Admittedly, I had never heard of Disclaimer by Renee Knight before seeing an Apple+ series being advertised about it. With an incredible cast led by Alfonso Cuaron, I was intrigued to check out the source material first, even it goes against my basic media consumption policies.
In all fairness, the book kind of drags on for a bit even after knowing of the conflict in the first several pages. Catherine Ravenscroft seems like a perfect aristocratic documentary filmmaker with a devoted and successful husband. Her son, Nicholas, while not the go-getter her and Robert hoped he would be, seems to be doing alright on his own, which is why the two recently downsized. During this unpacking phase, Catherine is sent a book detailing events from her past that she’s had buried for over twenty years. It’s making her manic and paranoid because even though it doesn’t mention her by name, if anyone were to make the connection it would ruin her.
Well, it seems to ruin her anyway. The book was written by a lonely old man named Stephen, whose son had lost his life saving Nicholas’ life while on vacation is Spain over twenty years ago. He only finds out more a couple of years after his wife had passed from cancer and he was cleaning out her things. He found some disturbingly intimate photos of Catherine along with a partially crafted manuscript by his wife. In it, she details the salaciousness of their son’s encounters with Catherine all those years ago. What really bothered me about this portion of the novel is how would his wife had known all of the details of their son’s trip if he never came home alive from it?
Maybe he was still being eaten with grief over both his son and wife’s deaths that he didn’t care about fictionalizing the details. And sure, Catherine does have feelings about Johnathan’s death, but this book has now entered her life and all of these memories and secrets she’s kept buried are threatening to resurface. Things are made worse once copies of the book go to Nicholas and Robert. Her son isn’t any wiser, but Robert is furious. His undying love for his wife turns sour in an instant and he even works with Stephen to see her burn for her crimes. To her credit, Catherine endures for much longer than I ever would, though it’s not like any of these men ever give her enough time to explain things as they were. She’s also of course fearful that it’s been so long that no one will believe her.
The twist at the end is an excellent one and this book skyrocketed to the top of my list for the year! I cannot wait to see if Cuaron did the text justice. I encourage women to check this out, especially given how the next four years are looking…anyway, a terrific read!