Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi review – all aboard the mystery train

It may be laden with whimsical details and witticisms, but the opening chapter of Helen Oyeyemi’s Peaces feels grounded given her penchant for disorienting fables. Any predictability vanishes, however, when narrator Otto, his partner Xavier and their pet mongoose Árpád Montague XXX arrive at a dozy Kent railway station and board a sleeper train named the Lucky Day. Instantly, they find themselves in “an upside-down sort of place”, figuratively and also literally: in one carriage, the seats and tables are fixed to the ceiling. Others contain a library, a greenhouse, an art gallery (all the canvases are white, revealing different images for each viewer). From here on in, this smart, inventive narrative moves with antic momentum, darting between past and present, and from storyline to storyline.

On one level, Peaces is a love story: hypnotist Otto and ghost-writer Xavier, both 38, are on their “non-honeymoon honeymoon”, the tickets a gift from Xavier’s wealthy aunt. As flashbacks reveal, they’ve both been through heartache to find each other, but questions of trust and intimacy still remain.

But it’s also a mystery, because somewhere on this locomotive, destination unknown, is its owner, reclusive theremin player Ava Kapoor, who’s due a hefty inheritance if she can only prove her sanity. Ava is glimpsed by the lovers early on, holding a sign that says “Hello” – or is it “Help”?

One of the joys of Oyeyemi’s work is its quicksilver ability to resist straightforward interpretation. The train was once used to smuggle tea, for instance, but good luck to any critic seeking to peg this as an allegory about empire. Similarly, while answers to its puzzles generally materialise, they’re almost beside the point in a text that responds to every question with a story, followed by more questions.

While the title alludes to an Emily Dickinson poem, it’s impossible not to think of it in a different spelling. Ultimately, the book’s “pieces” come together more in the way of glass beads in a kaleidoscope – transiently, but forming dazzling patterns with each turn.