On a wintry night in the Peak District, a thirteen year old girl, on holiday with her parents, goes missing. Her name is Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex. She’d been wearing a white hoodie, a navy blue body warmer, and canvas shoes. The town comes out in force, searching barns, quarries, forests, but nothing comes of it. Slowly, the people of the town resume daily life, and as the seasons pass, the girl slips from the public consciousness. The girl’s parents are occasionally seen wandering around the area, but their presence, too, fades.
Reservoir 13, despite its premise, is not a detective novel; if you’re looking for an exciting murder-mystery, look elsewhere. Instead, it is a complex and intriguing study of the inner workings of a small town, their lives accurately summarised and highlighted. Time passes, relationships bloom and wither, businesses thrive and fail. Ancient trades persist; nature battles quarry mining, and explosions that cover the town in dust seem to be regarded as little more than a nuisance. Small tragedies occur behind closed doors; people bicker over allotments and gossip about their neighbours.
Every chapter encompasses one year, and we get the bird’s eye view over people’s lives as the missing girl is never quite forgotten but soon is little more than a spectre at the periphery of the town. What struck me about the novel is just how well it describes what life in a small town is actually like. The town is in the Peak District and, sure, the stories about allotments and lambing season are as British as they come, but towns all over the world function in the same way, with small and big tragedies making a temporary rent in the fabric of society before people pick up the pieces and carry on, as they always have. Society is resilient, is what it seems to be saying – and this isn’t always a good thing. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing either; it just is.
This is also what makes the novel such a frustrating read, though it helps to think of it as a painting. It’s a great bit of impressionism; characters and events are painted in broad brush strokes that paint a wonderful picture from afar, but they remain oblique up close. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because McGregor does it well, but it does mean the reader needs to realign their expectations before starting the novel.
Reservoir 13, ultimately, not the story of Rebecca, but the story of a small town, and about the tragedy of a missing child, of unanswered questions, about the resilience of daily life. It is not always an enjoyable read, but as a work of art, it stands.