Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I heard that Shirley Jackson wrote ghost stories without any ghosts.  To understand this I read three of her works.  

The ghosts in "We have Always Lived in the Castle" are not physical manifestations of the dead.  In fact ghosts that haunts this manor are not dead at all.

    By the time the story begins everyone in town knows has heard about how the Blackwoods died.  The whole family poisoned at dinner.  All but three members chocked and died right there at the table.  It had to be the sugar.  Uncle Julian and Constance, the only survivors, ate everything except the sugar.  Constance never takes sugar in her tea.  It could have been Merricatherin.  Poor Merricat had been banished to her room for the whole meal.  

 

    Julian was too well respected, too loved.  It couldn't have been him.  That leaves only Constance, the family's oldest daughter, to take the blame.  After all she stayed in the kitchen cooking, didn't even come out as everyone struggled to breath their last.

    Uncle Julian is haunted by the day.  He was present but can't remember enough details to know what happened.    He knows sweet, dotting Constance couldn't have done it. So he spends his days collecting, rearranging, and puzzling over newspaper articles about it trying to remember what happened, trying to figure where it all went wrong.  He even offers ghost tours to the curious, and speaks with unflinching morbid curiosity about the worst moments of his life, all in the hopes of recalling what might have happened.  

    Constance is haunted by the day that she tries to forget.    But no one will let her live a moment without remember it.  Not Uncle Julian an his binder full of newspaper clippings; not the town and their teasing.  She can't leave the house without someone reminding her of that day.  So she never leaves the house.  Especially not after being arrested and abused as she was.  No, she can't leave the house.  Not ever again.  She indulges in Merricat's fantasies and daydreams because the world according to her little sister is full of magic, and hope.   

    When a cousin Charles arrives for a visit, it seems that maybe he can help.  He's a man and family.  He has a strong voice and sturdy ideas.  She attaches to him.  But then he threatens to send Merricat away.  And he threatens to take her away from the house, from her sister.  Such talk is dangerous.  He doesn't understand that Constance is a ghost as well.  She can't leave the manor, she can't leave that day.  Better to just continue her chores and hope this goes away.   

    

     Merricat is a specter of mental illness.  She haunts the grounds of Blackwood manor with the zeal of a wild cat chasing mice.   Without the rest of the family to judge and watch over them,  Merricat is free of all but her love of Constance.  She'd do anything for Constance.  Constance plays along, Constance keeps her illusions up and her secrets.  Constance understands the rules of the game Merricat is playing, maybe even better than Merricat herself.  So Merricat would do anything to save Constance from the horror of her memory, from the dreaded ghosts that whisper nasty truths to her, from the towns people who scream hateful lies - from the strict father who made Constance cry and banished Merricat from dinner.  Anything.  

    The town itself is haunted by hollowed eyed people who have no mercy for their neighbors.  Once the Blackwoods were rich.  Their's was a fancy manor on the top of the hill.  They scent servants down to do their shopping.  Now Merricat, the strange and the restless, comes.  She doesn't speak of what happened to the rest of her family - which they've all heard about.  They never seen Constance.  And Merricat has the nerve to still have dignity even though she's as poor as the rest of them now.  They hate her for what she was.  They fear her what she is - quiet mysterious, and dwelling still in the big ugly house outside of town.  

    This story is like a cracked mirror - distorted, sharp, and fascinating to look at.  It made me reflect on my gown hosts, things I'd rather not remember.  I realized that I adored Merricat. I was even rooting for her at times.  I also realized that I related most to Constance - quietly working her-self into madness to provide an idealistic life for her only remaining charge.  Whatever happens keep up the illusion.  Fake it til you make it, even as the house starts crumbling down around you.  What good does it do to break Merricat's dillusions?  If anything it's dangerous to even try.    

    

View all my reviews

Is Sex the Root of Racism?: An Essay about Shirley Jackson's: Flower Garden

    
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


 "The Lottery" was stunning.  I read it twice to make sure I picked up on the clues that foreshadowed the ending.  At first, I didn't understand how the other five works were even in the same book.   I just didn't understand what was so scary about "The Other Stories" Then something happened in my life.  And the chill of the Lottery suddenly stood out to me much more clearly.     

       Shirley Jackson writes horror for polite white women.  She teases them for being tight lipped and proper, pokes at them for being terrified of what what other people might say or think.  "The Lottery and Other Stories" are tales of what happens when you find yourself on the outside of the society that raised you.  When you make just that one wrong choice and suddenly you are "Put Out".

 

   Among the other stories "Flower Garden" stood out to me the most.  A young woman, Mrs Winning, is the newest member of the Winning family, the oldest family in a of their small  Vermont town.  She makes friends with a new comer, Mrs. MacLane.  Mrs. MacLane is a widow from the city. She's beautiful and has bought the lovely cottage that Mrs. Winning has always wanted to live in.

photo by Ksena Chernaya 

     They become fast friends and get along well until the widow MacLane defends Billy Jones, a mulatto boy, from being harassed by her son and the Winning's boy.  Mrs. Winning is stunned.  She can't believes that MacLane went so far as to make her own son apologize to the "colored" boy.  To make it worse she then hires the boy's father, Mr. Johns, as a gardener.

       Mrs. Winning tries to warn Mrs. MacLane; she points out that all of Johns children are mixed with white, and that their mother moved away. Mrs. MacLane doesn't hear the warning.  She continues to behave "oddly".

    The story is told from Mrs Winning so we can see her react in horror as the town suggests that she warn Mrs. MacLane, seeing as how they are friends.  Mrs. Winning doesn't want the community to think she'd be friends with someone they are obviously turning against. 

    When Mrs. MacLane finally catches up to Mrs Winning she asks her if her new gardener is
the reason everyone has suddenly turned on her.  Mrs. Winning smiles and lies.  She even promises to visit.    In her head though she's disgusted that Mrs. MacLane would openly complain and even more so that she'd blame the poor Negroes for her troubles.    

    "The nerve of her, trying to blame the colored folks" (99) After all between Mrs. MacLane and Mr. Johns, she's the one with the all the power. It's not the Negro's fault that she is taking advantage of them. 

      This is how so many white people talk about race, even today.  "I'm not racist but -"  "I'd never say that word."  "I just don't see why they can't get over it."  "We just want everything to stay "nice" and "pleasant", equal and never ever changing."  

    What puzzled me, after reading this, was the hypocrisy.  The black man is a handy-man in town. Others had hired him before.  What was the big deal?

      The problem, I gradually realized, wasn't what he was doing - it was who everyone thought he was doing.  Mrs. Winning was trying to warn MacLane that the man was unmarried, and that he already had a history of sleeping with white women.    They'd be alone together in that house without any supervision. "People will talk!" 

    

    The problem is sex!  

    Is sex the root of a racism?

   

    "Flower Box" by Shirley Jackson goes hand in hand with  "The Boy Detective and the Summer of 74 by Art Taylor. 

 In this story a young man at the cusp of puberty stumbles upon a mystery that no one cares about but him.  He discovers several large bones in the neighbor’s yard and wonders where they are from.

  He throws himself into the mystery to distract himself from the fact that this is the last summer of his childhood.  His friends are too interested in a torn page from a playboy magazine to help him. His father is always lecturing him about the approaching responsibilities of manhood.  A new girl in town further complicates his feelings by taking interest in the case he's trying to solve. 

     Everything comes to a head when Cooper learns that he is to meet this girl for a play date.  His mother is nagging him with questions about her when, thanks to his rising hormones, Cooper solves the mystery.  To distract his mother from his personal thoughts and feelings he blurts out his conclusion. Thus, utterly ruining the lives of two adults that have nothing to do with him, the girl, or the end of his childhood.  

*spoiler!**spoiler!**spoiler!**spoiler!**spoiler!**

    Cooper discovered that the Negro butcher from the far side of town visits the lonely white widow next door after dark.  The butcher brings a soup bone to keep the widow’s dog quiet when he comes into the yard. It's that chewed up soup bone that capture's Cooper's curiosity.   

*End of Spoiler***End of Spoiler***End of Spoiler**

    Because Cooper was nosey and insisted on being a detective, he may have gotten the butcher killed. Because of the racism of the rest of the town, that lonely woman was probably
left traumatized and further ostracized when Cooper's father, and the other men of the town, descended on her home to reinforce their social order.   No one cared about the widow, and she’s not likely to ever marry again after this incident.  The butcher was a threat purely because "We can't the other's think it's ok.  We let one get away with it, others may try". 

And because Cooper's just a little white boy, he moves on with his life oblivious to the damage he's done until well into adulthood. and is reflecting on the last summer of his childhood.  The worse thing that happened to him, was that his father stopped going to the black side of town to get stakes after that.  

    Like the Flower Garden the characters in the story do not acknowledge the injustice of the situation.  The characters are on the side of the status quo.  They keep the their side of town pure.  A black man vanishes and everyone just goes on with their lives as though nothing happened.  

    The horror lies in the shadow of innocence.  That's what Shirley Jackson was writing.   I didn't understand it fully until I myself was married to a white man, gave birth to our little light skinned daughter, and began to experience the disguised kindness of “well meaning” strangers - the doll-like smiles, the out of nowhere compliments "Oh what a beautiful child!" "What lovely hair!" from people who would not otherwise have seen me.  It's my own family code switching in front of me to talk to my husband, then getting hand-written responses declining the invitation to our wedding.  It's the not really being welcomed at Christmas anymore because my presence makes a certain uncle fighting mad.  It's folks on the white side of the family not existing until after the election in 2016, then suddenly being very vocal about their beliefs, but not about me or us.  I'm “one of the good ones".

    Its idiots marching in the streets, and barking online about being replaced.

It's about a black man being gunned down while jogging, not because he looked at house being built, but because his killer's daughter was dating a black guy.  

    Racism is about sex.  About keeping the races separated so that we always know who’s them and who’s us. 

How would Shirley Jackson have written the years following the 2016 election?  What young Art Taylors will grow up to speak of the horrors outside of their bedroom windows that they didn't see until they were older?  Where do we go from here, now that the curtain has been pulled back, and we see how nasty the glass has been all this time?  

Photo by cottonbro studio:

View all my reviews

Review: Children of Virtue and Vengeance

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

  

*spoiler alert* 

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeymi  will leave you ready to fight!

    This book two in the series.  If you have not already please check out my reviews for Book 1 Children of Blood and Bone as well as Book 3 Children of Anguish and Anarchy.

What I liked:

    The writing is great!  The mental illustrations, the scenery, the idea of the dark mountains against the indigo sky - the setting of the rooms and buildings, were all very vivid and beautiful.  

 You really feel the emotions of every character.  All of their motivations are clear - even if I don't agree with them.

What I loved:

        This plot was very surprising.  Talk about stepping up the tension from the previous volume.  Not only to do the royals have  magic now, their magic is stronger than the that of the maji people!  What are the God's trying to say with that move?  

    Amari's mom is worse than her father ... and because her father was killed the mother is a maniac?  With no idea that her husband was in love with his general.  The drama!

        Amari isn't able to just be natural chosen leader of the rebels.  If she was male or on TV I'm sure this would have gone differently, but Tomi is making her main characters work for every win they get.  Even Zelie who is the natural leader of the rebels is having her emotions about it challenged.  This is great for tension.  

         

    What I disliked:

    All the characters are infuriating!  I know that they are desperate teenagers fighting a war against evil adults who are stronger and smarter than they are. But it is still a frustrating read.  I was yelling at this book begging Inan to do something helpful, and pleading with Amari to NOT fall for her mother's traps. I shook my head at Zelie so much I got a cramp in my neck.

    Don't get me wrong!  I totally understand!   All the adults these kids would have relied on were killed before the first book started. Baba was a sickly, destroyed, old man being cared for by his kids. He therefore was not really a role model. He was someone who needed protecting. The only role model Zelie had was Mama Agba her fighting/sewing instructor- so all she knows how to do really is fight.

    Amari and Inan were raised by monsters. They behave like children who were abused every moment of their lives, because despite being royalty they were. The fact that Amari held it together as long as she did was testament to her willpower. 

The council of elders are all less than 20 years old and just chomping at the bit for revenge.

    But it's so frustrating, and a little cliche', that not one of the young adult characters stops to think:

    "Maybe we shouldn't leave the sacutuary completely unprotected now that the evil queen knows where we live"!

    And  Amari pulling a full Daenerys Targaryen, technically killing all those people, is very so disappointing!  I don't know how her character comes back from that.   I can, at the very least, see how she thought the ends would justify the means . . . had it worked but she couldn't have thought, for a moment, that she would be cheered for actions or seen as any less crazy than her mother.  

Without decent parents these characters are just charging straight at death without consideration of the consequences and that made the lader half of this book very hard to read.

     I supposed, my raised emotions is a sign of good writing.  I don't like to judge a trilogy series based on the second book, because it's supposed to the most frustrating story, how else to get anyone to read book three?. 

 I'll wait til the third book in the series to judge weather or not it was a worthwhile adventure.

Here's hoping it turns out better than Rise of Skywalker *-*

Book Recommendations 

Children of Blood and Bone - by Tomi Adeyemi

Children of Anguish and Anarchy - by Tomi Adeyemi

Court of Thrones and Roses - Sarah J Mass

Monstress - Marjorie Liu and Sana Taked

View all my reviews 

Review: Madam Ricketts: A Story of Murder, Deceit and Dark Humor

Madam Ricketts: A Story of Murder, Deceit and Dark Humor by C.D. Hancock
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I just finished this book and  I ran to my computer just to come here and say “Wow!”

   

    I did not see that ending coming.  C.D. Hancock writes from multiple points of view in this wild, weird, not-quite-western novel.  The base of the story is set with two unreliable narrators, a madam with questionable motives, and the reporter whose recalling her story but has been denied paper, pens, recorder, and sanity.  It delves into a history of heroes who become villains, families that become enemies, and ghosts that thirst for vengeance long after they’ve decayed.  

     What I liked 

    The diverse characters. There are cowboys and Indians but this story is not a typical western.   

     Black people not only exist in this wild wilderness, they surprise you.  

      There are wives, daughters, and whores but no damsels in distress waiting for a white knight, these ladies have good aim and are as patient as snakes waiting for the perfect time to strike.  

What I loved: 

    The adult themes are not introduced for shock value.  Due to the nature of the story there is violence and sexual abuse, but both are used as common sense plot points that move the story.  The violence isn’t gruesome for the sake of horror.  The sexual abuse is mentioned and implied, but never dwelt on in pornographic detail.  I did not come away from this book with post traumatic shock like I have some other novels.  

What I hated:

      Was the ending!  Not in a  Game of Thrones “Why did he do that!?” kind of way.  

But in “No!  How?  What!? No!” kind of way. It’s more like the last minute of the first Saw movie kind of way.   

    No neat button endings here. It’s as messy and satisfying as a crushed roach.  And I’m happy to find that there is a sequel.  

This was a fun read that I obtained for free and was asked to give feedback on!  I'm happy I was able to help.

If you every need feedback or a review for your work please contact me:

pbyeary.com

or s Porsche Yeary on Upwork.

Thanks for reading.  I'll see you on the next page.  

View all my reviews

Review: Mama Solves a Murder

Mama Solves a Murder by Nora DeLoach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

  This book took a while for me to into.  It has a slow some what choppy build up to the plot, so I was tempted to put it down at first.  But once they started really detecting I was into it.  And the stakes elevated nicely as the clues were collected and put together.  

    The main character Simone puts herself as the "Watson" to her mother's "Sherlock".  She calls herself the "Della Street" to her mother's "Perry Maison".  As a writer, I understand this method for writing a mystery.  You want your genius detective to be able have cloak and dagger element.  You want to hide the "ah-ha!" clue from the audience until the big reveal.  The best way to do that is to have the reader follow an assistant that isn't quite as quick as the detective.  To be honest that is exactly what I find frustrating about Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  

What I Liked:

Simone is a paralegal.  She has a job that requires her to follow the book when it comes to collecting evidence.  That ads a bit of tension to Mama's intuition and instincts method which I found enjoyable. 

I currently live in Atlanta.  The atmosphere was pretty accurate, though not a time was spent on building the setting.  The foods were accurate.  The character of Mama was very familiar.  In fact a lot of time spent on character building which I did appreciate.  

What I Loved:

Both mysteries were very intriguing.  Mama is busy studying a series of arsons that killed her cousin, and niece.  Both women had reason to suspect that the elder cousin's neighbor was molesting his daughter.  The elder cousin told her daughter just before her house was burned to the ground.  Later, after telling Mama, aka Candy, about it the daughter is also a victim of arson.  Mama suspects the neighbor but she has to prove it.  

Simone, meanwhile, finds herself trying to help an old college roommate whom she hasn't spoken to in ages.  The classmate admits to having shot and killed a man in cold blood.  All the evidence points to her having being a cold blooded stalker and murderer.  

Simone, feeling under qualified  to pull the information she needs out of witnesses, inlists her mother's help as Mama has maxed out her speechcraft tree.  Through these interviews Mama starts to believe that maybe Cheryl wasn't the killer after all.  

What I Didn't Like:

    The first two acts of the story as a big rushed.  The result is a lot of telling, and not a lot of showing.  We are told over and over at the beginning that Mama is a genius, and a charmer, and that she can talk anyone into teller her their secrets - but we don't see her do it.  Simone just summerizes things Mama has done in the past.  We are told that Simon's boss is a legal eagle obsessed with finding the truth of things, but we aren't really shown it by his actions.  We are told that Simone is just as smart and quick witted as her mother.  But when she bows out of most testy situations to let her mom handle them, even when it's her job, we don't see it.  

  

In fact it isn't until after the above mentioned build up, that the story actually starts to really get interesting.  It feels as though the author, Nora, just wanted to hurry up and get to the mystery.  But as a result it takes half the book to get interesting.  That being said, once it starts to build up, it really builds up. Once Mama is on the case, interviewing very willing witnesses and asking the questions few other people have time for, the story does start to pull you along.   

The editors did this book no favors.  It feels as though a lot of good stuff was cut out, and lot of bad stuff was left in.  There are typos, and small plot holes.  There are places you can tell were shortened for word count but left unanswered questions.   There was a plot point or two that could have been omitted, and character building for characters we didn't really care about.  For example, the point  of Simone's friend Donna insisting on taking her on a double, half-blind- date knowing that Simone has a boyfriend.  It was a big deal, worth a chapter of dialogue that Simone didn't want to go.  But does when her boyfriend Cliff says he is ok with it.  But the story does not follow the date.  In fact no part of that situation leads to a clue, or follows the mystery at all.   The only possible reason for it was to show that  Simone's boyfriend Cliff was willing to trust her because he's also a lawyer and working on a nasty divorce case. Or to show that Donna didn't care about her bff's relationships?  Idk.

***SPOILERS!***

   

         I also didn't care much for the endings. At first I thought both mysteries were a bit heavy handed with the dramatic bad guys.    But after learning that Norma DeLoach worked as a social worker in Hampton South Carolina the horror of these cozy mysteries makes more since.  

     

            Turns out that in the arson case, the neighbor to the elder cousin, wasn't just molesting his daughter, and beating his wife.  He was also molesting his son... a sixteen year old is now, because his house burned down, murder cats and starting fires in his new foster home.  Mama concludes that since he's murder cats, and starting fires, he's likely the one who strangled his little sister and left our body to bloat in a stream for three days near where he camped in the woods.   Mama and Simone arrive for a "wellness check" just in time to save his foster mother from being killed by him!  

    It makes me wonder how often do social workers come across murders who are teenagers, or even children!  I bet it's more often than we'd care to think about.  

    In Simone's case, it turns out that the man Cheryl shot was not only a serial child stalker, kidnapper, rapist, AND murderer!!! He was also born a hermaphrodite and hated women.  Turns out Cheryl was one of his victims - the only one who ever managed to get away.  She remembered him when she saw but she didn't remember why she knew him.  She says that she got intensly sexual feelings from the sight of his face!    So she stalked him trying to recover her memory.   She shot him...but she did not kill him.  

    At first I was disturbed and insulted by the idea, that a victim of molestation would be arroused by the sight of her attacker so many years ago.  But knowing the author's background she likely pulled this detail from real life research she's done, maybe real interviews.  The idea is iky, but profound; scary and educational and all those things I love in a good book.  

    And while I appreciate the driving force  behind the mystery....how did she shoot him without killing him!  I do not like the conclusion. 

    This monster of a human being had a heart attack meer seconds before Cheryl should shoot him to death?  He set her up to come to his office and watch him die to escape justice for his crimes?  How infuriating!  

     Again, I'm sure that as a social worker Norma DeLoach may have dealt with unsatisfying endings in her real world cases.  I'm not so much upset at how the woman was denyed justice.  That would be wishing she had shot him, and therefor would have had to go to jail for his murder.  No I like that she didn't (or may not have) killed her abuser.   I'm up because I honestly feel like there were a few too many coincidences in this plot that were ignored.  

Namely this:

      Cheryl and her friends just happen to take the same exact vacation as the man who molested her twenty-five years ago - a vacation that the he didn't want to take but his wife Irene planned from start to finish?  Cheryl and her friends just happen to make friends with the wife of the man who raped her when she was five, and hung out with her most of the trip because he was "sick" in his room.  A wife whom we later learn was beaten into a miscarrage when her husband learned she was pregnant and is now suspicious that her husband was a monster, and has been looking into his behavior?  A wife who was more than happy to spill all of her beans to Mama TWICE?  

 

         I'm just saying, that after convincing the jury that the molester died of natural causes before Cheryl shot him, there should have been a last and final chapter with Mama telling Irene, in Simone's presence, 

     "I know you set your husband up to be murdered by Cheryl". or. "I know you poisoned Harold and agitated his heart condition in some undetectable way... I saw this clue last time I was here."  and "Maybe you did or didn't expect Cheryl to take the fall for what you did". "But I'm giving you a pass because you stopped this monster before he could kill anymore children."   

 Without this as the ending the book leaves me unsatisfied.  

View all my reviews

Review: Strangers on a Train

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

      It's June 2023 - Pride Month - and it's with pride festivities and honors popping up all over my feed that I decided to busy myself by reading Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith!   I mention this  because without this context I may not have noticed that Strangers on a Train is not really a murder mystery, but a story of gay love gone tragically wrong.

Here let me explain: 

 

      I love mysteries.  In fact I’ve begun the process of learning how to write one.  I already have a few novel ideas that I’ve roughed out.  So, of course, I’ve begun reading more mysteries.  I made up a list of novels to try - cozy, classicals, noir, ect.  One title on the top of my “psychological mysteries” list stood out: Strangers on a Train

    I knew the premise already.  This was the first double murder swap.  Many stories have referenced or parodied this plot.  It was the novel that inspired one of the great American film directors, Alfred Hitchcock, to create a film of the same name.  I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’ll watch it soon after this is posted.  

  Going into it, I assumed that both men on the train agreed, eventually, to swap murders.    You kill my wife and I'll kill your father – handshake - deal.  I assumed that one guy got cold feet and tried to stop this “run-away train” of events.  But he was unable to prevent his victim from being murdered by his new friend, now he’d be forced to follow through or die.  That is what I thought I was getting into.

   Instead, I learned (and spoilers from this point on) that Guy Haines wanted nothing to do with the proposal of the man on the train.  He just wanted to read his book.  But Charles Bruno would not leave him alone.  Bruno sees Guy reading a book, and sits himself down nearby. Guy is annoyed by this man from before they even exchange hellos.  That doesn’t stop Bruno from following him, talking to him, and inviting him to have dinner in his sleeper car on the train.  It’s here where Bruno makes his famous proposal.

  “Hey! Cheeses, what an idea!  We murder for each other, see?  I kill your wife and you kill my father! We met on the train, see and nobody knowns we know each other!  Perfect alibis! Catch?”

 

It’s obvious Bruno has been planning this moment for ages.  His speech is so rehearsed that he just steam-rolls over Guy’s objections and rejections.  He’d gotten on this train planning to find someone to help him. He’d expected the conversation to go one way, but Guy refused to take the bait.  After the proposal is made Guy leaves. 

  Bruno has no illusions at this point. He knows Guy is too decent to help him commit murder.  But he can’t stop thinking about him.  Even when he’s back in Santa Fe he calls Guy to have an uncomfortable conversation. Guy  once again expresses no interest whatsoever in Bruno, or his help.   Still Bruno is single mindedly obsessed with Guy. He knows that his new best friend is unhappy.  He knows why, and he knows what to do to help. 

“When his mother left town, he intended to crack open the idea and start thinking in earnest.  His idea was to go and get Miriam.  The time was ripe, and the time was now.  Guy needed it now.  In a few days, a week even, it might be too late for the Palm Beach thing, and he wouldn’t.

 - Bruno ch 10 p 59

 It can be argued that Bruno planned to murder Miriam just to prove that he had planned a perfect murder and that he could/would pull it off.  Sure, he intended to kill someone.  He wanted to one up Walter.  He wanted to feel special.  

“Whether Guy came through with his part of the deal or not, if he was successful with Miriam, he would have proved a point.  A perfect murder.  Some day, another person he didn’t know yet would turn up and some kind of deal could be made.”  - Bruno ch10 pg 62

But why Miriam?  Bruno had no confidence that Guy would hold up his end of the deal. But he also believed that Guy would be better off without his cruel wife hanging off of his neck.  If he was going to commit murder, he wanted to kill someone whose death would benefit a good man like Guy.    

When Guy isn't grateful for Miriam’s sudden death, Bruno gets offended. He needs Guy to see how similar they are - how they are kindred spirits.  And the only way to achieve this is for Guy to fulfill the other side of the deal.   

    

  Thus begins chapters and chapters of Bruno tormenting Guy, pushing him, bribing him, fighting him, lurking after him.  Guy is on the verge of quitting his job and his engagement to Ann all because he won’t talk to someone about Bruno. Between Guy's pitiful self-inflicted torment, and Bruno's savage drinking, this part of the story is a real slog.  I nearly put it down several times but kept going wondering if Guy would ever actually be pushed to murder Bruno’s father.  And when he finally does so, because I guess he thought Bruno might hurt Ann if he didn’t, it kicks off more painful chapters of Guy’s absolute mental dissolve. 

Once again I wonder why I’m still  here. Sure now there is a private detective sniffing around trying to solve the murders.  But most of the tension really comes from whether or not Guy is going to crack and tell on himself or Bruno.   And it’s agony.    That is until I realized what I was reading.  This wasn’t a murder mystery.  I already knew who-dun-it.  What I was reading, what Strangers on a Train is, is a gay romance.  Or a romantic tragedy with at least one gay character written in the format of a suspenseful mystery. 

  I am ashamed to admit that it took me until the third act to realize that Charles is very queer coded.  It took a certain episode of Frasier (Season 2, Episode 3 The Matchmaker) for me to even playfully consider it.   To be fair it wasn’t as obvious as Joel Cairo in  “The Maltese Falcon” being described as “the heavily perfumed man” over and over.

Unlike Dashiell Hammet, Patricia Highsmith is not making fun of men who behave a certain way in her story.  She wrote Bruno as a more realistic gay man.  It isn’t painted all over his personality.  He reads as an average man with a sinister plan, who just happens to have a crush on a man he met on a train.   Bruno's queerness was so realistic that it’s easy to miss.   He has such an intense personality that the character reads as a straight but muscular bully who is hounding a weaker willed man to push him into doing something he doesn’t want to do.  But once I noticed it, this character trait created a clearer picture.

There are little clues in the story that confirm that Bruno is a queer character.  The  most obvious clue is Bruno in his private thoughts.  By himself he’s allowed to react to Guy with passion that he doesn’t dare show externally.  There is also the way Guy, Ann, and others treat Bruno that show that he’s no threatening thug.   And lastly, the writer herself offers clues to the character and the way the story was written.  

Bruno with himself

      

  Privately, Bruno through his own mental dialogue  admits that he doesn’t have much use for women.  His best friend is his wealthy, beautiful and graceful mother.  She is the only woman he has time for.  Even though he "finds himself a woman" after killing Guy's wife Miriam he later mentions how much he hates women, and doesn’t like having sex with them.

“Not only hadn’t he ever fallen in love, but he didn’t care too much about sleeping with women.  He had never been able to stop thinking it was a silly business that he was standing off somewhere and watching himself.  Once, one terrible time, he had started giggling.”  

This is a common, almost stereotypical, trope of gay men worshiping their mothers but having little respect for any other women.  

When Bruno calls Guy after killing Miriam, Guy says he never wants to talk to Bruno again.  Bruno reacts with heartbreak. He cries broken by Guy’s rejection.   His deep depression sends him straight into a bottle of Scotch. This is why he's such a sloppy mess halfway through the book.  Guy cannot, or will not give him the love and gratitude that Bruno is so desperate for.   

  This is why Bruno pushes Guy into killing his father - to make himself Guy’s only confidant.  To give them a common secret, and thus pull them together - to make himself something special to Guy. When Guy goes through with it, Bruno feels justified.  Now Guy has confirmed to Bruno that he feels the same way they are one.  They are blood brothers, sewn together through this deed they’ve both done.  Bruno expects Guy to be as changed as he was, and as attached to Bruno as Bruno is to Guy.  It breaks his heart that Guy continues to push him away.   

As detective Gerard gets closer to finding the killers and understanding the mystery, Guy is tormented by what he's done, but Bruno is tormented that Guy has other friends.  Guy goes on a cruise with Anne and Bruno nearly dies from heart ache.  Bruno has a nightmare about Guy being caught, and bleeding out in the woods as Gerard chases him.  He knows that he needs to stay away from Guy to prevent him being caught, but he just can't.  He has to see him, call him, be near him.  

In Bruno's final scene he meets Guy's other friends.  He gets into a competition with Guy's best man, Bob Thatcher, over which of them has known Guy longer.  He sees them all as idiots whereas Guy is a genius.  He knows that none of them love Guy as he does.  But he also knows that Guy will never get rid of Ann, and will never love Bruno the way he wants him too.

 When the case closes Bruno and Guy have nothing to fear and nothing more to bring them together.  Guy has friends now, Bruno has no one.  Even his mother has gotten sick and ugly.  Bruno isn’t welcomed with Guy or among his friends.  The case appears to be closed so Bruno has nothing left to tether him to the man that he loves.     

 

Bruno To Others

When I go back looking for quotes and reread earlier parts of the book with this new trait in mind, it’s obvious by how Bruno speaks and how others react to him that Bruno is not the thick-necked, muscular thug I originally pictured.   

When Guy first meets Bruno on the train, and Bruno mentions how silly women are, Guy casually notes, to himself, that he didn’t imagine Bruno has much interest in women.  

Later Guy mentions how Bruno always notices people's clothes.  This is confirmed by how Bruno judges people by what they are wearing in his POV chapters.  Guy does the same but to a slightly lesser degree.  Bruno even gives Guy a fancy silver belt as an "I'm thinking about you" present. I’ve never noticed two straight guys offering their buddies accessories as presents in my personal life.  This silver belt is the same one Bruno’s mother thought about gifting to one of her gentleman suitors a chapter or two before.  

Bruno’s queerness is further confirmed through Guy’s fiance’ Ann.  Would a smart, wealthy, beautiful woman like Ann, allow a man with any sort of sexual interest in her to spend the night in her house while her husband was away in Canada?  Would a threatening man be allowed to crash their wedding with no questions asked, or to become drunk and rude at a dinner party then allowed to sleep it off on the sofa?  Would they have not called the police when he shows up at their home repeatedly, especially after she’s realized that it was Bruno whom Guy had fought some months before?  If Bruno were a truly threatening individual in appearance and casual behavior he would not have been allowed such forgiveness over and over.    The truth is Bruno doesn’t come off as threatening, even when Gerard introduces the possibility that he may have killed his own father.  Ann questions this notion repeatedly even when Guy practically confirms that he thinks it's possible.    Also, when Guy comes home and finds that Bruno has spent the night at his home he gets angry - not because he’s afraid Bruno might steal Ann from him, but because he’s annoyed that Bruno might seduce Ann just to be closer to him, or to annoy him.  

Guy for his part is also kind of queer coded.  He’s painted as a less-than-masculine man.  Bruno is obviously more aggressive than Guy is, but Guy is more of an intellectual.   No one looks at Guy and thinks he could be a murderer.  Everyone sees him as a  nervous fellow who couldn't harm a fly.  

Bruno becomes infatuated with Guy from afar on the train. Perhaps, he hopes that maybe they have a common oddness. Guy even notes how Bruno becomes less friendly when he learns that Guy is married.

  My favorite scene in the story is the wedding.   The murders  of Miram Hains, and Sam Bruno are paralleled with Guy's engagement with Anna.  Guy kills Bruno's father just a few months before his wedding, thus in essence declaring his love to Bruno - at least in the sick mind of the psychopath that is infatuated with him.  Bruno, therefore, has no qualms about inviting himself to Guy's wedding.  He sits at the front and meets Guy's eyes. Guy can’t look away.  As a result Guy states his wedding vows, not to Ann, but to Charles Bruno. 

   

When Bruno falls overboard from the boat, Guy jumps in after him… Mentally, Guy is furious that he’s the only one who cares that Bruno has fallen.  He calls Bruno his best friend - his brother!  

Bruno’s body is never found and in some way I suspected Bruno might have faked his death.  But in doing research for this post I found a quote I’d forgotten about.  On the train, before Bruno made his infamous proposal he said this when talking about whether or not he could commit murder:

   “I’ll do it, don’t think I won’t!  Know what else I’ll do some day?  Commit suicide if I happen to feel like committing suicide, and fix it so it looks like my worst enemy murdered me.”

As they say, there is a thin line between love and hate.  

    

The Writer and Director

Patricia Highsmith  was an out of the closet lesbian writer.  She was born in Texas but spent most of her adult life living in France and Switzerland.  Her second novel The Prince of Salt was rejected by American publishers for its “frank explorations of homosexual themes''.  She later regained some notoriety in the U.S. for her 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley.   

She has published over twenty books, has won the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and the Award of the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.  She died in Switzerland in 1995. 

 

Alfried Hitchcock's 1951 film Strangers on a Train has been shamed by critics as being vulgar for its ``insertion” of homosexuality into the film.  In fact eight minutes of the film had to be edited out of the U.S. version for being too perverse for American audiences. 

 

My Takeaway 

My word.  Such delicate snowflakes we must be in the U.S.

As I’ve said, the book was a bit of a slog for me and I haven’t yet watched the movie.  Recognizing the gay overtones really brought the characters new life for me.  The context that Guy was agonizing over Bruno’s infatuation with him, and that perhaps he had similar feelings towards Bruno, makes some of his anguish between confessions make more sense. 

If he wasn’t struggling with some sort of interest in Bruno, or some sort of appreciation for him, then he would have just told Ann about the weird interaction on the train, and told the police everything when Miriam was killed.   

But if on some level he liked Bruno back,  then he didn’t want Bruno to get into trouble for trying to help him out of a tough situation.  Guilt wouldn't have been eating at him so hard that he was about ready to call off his engagement.  And if his resolve against Bruno had been strong at all, he wouldn’t have killed Sam Bruno for him.  

Without Charles Bruno to define him, Guy spirals out of control.  He finds someone to confess his guilt too, someone else who doesn’t care.  Just as he’s about over it all, about done with the whole thing, Gerard finally tricks him.  Guy is caught for something he never even wanted to do, and he doesn’t even have Bruno to keep him company in jail.  

I argue that none of this would have happened if consenting adult men were allowed to love each other in the 1950s.  How many women could have been spared loveless marriages wasting their valuable maternal time?  How many men could have been spared agonizing shame, guilt, and lust if only they were allowed to pursue the kind of love that was right for them? How many lives could have been spared if such men weren’t shamed into becoming villains and killers?

  I can’t say I loved this book.  But I have deep respect for the author.  Patricia Highsmith wrote a dark gay tragedy and sold it under the nose of the publishers.  She wrote directly about the fears of men, finding themselves the victims of an unwanted love, discovering through force that you might be persuaded by that love.  And she did it without a kiss, or a rape scene - just blood, sweat, and tears.  

 

View all my reviews