"The Girl from Melodia" by Jonathan Toussaint is a literary tragedy set in the early 1990s France and England against the backdrop of the folk music scene, taking the reader from the gritty realism of the Tulle Folk Festival to a claustrophobic houseboat on the River Lea. Unreliable narrator Martyn Lockhart, son of the infamous folk singer John Lockhart, is determined not to emulate his late father’s romantic mistakes even as he fights to gain some measure of his father’s musical success.

He has burned his bridges with his promoter and close friend, Tristam, refusing to even think about what happened, except that it was violent, over Tristam’s apparent defection to another singer. He is at his lowest point when he arrives at Tulle, confused by the invitation and warm welcome, and there he spies Françoise, another folk artist whose voice tragically fails her onstage. She quickly becomes his obsession and muse, even after he discovers he is the headlining act at Tulle: Tristam has made him famous in France.

The reader is treated to Françoise’s very different point of view because Martyn, suspicious, begins almost immediately after they meet to read her diary. He learns that one of her close friends is also her past lover and burns with jealousy at the depictions of their love life. This continues when he convinces Françoise to move to England and live with him on his houseboat, ostensibly so they can write music together.

Martyn intends to use Françoise as his muse, but when she begins to create beautiful songs of her own, he cannot handle the competition. The tragic backstory of Martyn’s parents comes out, and all his father’s terrible behavior. Martyn seems powerless to stop himself from following in his father’s footsteps. He wants to live up to his father’s musical legacy, claiming the English folk crown, but can he do it without mimicking the very worst parts of his father as well?

Unfortunately, Martyn does not learn from the mistakes of his parents, or even what happened between him and Tristan, and he continues to spiral with raging jealousy, both musical and romantic. The more he grabs for what he wants, the faster it seems to slip from his fingers. He tries to justify everything he does, even as his actions get worse. Since the prologue is the ending, the reader already knows how Martyn and Françoise’s story will end; it’s just a question of how he is going to manipulate the situation to get it there.

The journey is frustrating and heartbreaking, a hungry tale of obsession that you will not be able to stop reading. Martyn is obsessed with recreating his father’s success, but it comes at such a cost: backstabbing, sabotage, betrayal, isolation and lies. He is obsessed with Françoise, but once he has her, he can only destroy her because he does not know how to love her and he cannot truly appreciate her talent: he just wants to possess both.