bilbopooh's Full Review: Cathy Hapka - Lost: Secret Identity
Earlier this week, I happened upon three novels written in conjunction with LOST. I selected the third, Signs of Life, to include in a LOST-themed care package and read it before sending it off, at which point I wondered whether the other two books were available through our library. A quick investigation revealed that both could be downloaded in eBook format, automatically disappearing after three weeks. I'd never heard of such a thing, but I was soon sitting with Secret Identity in front of me, scrolling down through the pages and wishing I'd picked this book for the box instead.
Some of my satisfaction with Cathy Hapka's book - which takes place within the first few days after the crash of Flight 815, its final pages corresponding with the death of federal Marshall Edward Mars - stems from lowered expectations after my experience with Signs of Life. While it was nice to see familiar faces in that novel, few of the characters came across very naturally, and the events didn't seem to synch up very well with the established timeline. Secret Identity seems much more skillfully written, with an artistic narrative style and a clear understanding of the different characters and how they relate to one another.
Because it covers a pretty short and iconic span of time on the island, there are all sorts of references to events in the first three episodes, but rather than feeling like a tired retread, it struck me as a good method by which to root us in familiar territory while still giving us a different perspective, much the way the third season's Expose - a wrongly maligned episode, in my opinion - did. Hapka manages to squeeze in every major character and even several minor ones, among them Joanna, Scott, Steve and, in a satisfyingly prominent role, irritating but helpful science teacher Arzt.
There are brief mentions of Faith, Janelle, Larry and George; I know Faith is the main character in Hapka's first LOST novel, Endangered Species, and I presume the other three also were introduced in that first book. None have a significant role here, so if you're reading out of order, they seem a bit out of place, but Hapka seems determined to include everyone, so I suppose these characters' presence makes sense.
The focus of this novel is Dexter Cross, a young man in his first year at a prestigious college. Dexter won my sympathy right away, particularly once it came to his flashback, showing him as an unlucky, impoverished teen picked on by his peers and forced to assist his boorish Aunt Paula (a woman rather reminiscent of Aunt Marge from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) in her frequent trips to the store, where she makes as much of a spectacle of herself as possible and seizes upon an opportunity to sue the company for an alleged injury.
While Dexter is mortified by his aunt's actions, she stuns him by offering some of the money received from her settlement so he can go to college. At first, it seems Dexter's dreams have been handed to him, but along with his aunt's gift comes the expectation that he will major in something that will earn him a lot of money. Soon he finds himself caught in a tangle of lies, trying to conceal from his overbearing aunt and timid mother the fact that he intends to major in English (oh most impractical of all majors!) while spinning ever more elaborate lies to his dazzling girlfriend Daisy about his high-brow family back home.
On the island, Dexter awakes, having been helped out of the wreckage by Boone and watched over by Arzt. In a state of confusion, he embarks on a search for Daisy, but no one seems to have seen her. What's more, several people insist they've seen him wandering around in the jungle. Investigating the matter further, Dexter sees his doppelganger for himself, or thinks he does anyway... He has more than one encounter with this mysterious person, and the inclination is to see him as some sort of hallucination or vision along the order of Jack seeing Christian or Eko seeing Yemi. But then how to explain the fact that other people see him too? Hapka never really delivers on that score, and we are left to wonder along with Dexter just what the deal is.
But on the whole his story is much more coherent than that of Jeff Hadley, the protagonist in Signs of Life. Dexter's flashback chapters - all of the even ones - are just as engaging as the ones that occur on the island; he's very likable and easy to relate to, while his story has obvious echoes of The Prince and the Pauper and Aladdin, tales of a poor boy trying to pose as a prince and finding himself in a little over his head. Most importantly, though, Hapka has a very enjoyable writing style that lends her prose an air of seamlessness. Her descriptions of the castaways are dead on, so it's a lot easier to accept her introduction of new characters as well.
While many of his encounters with the 815ers are fairly superficial - bumping into Sawyer as he's pillaging the fuselage, trying to play psychologist for an unresponsive Rose, chatting up John as he carves the whistle that will eventually aid in the finding of Vincent - he forms close friendships with Boone and Shannon, who are close to his age and remind him of his college friends. They have some nice scenes together, and almost all of his interactions with the various castaways seem true to character.
My biggest disappointment with the book was probably the glaring inconsistency in terms of the timing of the crash, since Hapka has it occurring during Dexter's spring break. I guess it wasn't written in stone that the airdate of LOST's pilot episode and the date of the crash were the same until Live Together, Die Alone, which aired several months after this book was published. But surely the creators would have known, and I'd think that would be one fact they'd be sure to pass on to those writing official tie-in novels in order to avoid this situation. This novel has the crash occurring about six months before or after it actually did, and considering how the plane crashed, and the fact that days almost seem like weeks on the island, it strikes me as a pretty big deal.
Aside from a couple of quibbles, though, Secret Identity is a breezy read with consistent enough characterization and dialogue to satisfy LOST fans. I'm not sure why Hapka didn't write the third tie-in novel, but if there is to be a fourth, here's hoping she's at the helm again.
From the Publisher: Lost, the hit ABC television series, takes place on a remote South Pacific island where a plane crash has left 48 survivors strand...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Based on the hit ABC series, this first entry kicks off a new series of original novels featuring the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 and the mysterio...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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