The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020)
By V(ictoria) E. Schwab
Tor Books, 444 pages.
★★★★
Music, novels, and legends are replete with tales of meeting the Devil at the crossroads and striking a bad bargain. Somehow, the story never grows old and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is another good one.
It begins in the village of Villon-sur-Sarthe in the northwestern part of France. Addie LaRue is a free-spirited jeune fille with a mind of her own and is more drawn to her woodworker father than her severe, tradition-based mother. When you live in the 17th century though–the story begins in 1698–tradition is not something one can simply ignore. Yet Adeline is more determined to do so when her father takes her with him to peddle his wares in Le Mans, a giant city for a country girl. Fast forward to 1714, and Adeline is now of marriageable age. Her parents have picked out her husband-to-be, Roger, a solid guy, but one Adeline has no desire to wed.
Adeline has spent time with Estelle, an eccentric old woman and spinner of yarns, who tells her about the old gods. Adeline is fascinated, but Estelle offers a sober warning: “No matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” These gods, Estelle admonishes, are fickle and exact a steep price for answered prayers. Can you say “Pandora’s box?” Faced with an impending bond with Roger, Adeline slips into the woods and violates Estelle’s advice. This is her first encounter with Luc. Adeline tells him that she wishes to be “free” and without attachments.
Lesson Two: Semantics matter. Luc grants her wish, but with the spin is that no one will remember Adeline. The moment she leaves someone’s presence, that person cannot recall who she is. She can’t write her story or name; the words disappear on the page. Luc also owns her soul when she’s done with it. Soon, she has trouble saying her own name; hence she becomes Addie.
By now, perhaps you suspect that Luc may be Lucifer. That’s never really spelled out, but some Biblical scholars think that Lucifer was one of the old gods. (Satan, Mephistopheles, Lucifer, and Beelzebub are often conflated in the Old Testament, so these are debates over identities of each.)
Addie revels in her freedom, though Luc pays periodic visits to see if she’s ready to keep her part of the “deal.” Addie ignores him and experiences many things: the French Revolution, the building of the Eiffel tower, opera in Munich, Chicago during Prohibition, two world wars, Frank Sinatra when he was a new phenomenon…. She even returns to Villon, but each time it is less familiar to her. She has lovers of both sexes, who discover her anew each day, and meets fascinating people who forget who she is when she walks into another room. Oddly, she and Luc become close; she is “my dear Adeline” to him, the only being who remembers her, and is perhaps in love with her. Luc tells her, “You move among them like a ghost… not really human,” and in her darkest moments she thinks, “Living in the present, and only the present… is a run-on sentence.” How does Addie leave any sort of a mark?
In 2014, she is in New York City and meets Henry Strauss, a smart but unambitious man who works in a used bookstore. For some reason, he remembers her. Why? How? Addie is head-over-heels in love with Henry, and maybe with Luc as well! The latter presses her to spend eternity with him, but that would mean consummating their deal and handing over her soul. You can’t change a deal with a god, can you?
Although I would not call The Invisible Life of Addy LaRue a great work of literature – whatever that means – it’s certainly a proverbial page-turner. It works because it touches upon an existential human dilemma: insofar as we know, we are the only species on earth consciously aware of its own mortality. Many humans fear death and yearn for immortality of some sort. Addie LaRue works for the same reason readers devour stories about vampires. In each case, the question is what would you give up to be immortal, or to get what you most desire? Would you accept gifts from a visible deity, or hold onto vague promises from one who never appears?
Like vampire tales, Addie LaRue is full of romance and dread, discovery and danger, thrills and terrors. Schwab certainly knows how to spin a great story and hers is a fresh look at both the crossroads legend and the encounter between Jesus and Satan in the Wilderness. Schwab spins us across 300 years of history, and deposits us in the 21st century. What would you trade to see the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th?
Rob Weir
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