has to be committed to. I hope Blank Canvas is the first of many such books and will be waiting keenly for Murray’s next novel.
Words by Ed Bedford
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