(And we are shown how to spot them.) Lisa didn’t have the measure of him at the time, but now says, of the moment the police tell him of her death, Lisa’s own personal philosophy is to embrace contentment – she was quietly happy before Matty’s arrival and there is an undercurrent through which we are asked why we tolerate the Matties in our midst. There are some really biting moments here. (Doughty tackles it extremely carefully: indeed it is not really described though the consequences for the victims are.) We know Matty is not a good man, which in some ways blunts the description of coercive control (by the time each episode of abuse occurs we’re already braced and waiting) but which leaves Doughty free to consider other types of power in relationships, including the ever-harrowing subject of child abuse. The third phase explores the relationship between Lisa and Matty. Evans has realised that her former boyfriend, Matty, is responsible for her death. We realise that the link between Evans and a suicide victim is not quite what it seems. It’s not entirely convincing – unlike the accounts of the working of the station which seem utterly realistic – but it’s charming and we’re more than happy to go along with it.īut by the end of the second phase, the what has been set out, even if we don’t know the how and the why. If the ghostly rules of engagement aren’t exactly defined, Doughty has some parallels to do with time-bending (when the clocks go back and forward) or dawn blurs into a new day. She comes across as a perceptive and articulate everywoman, and we like her and the majority of the other characters.

Evans is an engaging and witty narrator with matter-of-fact views about relationships and slightly self-deprecating remarks about cornflakes and Ryanair.

Doughty doesn’t need to spell it out but she uses Evans’ ghostly nature as an elaborate metaphor for the human spirit. We are intrigued, and we learn heaps about what really happens behind the scenes and what the lives of the station staff are like. She can’t, at the start, leave the station nor can she really interact with the living. We don’t know why she is there (she can’t remember) or what she can do: her boundaries are both well- and ill-defined. The first sets up the concept, with the ghost of Lisa Evans hanging around Peterborough station. There are times when the resulting book rivals anything else I will read this year, and even when the novel stumbles there is plenty to consider. Most audaciously, the narrator is dead, which makes Doughty literally a ghost writer.

At its most basic, it is an exploration of a coercive relationship, but it has plenty to say about the value of life and the lives of individuals and the communities in which they live and work. Platform Seven by Louise Doughty is an incredibly ambitious novel. Contains some mild and possibly helpful spoilers

Platform seven by louise doughty