Someone Else’s Shoes

A story of mix-ups, mess-ups and making the most of second chances, Someone Else’s Shoes was a nominee for the Best Fiction Award in 2023. Jojo Moyes also wrote ‘Me Before You’ and ‘The Giver of Stars’. 

Nisha Cantor, globe-trotting wife of the stinking rich Carl Cantor, thinks she loves her lifestyle, her expensive clothes, classic and smart looks and being the talk of the town. Her wardrobe and accessories make her feel special and unreachable.

Nisha leaves the gym and discovers she does not have the same supposedly Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes that she was standing in a moment ago. Her life changes thereafter as she’s cut-off by her husband and left without access to any funds, and most importantly to her designer clothes. She is reduced to running around the great Bentley Hotel and the streets in her bathrobe. This is a woman who, though came from an impoverished background stealing for her father and having to work as a cleaner, married the so-called crème-de-la-crème and lived the frivolous life of the filthy rich, famous and powerful. But as is often the case, if you don’t make the grade, people in that strata drop you like a hot potato.

The novel shows how Nisha is actually a street-smart survivor. She realises that her two decades with Carl were actually unbearable and admits to herself that he treated her as a commodity. She let him control her relationship with her son, who tried to commit suicide and who was conveniently sent to an institution. Carl decided his son did not fit the bill and was a liability.

Nisha is forced to interact with people in society who she had scorned at and was fearful to even stand next to, let alone be seen with. Her character is complex but ultimately she realises it is the lower strata of society that extends a hand to help her and stand by her: Jasmine who she hardly knows (and who herself is struggling to make ends meet) gives her £20 from her weekly wage when Nisha has no money and opens her home and heart to her and makes her daughter Grace understand how important friendship is. Juliana, whom she contacts in desperation after 15 years, is willing to come to her rescue.

Jasmine, a Black woman from Peckham, is a larger-than-life figure who works through the day and night, struggles as a single mother, but still makes time for other people’s problems.

Sam Kemp, at the lowest point in her life, has accidently picked up Nisha’s gym bag instead of her own. Sam hardly has any time to worry about a wrong gym bag as she is struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. Her husband, Phil, has lost his job and is in a depression after his father taunted him as being weak for not helping him to take his life. Her elderly parents expect her to clean their house twice a week. The company she has worked at for several years is taken over by Uberprint and her boss Simon, a male chauvinist pig, makes her work life unbearable. 

Without her usual footwear, Sam wears the Christian Louboutin shoes and feels more powerful than she has for a long time. She starts boxing and develops a crush on her co-worker Joel, which leaves her feeling mortified. Her cosy and secure family life is suddenly shattered and the future looks very bleak. The only saving grace she finds is that her best friend and neighbour Andrea is a constant source of support despite battling a dreaded illness.

The plot moves at a rapid pace once Nisha tracks down Sam to retrieve her shoes, the return of which is demanded by Carl as a condition for any settlement. What follows is a frantic attempt of all four women to outmaneuver the nasty, dangerous and vicious Carl involving posing as employees of a cat charity and setting off a fire alarm to disrupt life in the hotel and take the attention off themselves.

They ultimately find the shoes contain diamonds which Carl has been smuggling illegally across continents for years. With guile, bravery and courage, the women ensure Nisha is protected from Carl and his goons while Carl’s smuggling is exposed, unbeknown to him, at the behest of Nisha. Sam, meanwhile, reconciles with Phil, who with the help of his therapist and medicine, realises what he is at risk of losing. Sometimes it takes almost losing something to realise its worth.

At times, the novel buzzes with the fizzy energy of a caper. Other moments, it threatens to break. Many authors have the power to make you laugh on one page and cry on the next. Moyes is one of them.

This book is a story of how fast circumstances can change. Reverse-Cinderella is what a few people may describe the situation. The situation Nisha and Sam faced “don’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes” proved very difficult for them. In fact, Nisha remembers a judge saying, don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. Empathy means stepping into someone else’s story for a while even if it points you out as the villain. 

The question is, of course, is the book worth reading? It started as a mix-up, turned into a roller-coaster ride. It is a story of female friendship, unexpected love and re-defining yourself. It is about real complex women of a certain age who suddenly find themselves invisible to their spouses and colleagues and end up in extraordinary circumstances. Reading the book made me feel like being curled up on a sofa watching one of my favourite movies. 

Someone Else’s Shoes is a story about how just one little thing can change everything.