Communicating through phone conversations and Skype, but without Tess able to see her interviewer, Leila asks a list of questions she has conscientiously prepared that will allow her to continue the subterfuge after Tess is no longer available.
Leila throws herself into her new job with alacrity, promised the commensurate amount of pay as her present job, which allows her to work from home, once the subject, Tess, has “disappeared.” A born organizer and devoted isolator, Leila remains in her flat for days on end, rarely leaving the premises as she learns all about Tess.
Her imagination already in overdrive, Leila is a likely subject for a particularly obtuse project, that of aiding a stranger to end her life by establishing an ongoing online presence for the (presumably) deceased. Leila pays the monthly fee then is flattered when Adrian asks to meet privately and discuss a special project he has in mind. Leila has convinced herself that this is a noble cause.Įverything depends, of course, on the naïve, overweight, socially immature Leila, a girl carefully selected by the moderator of (a reference to a popular movie, wink, wink), Adrian Dervish, who culls her from the other pseudo-intellectuals who philosophize on the site, inviting Leila to join a special subscription group. Regardless of the obvious flaws in such a plan, Leila, an autodidact whose mother recently died of MS, has been convinced of her right to aid a stranger in a quest to end her life, in spite of the law against abetting a suicide.
Tapping into the contemporary lifestyles of the Facebook generation, Moggach constructs a novel of a lonely girl’s seduction by a savvy man, her complete immersion in the life of an online acquaintance who wishes to commit suicide without erasing her online presence, thereby alleviating the pain for family and friends.
Book review: Lottie Moggach's *Kiss Me First*
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