The Panopticon

by Jenni Fagan

JENNI FAGAN HAS BEEN NAMED AS ONE OF GRANTA MAGAZINE'S BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS 2013

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR FICTION AND THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2013

'One of the most cunning and spirited novels I've read for years' Ali Smith

'An utterly magnificent achievement' Irvine Welsh

Fifteen-year old Anais Hendricks is smart, funny and fierce, but she is also a child who has been let down, or worse, by just about every adult she has ever met. Sitting in the back of a police car, she finds herself headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders where the social workers are as suspicious as its residents. But Anais can't remember the events that have led her there, or why she has blood on her school uniform...

• ISBN10: 0099558645
• ISBN13: 9780099558644
• Publish Date: 4 April 2013 (first published 3 May 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Windmill Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[gmcgregor]

If anyone should be damaged, it's Anais Hendricks, the teenage heroine of Jenni Fagan's The Panopticon. Born in a mental hospital to a woman who disappeared soon afterward, she's shuffled through dozens of placements by the time we meet her as a 15 year-old getting shoved into the back of a police car with blood all over her, not able to remember what just happened. What she does know is that a policewoman is in a coma and that she's being blamed for it, and that she's headed toward a group home for wayward youth called the Panopticon. As Anais settles in and gets to know the staff and residents, we learn more and more about her background, about the places that she's lived and the ways (sex and drugs, mostly) that she's tried to escape and find a little happiness for herself. Even as she gets more comfortable, though, there's a constant axe hanging over her head, since she knows if the injured policewoman takes a turn for the worse she'll be sent to a secure facility to be under constant lock and key.

The book takes place in Scotland, and Fagan peppers the dialogue with dialect. It's a little hard to wrap your head around at first if that's not something you're used to, but it's pretty easy to tell what the words mean by context clues and after a while it becomes part of the rhythm of the novel. The plot itself is slightly off-kilter in a way that fits the story being told...there's a pretty clear "peak" near the middle of the plot after which things begin to fall apart, but there's not really a climax per se. And the people it shines a light on, teens that have lived through the kind of horrifying conditions that leave them in a group home, don't really have lives that follow the linear path we might expect either. There's a lot of very dark stuff here: drug abuse, rape, disease, cutting, parental abandonment, death, but it somehow comes together to end on a surprisingly hopeful note.

What really shines in The Panopticon is the characterization, especially of Anais. At first she's an off-putting character, a violent and drug-addled teenager who seems practically feral and certainly dangerous. But as her layers get peeled back, you come to see how her life has necessitated the hard shell she wears around herself and why she acts the way she does. Slowly, you begin to care about her and root for her and by the time there's a court proceeding where she's dismissed as a hopeless case who can never be trusted to live outside of custody you're offended by how smugly they assume they've seen all they need to know about her. Many of the other kids and some of the staff in the Panopticon are given strong personalities despite relatively little "page time", so to speak, but Anais is a bold and surprisingly winning heroine. As long as you can deal with the rough places the book goes, I'd definitely recommend it. Please don't do what I did originally, though, and assume it's YA. It is very much a book for a more mature audience.

[lovelybookshelf]

Originally posted on my blog, A Lovely Bookshelf on the Wall:

The Panopticon wasn't quite what I expected. The synopsis's mention of an "experiment" gave me a sci-fi vibe which would have made this a completely different sort of book. Instead, it is a gripping and emotional coming of age story with a unique voice.

The heavy use of Scottish dialect and slang took some getting used to. At first I struggled, reading very slowly, because the voice I imagined as I read didn't sound terribly authentic. After looking up some of the words on Forvo so I could hear native Scottish speakers pronounce them, I started to settle in and began to read more fluently.

Even when she wasn't very likable, I liked Anais. I felt empathy for her. It was easy to cheer her on even when things didn't feel all that hopeful. So many of Anais's thoughts and feelings are absolutely heartbreaking. She'd survived some appalling circumstances. Yet she continued to move ahead, determined to get through each crisis, always wanting more for herself.

Anais reminds us there's usually more to a person's story, that what we see is often just the surface. She reminds us that we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss or give up on people. The Panopticon is a coming of age story you cannot forget.

Be sure to read Shannon's review at River City Reading. Her thoughts on The Panopticon really piqued my interest in this book, and her comments about it are spot-on.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher after winning a giveaway at River City Reading. There was no obligation to read or review the book; this is my honest review. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

[Beth C.]

It is absolutely rare that I don't finish a book - it some respects, especially when it comes to reviewing, I view it as a failure of my own. I will put a book down 5 or 6 times and force myself to go back to it before I finally give up. Sadly, The Panopticon is one of those books for me.

In the book, we meet Anais Hendricks. That is not her real name, but it's the latest one she goes by. Anais is known to the law for a variety of problems, the latest being the possible beating of a cop (who is in a coma and may or may not survive). While the investigation goes on, Anais has been sent to The Panopticon - basically, a children's home, where she tries to survive on her own terms and maybe even prevail against "The Experiment".

I love the characters in the book - they are so heartbreakingly human, each of them with issues of their own. What I don't like about the book is that the story is so static. I finally gave up on page 203 (out of 282), feeling like absolutely nothing is moving forward. I don't expect a lot of action or anything like that, but I do need some kind of momentum propelling the characters forward, else what is the point? It just feels to me like everything is going 'round and 'round. I suppose some could argue that this is done on purpose to echo what takes place in Anais' head, but there is a limit to how far that particular plan can really go. I found it more and more frustrating as the story went on.

I think the character of Anais is a terrific one - she is smart, she is strong, and she is unique. Unfortunately, the lack of any forward movement within the story itself detracted so significantly from the story that i just could not bring myself to finish it.