I presented a paper a few years ago on domestic thriller novels, mentioned in a previous post. The paper started like this:
Betty Friedan’s “problem that has no name” in The Feminine Mystique (1963) was the central issue of the Second Wave feminist movement. But before publication of Friedan's book, her “problem” had been pretty thoroughly worked over in the previous 15 years in popular domestic thriller novels written by women. Between 1946 and 1963, many first-rate women novelists in the U.S. and Britain were writing in this genre (also called domestic suspense or, more lately, chick noir). Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, and Daphne DuMaurier are still popular, but Vera Caspary, Valerie Taylor, Evelyn Piper, and others are less well known, and many of their works are out of print. However, all these writers were fascinated by the way post-War domesticity in white suburbia might drive women to insanity and crime, even as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was telling women that they were lucky to be living a life of domestic order and comfort with their time-saving Hotpoint appliances.While all the books I read might be waved away as melodramatic pulp fiction, I don't think they're "junk." Rather, they're the kind of page-turners that make reading on the porch on a hot afternoon lots of fun. My recommended list of novels in this vein (with my favorite authors starred):
Charlotte Armstrong, A Dram of Poison (1956)
Dorothy Baker, Cassandra at the Wedding (1962)
*Vera Caspary, Laura (1942) and Bedelia (1945)
*Celia Fremlin, The Hours Before Dawn (1958)
*Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt (1953), Deep Water (1957)
Elizabeth Sanxy Holding, The Blank Wall (1947)
*Shirley Jackson, The Bird's Nest (1954)
Margaret Millar, A Stranger in My Grave (1960)
Helen Nielson, Dead on the Level (1951)
*Evelyn Piper, Bunny Lake Is Missing (1957)
Valerie Taylor, Stranger on Lesbos (1960)
I have not read any of these particular books, so I was surfing around on Amazon a bit. It appears that quite a few of them have been made into movies. I have read some others by the same authors; among them "The Haunting of Hill House" and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson. Hill House is a spooky classic; I saw the movie with Julie Harris in it. They did a remake later, but I didn't check it out; I rarely like remakes.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like "Bunny Lake is Missing" might be promising (well all of them are promising, but one at a time.)
Katherine, I saw a trailer for "Hill House" and decided to pass. I guess they thought that CGI makes everything better. The subtle psychological terror of Robert Wise's classic masterpiece was replaced with moving statues, etc. Bleah! Remaking a Robert Wise film is like remaking Hitchcock. Although I was surprised to find Wise made the first Star Trek movie which was somewhat of a zonker. Long after creating a masterpiece like "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
DeleteThe original scared the heck out of me, mostly because the terror was all implied. I passed on the remake.
DeleteFor a change of pace by Shirley Jackson, I recommend her domestic memoir, Life among the Savages, which is a pretty hilarious look at her family life with four kids. It's kind of edgy. In reality, things were even edgier with her husband's infidelities and a lot of drinking.
This was the woman who said that the idea for The Lottery came to her while walking the baby in his stroller.
"On a bright spring morning in 1948, she walked down the Prospect hill with a baby stroller for a round of village errands. An hour or so later, Shirley Jackson pushed the stroller up the hill with newspapers, the mail, groceries -- and a story in mind. Once home, she set her toddler in the playpen and wrote The Lottery in less than two hours. It was posted to her agent that evening, and published in The New Yorker three weeks later (June 28, 1948).... In later describing how she came to write the story, Shirley said: 'Perhaps the effort of that last fifty yards up the hill put an edge on the story. It was a warm morning, and the hill was steep.'"
If you liked Daphne DuMaurier, try The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson.
ReplyDeleteI read some Highsmith back in the day. The other names are new to me, except for Shirley Jackson. Any thoughts on why women are so good at this sort of thing? I once was asked to introduce Mary Higgins Clark, so I read batch of hers and had nervous tics for weeks afterward.
ReplyDeleteMary Higgins Clark was good. Her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, took up where her mother left off. I haven't read any of hers yet. I admired that Mary started out her writing career when she was suddenly left a widow and had to earn a living for her family. She was certainly a successful and prolific author.
DeleteWhy are women so good at this sort of thing? Rage, Tom, rage.
DeleteThe fellas from the housing charity that loaded up my mother's furniture Saturday took her hutch, where she kept all her fussy crystal and cut glass stuff.
Behind the hutch was a bit of patched wallpaper. Behind the patch is a grease stain from the remains of a Thanksgiving turkey that was flung at the wall.
Too many men inhaling her dinner in 10 minutes and demanding that their pie be served in front of the TV football game while they took up all the good chairs with their zippers at half mast.
Thank you Jean! Still working away at Anthony Price, now on "Gunner Kelly"! I think someone gave me Betty Friedan for a wedding present. Scared the hell out of me. The rest is history.
ReplyDelete"...Betty Friedan for a wedding present." One of those awkward relatives that everybody has?
DeleteSounds like the kinds presents I give people. My Gramma told me to do three things after I got married: finish my degree, open a bank account in my name only, and spend one afternoon or evening a week doing a non-couples activity with my girlfriends.
DeleteI got a worse wedding present, a German Shepherd pup. Don't get me wrong, I loved him. But there were so many reasons I should have just said "no". A bad book would have been a better idea.
DeleteIs The Feminine Mystique a bad book?
DeleteActually I haven't read The Feminine Mystique, so I can't say if it's bad or not. Just saying that a bad book would be a lot lower maintenance as a gift than a non-house trained puppy.
Delete