Book Review: The Ninth Life of Louis Drax

Some books grab you from the very beginning—from the first line (Moby Dick’s “Just call me Ishmael”) or the first paragraph (the gritty, gripping opening of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces). Other books require a little more patience. The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen requires a lot more patience, but the patient reader will be rewarded.

The story begins several months after Louis Drax, an emotionally disturbed nine-year-old, fell to his near-death during a family picnic. Indeed, Louis was declared dead, only to come to life in the morgue and enter a deep coma. He is transferred to a respite care center—once known as “Hôpital des Incurables” (Hospital for the Incurables)—and the watchful eye of Dr. Pascal Dannachet. The doctor also has an eye for Natalie Drax, Louis’s mother, and as their relationship grows, so does his curiosity about what happened to Louis and what is possible in the mind of a coma patient. Thrown into the mix are Pierre Drax, Louis’s father, who disappeared after allegedly pushing Louis off the cliff; Marcel Perez, Louis’s psychiatrist, who quits his practice after the fall; Sophie, Dr. Dannachet’s suspicious wife; Stephanie Charvillefort, the detective assigned to the case, who knows more than she’s telling; and Gustave, Louis’s companion and guide in his comatose mind.

The first third of the novel drags like a bad family dinner. The story alternates narrators, between Louis and Dr. Dannachet. On one side, you have a spoiled bratty nine-year-old who talks incessantly and tactlessly, occasionally blurting out inappropriate remarks about sex, while his mother describes him as precocious even as he throws the peas and breaks the good china. On the other side, you have a melancholy and self-important middle-age doctor who thinks you are as interested as he is in the minutia of his work and midlife crisis. Meanwhile, you wonder how long before dessert.

Dessert comes in Chapter 5, when Louis mysteriously sits up. At this point, as the cliché goes, the plot thickens. More important, the middle-age introspection and childish rambling disappear and the action begins. Louis’s chapters become significantly shorter, making his antics more bearable (by the end of Chapter 3, you’ll understand why someone would want to toss him off a cliff), and Dr. Dannachet stops talking so much and starts doing something. Letters appear, signed with Louis’s name. Dr. Dannachet begins to doubt Natalie’s version of what happened—and his own sanity. The pace quickens, and the pages that were once a labor to turn begin to fly from one to another.

Although the conclusion is mostly predictable to anyone with a passing knowledge of CSI or Law & Order, the thrill is in waiting for the characters to discover the truth as the mysteries pile up and Dr. Dannachet’s predicament spins out of control. The climax is over-the-top melodramatic and unnecessary given the gasp-worthy revelations; skipping it would have made for a tighter story. Jensen, however, regains her good judgment for the postscript and doesn't entirely wrap things up with a neat bow.

Comparisons to The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time aren’t deserved; those were much better developed and more original. Still, the patient reader leaves feeling satiated by an intriguing and thrilling mystery.