The Guardian ·
Cul-de-Sac by Eleanor Limprecht review – a powerful and timely novel about domestic abuse
Limprecht explores male violence without succumbing to tropes, bringing the monster into the room and forcing us to really look at him
Eleanor Limprecht’s fifth novel, Cul-de-Sac, about the lengths a mother will go to in order to allow her children to be free, is troubling but compelling reading.
When Jacquie meets Brandon, he’s sweet, charming, a little vulnerable; easy to love and be loved by. So easy, that Jacquie barely notices when his anxious need to know her turns to something darker. By then, they have a child and another on the way, so it’s simpler to just bend to his will. And when Brandon suggests that they leave Australia, and Jacquie’s family, to move back to his home in the US, it seems only fair. Jacquie doesn’t realise how much of her identity has been eroded until some years later, when she takes her children to Australia for Christmas. It’s meant to be a short trip to see her family, but once there, she starts to see just how bad things have become.
Limprecht nudges at the line between an unhappy relationship and an abusive one. At first, it seems as if Jacquie and Brandon are just a couple who have grown apart. But there are red flags in Brandon’s behaviour: the way he showers her with expensive gifts in the early days of their courtship, his expectation that she plan their meals a week in advance, his desperate need to constantly know where she is.
