Holy smoke

by Anna and

Jane Campion

Bloomsbury, #14.99

ALTHOUGH Holy Smoke started life as a film script and will be released as a film in the autumn, starring Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel (for whom the project was originally conceived), this novel is not your usual cash-in, hence its publication well in advance of the film's release. The story is that the two sisters (Jane, the better known for her film The Piano) collaborated on the script first, then sat down to work on producing a novel, an intentional literary work rather than a film script with a bit more detail, before Jane ran off halfway through to make the film, leaving Anna to complete the rest of the book.

It should be attributed more to Anna Campion then, than to her sister. One can only hope that what will end up on screen later this year will bear little resemblance to what can only be described in all fairness as a pretty awful novel.

It's hard to know where the problems with this book begin. Plot, characterisation, dramatic tension are all in there but exercised in such a way that they leave little or no impact, which is surprising given the powerful subject matter. Ruth Bacon is a young Australian who becomes involved in a cult while on holiday in India. On the pretext that her father is dying, she is tricked into returning home, where she is forced to submit to a cult de-programmer, the older PJ Waters. Waters is casually confident of success, but the hunter soon becomes the hunted as Ruth begins to challenge his belief system. Oh - and they have lots of sex too, as Waters begins to lose control of the situation and of Ruth.

That's basically it, but as the bibliography on cults at the back would indicate, there's a lot of extra material to go with it. Anna Campion once trained as a therapist, and the lengthy digressions on relationships, the psychology of power are clearly where she comes in. But it's perhaps because of this that the ensuing dialogues between Waters and Bacon are curiously uninvolving. The tale switches from his perspective to hers. The shift in power ought to be fascinating, but the novel constantly backs away from any real sense of struggle.

It's as though we are analysts, watching a case study played out before our eyes, only rather too neatly scripted and predictably concluded. No Freudian expertise needed here. And because of this, any dramatic tension there is between the two characters and their battle of wills is lost. Which is a shame - Campion has clearly done her homework and knows what she is talking about, but as a novelist she can't quite pull it off.

The famous Campion name is a mixed blessing as what is essentially a weak novel will attract scrutiny it can't endure. Publicists for Jane Campion can only hope that a negative reaction to the book may not have an effect on the film.