Sunday, June 29, 2014

House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse















Have just finished reading House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse.

A review in the Sunday Telegraph said it was a retelling of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, and with that in mind you can see all sorts of inverted parallels.

The author assumes a sympathy for Oxbridge graduates, which I'm afraid not everyone feels (I certainly don't).  And the male characters are two-dimensional.  Also the "character" of the house (gothic, brooding, conscious) never really manifests itself in a way that is tangible.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the narrator's sense of self-awareness.  At times she behaves appallingly - jealous, lustful (her head is turned when she voyeuristically sees Greg naked), petty, nerdish (the scenes at a provincial newspaper are wonderful), paranoid.  As a character she is absolutely convincing.

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