Megan Abbott's Dare Me
is a psychological thriller poised at the edge of the insecurity which
accompanies adolescence. The narrative
centres upon Addy Hanlon, a sixteen year old girl and her cheerleading squad,
who have just been introduced to their new coach, Coach French. It is with this introduction that everything
changes and the structure which had once seemed to secure begins to dissolve.
Abbott’s second novel revisits similar territory to her
first, The End of Everything,
concentrating on adolescent girls as it does.
In Dare Me, however, the
author ramps things up, producing a subtle and nuanced tale of what can happen
when life as we know it starts to take on unfamiliar characteristics.
Beth Cassidy, leader of the cheerleading squad has been used
to ruling the roost and manipulating her fellow team members until Coach French
arrives at their school. Almost
immediately, the coach disrupts this, removing the recognised leadership
structure which has been in place and substituting girls within the team for
one another, causing them to strive to prove themselves worthy of their new and
unfamiliar positions.
Both the team and its coach are rife with issues, with
teenage drinking and bulimia proving to be the least of their problems as the
narrative progresses. Whilst initially
seeming standoffish, Coach French makes the mistake of letting the girls in her
squad become too familiar with her life outside of the school building and the
discoveries this leads to are what lead to a tense power struggle between Beth
and the coach, as Beth becomes privy to secrets her coach would rather she had
never discovered. Meanwhile, Addy is
struggling to work out what is going on and who she should trust, balanced
between her previous friendship with Beth and new understanding with Coach
French – the biggest question being who is responsible for murder, the
aftermath of which the novel commences with.
Dare Me delves
into the darker side of human nature, exploring marital difficulties and their
potential side effects, as well as providing a realistic portrayal of
adolescent bullying and the vulnerability of teenage girls and dangers of
unspoken attraction. Abbott takes care
to ensure Beth Cassidy does not simply come across as sociopathic in her wilful
destruction of the lives of those around her – she displays vulnerability in
her interactions with Addy, her former best friend who has been side tracked by
her visits to Coach French’s house.
Ultimately, it is this loss and not that of her cheerleading position
which wounds her severely.
The narrative also exposes the competitive nature of teenage
girls, both in the context of their cheerleading capacity and otherwise. We see the training and physical demands of
the sport and manner in which this can destroy those it seeks to empower via
injury or substance misuse. Ultimately,
this also reinforces the underlying message that life has a competitive edge to
it and the struggle for survival of the fittest. This is no more poignant than in the case of
Beth, who is borne aloft to the heights, only to be cast down with force.
Despite the murky depths the narrative plumbs, it ends in a
more salutary fashion, with the decision to “live by choice” not “chance”. We do, however, see recognition from Addy
concerning the losses encountered in reaching this position of strength – those
of Beth, from whom Addy has taken something she refuses to name; knowing if she
does so she will be forced to confront it fully and appreciate its significance
in a realistic manner. In this instance,
it is the individual who appears to be strong who is ultimately confirmed to be
the more vulnerable, hiding this beneath an apparent brittle exterior. As with a number of instances in the overall
narrative arc, matters are more complex than they appear to be at first
instance, leaving us with a lasting sense of the complexity of human emotion,
psychology and behaviours.
No comments:
Post a Comment