Review: The Madison Gap

The narrator of Patricia Donovan’s second novel - and her first thriller - is busy living her best life. Lexi Madison, who narrates throughout, lives in Sydney’s trendy Glebe with her architect husband and works as a graphic designer at an ad agency.

Still, early in the novel there are intimations that Lexi, who’s in her late twenties, is not entirely content. She lays awake at night wondering how her life might’ve gone differently if she’d, “imagined something else - a career as a nurse, say, co-habiting with an immigrant Turkish surgeon - might that not be what I became? Or might that not be what waits for me in another life.”

The couple’s easy routine - home from work, dinner, Netflix, bed - gets a big shake-up when Lexi’s older sister Chrissy comes to stay. She arrives in dramatic style drunk and wearing a figure-hugging dress, crashing her car into a parking sign on the street.

At first her presence is a welcome one; she cooks elaborate dinners and brings some much-needed energy to the house. But when she begins flirting with Lexi’s husband and bringing home random men, Lexi begins to see a darker side of her sister. She also learns more about the family’s past when Chrissy shares secrets that Lexi was too young to remember involving a troubled brother neither of the sisters have seen for decades.

But is Chrissy telling the truth? And who’s responsible for the escort cards going around Sydney’s night-spots with Lexi’s name on them? Then there’s an unusual spot of vandalism that the couple encounter when they return home from a holiday.

It’s an intriguing set-up and one that Donovan enlivens with prose alive with art and culture references and evocative descriptions of Sydney. There’s also a sub-plot involving Lexi’s work-life and passion for the environment - she insists on only wearing second-hand clothes and judges people based on whether they have reusable shopping bags - that gives the narrative some real-world energy.

It makes for a diverting domestic thriller; one that reads best when examining issues of sociopathy and sibling rivalry.

Reviewed by Greg Fleming