Bella is shy. She's quiet. She's happy to stay in the background of life. She lives in a basement flat in Brighton and keeps to herself. It's the way she likes it. Then something happens which makes her snap, and she suddenly decides she's had enough. She's the heroine we all want to be, but daren't.

Helen Zahavi's first book is a masterpiece, beyond any doubt. The story is simple. Bella discovers that someone is watching her across the gardens. She sees him one day as she's pondering her life while mindlessly gazing out of her window. She stares back at him for a few moments before closing her curtains, and from that moment she keeps them closed.

She talks to the man a few times one the phone, and one day a meeting with him in the park changes her life. The same day, she meets a clairvoyant who gives her the choice - the choice between becoming the butcher or the lamb. She chooses to be the butcher.

Now for those of you who think I've just given the whole story away, I haven't. This happens just a few pages into the book. The story is much more.

Before you can discover what treasures this book really holds, you need to read past the first couple of chapters. I found this a little difficult, but was so glad I persevered (though granted, the chapters aren't very long).

The style of prose Zahavi chooses feels disjointed at first. She writes in very short sentences for the most part, and there's a repetitiveness that irritates to begin with. I began to remember back to my school days when I was told in English class, "Why take six lines to say something, when you only need to take two?" Well, when you read further you realise that it needs to be this repetitive.

The emotions described, Zahavi repeating the same information in a different way enhances the scenery, the background - everything. It enhances Bella's feelings; it makes us understand her more completely. It makes us really think about the horrors of modern day life, the cold harsh realities of human nature. If it weren't for her style of writing in this book, it would be mediocre to say the least.

Not only does her prose force us to understand, the rhythm of it carries the reader along. Her use of words is extraordinary in that I've never been carried through a book in the same way as I was with this one. The calm moments were understated, making me read with a slow steady rhythm, but the vengeance, the anger, the adrenalin, were written in such a way that I was forced to read with more urgency than I ever have before, enhancing the scenes which were unfolding before me. Her use of rhyme on occasion, coupled with the rhythm of her words, does exactly the same thing. It's almost hypnotic.

Her extremely understated use of descriptions during conversations allowed the dialogue between characters to flow better than I usually find, though a few times it was difficult to figure out who was saying what when more than two characters were involved. It was a minor problem that in no way detracted from my enjoyment.

Now this sounds like a very solemn book. It isn't. It read very much as a black comedy. Zahavi sees humour in every situation, giving voice to it through Bella herself. Such sarcasm in the face of danger did surprise me, but it's a skill I'm sure many people would be envious of. It's not belly-laugh humour, more like silent chuckle humour. The sort that makes you laugh with hardly a sound, but then makes you think. And I mean really think.

The whole book gives us a safe window through which to view sexual violence in its coldest form. There are no holds barred with any situation here. There's sex, there's violence and there's bad language. But it all needs to be there. Without it we would have no story.

Because of the style in which Zahavi chose to write this book, all of the characters other than Bella come across as the same, and rather two-dimensional. There are no big differences between them, but I don't think this detracts one bit from the story. On the contrary, I believe it adds to it. The majority of the characters we meet throughout the book are violent. They have only two things in mind - sex and violence - and the impression I got from the way they were written was that despite the differing circumstances, the obvious difference between characters' social standing, at base level they are all exactly the same. It's only Bella who is any different.

Now you may say that she shouldn't be any different because she chooses to become a butcher too. The difference here is vengeance - vengeance for her past and her present. She's the heroine, after all, and odd as it may sound she really is a heroine. The fact that she chooses to exact her revenge in such a bloody way seems incidental.

You don't get to find out much about Bella, but it turns out that you don't need to. The small amount of information we're given about her, some of the little snippets, only serve to amuse us. It's more the way in which Bella describes her life, her past, which is the most revealing. We may not know much about her life so far, but it doesn't stop us understanding her, sympathising with her, or wanting her to succeed.

I finished this book in one evening, something I've very rarely done before. I believe the reason for this is not just because of the way I was carried through Zahavi's prose, but also the fact that I almost felt I was Bella. I certainly felt at times that I could be Bella, if the need ever arose. With every page I needed to know what happened next. I demanded to know whether or not Bella was going to survive this encounter, and the next, and so on.

'Dirty Weekend' succeeded on many levels for me. It was some of the best black humour I've encountered yet. It brought to the forefront of my mind the realities of sexual violence. It made me think about our society as it stands now. It certainly made me wonder about human nature when faced with a situation which you can either walk away from, knowing you'll survive it, or interfere in, knowing there's a chance you won't. When faced with that decision, in the split second you know you have, what would you choose? I know what I'm most likely to choose and it hits home reading this book.

I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone. It really is strictly for adults, and only then adults who aren't easily offended by no frills sex and bad language (though these don't make up the majority of the book, there's no way they can be ignored). The violence is honest and bloody, though in only one instance did it turn my stomach. Some people will be offended by it; I have no doubt.

It's a stunning book, beautiful even. If you allow Zahavi to take you on this extraordinary journey, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

The feeling I had when I finished this excellent book was that everyone is Bella. Deep down, everyone has the potential to be 'a Bella'. It's simply the choice of what we do with our experiences, which makes us all different.

Rating 5/5

Publisher: Flamingo
ISBN 0-00-654465-7

Copyright © K Wakeman