The Child's Child by Barbara Vine

                                                                

The Child's Child by Barbara Vine uses the story within a story format. Grace and her brother Andrew inherit a house in London. As the terms between them are very good, they decide to share the six-bedroom house, three-bedrooms for each with a common kitchen. They do not think of the possibility that at some point one of them would like to bring their partner home to live with them and then all may not be well. Grace is working on her PhD on the portrayal of unmarried mothers in fiction. Andrew is working with the marketing department of a publishing house and suggests Grace read a manuscript of a novel based on true incidents about a single mother and homosexuality to see if it is fit for publication. This manuscript is The Child's Child. 

Meanwhile Andrew brings home his new boyfriend novelist James Derian. Grace finds him attractive and at the same time Grace does not like James views on her thesis. James believes that being a Single mother was hardly an issue in the society in past or in present whereas homosexuals were criminalised and they suffered a lot. He is not ready to listen to Grace's argument that unmarried mothers were sent off to mental institutions and their child taken away from them at birth. Grace suggests that it was probably in the 1960s both homosexuality and unmarried mothers were accepted by society- at least homosexuality was legalised in Britain. She also finds James insufferable. Grace is now tormented with thoughts that James may come to live with her brother, and make her life miserable. Turn of events make her take solace in the manuscript. 

The manuscript narrates the story of fifteen year old Maud and her older brother John set in between the two World wars era.  John decides to give up his relationship with Bert not only because it is a criminal offence and the society would never understand their relationship, but also because he feels it is a sin, and moves from London to a small village near Bristol. His fifteen year old sister finds herself pregnant and is unsure what to do. When the secrecy of her pregnancy explodes at home and her father is ready to send her away to a workhouse, and John comes up with a solution. A solution that haunts him for life, and makes his life miserable. 

The Child's Child is an interesting portrayal of how society treats those who break its norm, even one's own family, mother, father, may not be at one's side. While John accepts her and provide her a home, Maud cannot tolerate the fact that her brother is a homosexual and makes his life miserable. Is her intolerance because she is just a child? Though there is no usual hook that we find in Barabra Vine/ Ruth Rendell books here, I was interested. But half-way through I was wondering, 'Will there be a crime? Will somebody get killed?" And there is a crime and somebody dies. The events that follow lost my interest. 

I am a great fan of Ruth Rendell and books under the pseudonym Barbara Vine are more psychological and dark but they also contain an element of mystery and crime. For example, in 'A Dark-Adapted Eye', we know Vera is the killer from start, but who did she kill is not revealed for more than half of the story and there is  also another mystery  and the inevitable final twist. I like the way Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine drops hints and creates suspense and hooks us. 

There is no mystery or the final twists or the suspense hook, ' what is going to happen now' element in this book, which was very disappointing to me. As a study of taboos in society in the past and present, it is interesting but as a mystery novel, as a Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine fan, I find this book disappointing. 

Friday Memes

This week I am posting from A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
Friday Book Beginnings is a weekly meme where we share the opening line of our current read. Book Beginnings is hosted by the Rose City Reader.

On the morning Vera died I woke up very early.

Friday 56 hosted @ Freda's Voice is a weekly Meme where we share an interesting snippet from page 56 of our current book.

The ticking was muffled but still audible. The awful feeling came over me that I should never be able to sleep and that this would not be for one night only but many, many nights, a hundred perhaps.

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month September 2012

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradiseis hosting Crime Fiction Pick of the Month September 2012

I read only crime fiction in September 2012. Here are the books

Asta's Book by Barbara Vine (1993)
Behold Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer (1936)
Phantom by Jo Nesbo (2012)
Caravan of Thieves by David Rich (2012)
Perfect People by Peter James (2011)
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (2001)
The Piccadilly Puzzle by Fergus Hume (1889)
Bloodline by James Rollins (2012)

Phantom by Jo Nesbo is a multi-layered mystery set in drug scene in contemporary Oslo and I loved it. But the Crime Fiction of the month is Asta's Book by Barbara Vine with interesting characters and a multi -layered mystery set in 1900s and 1980s London about a murder, a woman in search of her identity and a missing child.

Asta's Book by Barbara Vine

Asta's Book by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine is published in 1993 and tells the tale of a woman in search of identity, murder that happened eight decades ago and the quest for a lost child.

Asta moves to London from Denmark in 1905 with her family. Asta's husband Rasmus is away in Denmark to finish of some pending business. Asta lives with her two sons and servant Hansine and is pregnant. She wants a girl this time. Asta takes to writing her dairy regularly. She gives birth to a girl, Swanny. After Asta's death, nearly seventy years later, her diaries are published with great success.

Swanny, Asta's favourite daughter receives an anonymous letter, about her parentage. Who is Swanny? Is she adopted? Who are her real parents?

Asta makes a mention about Mrs. Roper in her dairy, who was brutally murdered in 1905. What did Asta know about the murder if she did know anything about it? Roper's 14 month old daughter Edith Roper had been missing from the day of murder. Was she murdered too? Was she kidnapped? What happened to her?

Asta's granddaughter Ann along with her friends are on a quest to find out who Swanny is and who killed Mrs. Roper.

I was almost disappointed at the reveal. It was something I worked it out. I love reading Vine/ Rendell because of her characters, plot, her observations about society, and most of all she never fails to surprise me. So if I have worked out the mystery it means Vine has failed to surprise me. Wait! I wasn't disappointed. She probably knows how my mind works and comes with a conclusion and then surprises me again.

Part of the story is Asta's Diary, part of it is narrated by Asta's granddaughter Ann and part of it consists of documents of the Roper trial.

The second chapter was confusing, I wonder whose funeral it is. Who is narrating the story and who are all these people. But that is also part of the mystery story telling Rendell/Vine adapts and slowly I got absorbed in the story.

We are familiar with stories of teens looking for their identity, in quest of who their real parents are. We have a twist here, Swanny is 58 years old when she receives the anonymous letter. How do you think a 58 year old would behave under such circumstance? Isn't it enough to be the favourite child of your mother and to have a loving devoted husband? Swanny is obsessed and keeps pestering 83 year old Asta for information. Asta is a real character, her anecdotes and the way she teases everybody is interesting. Roper case is interesting. Will Ann find out whodunit after nearly eighty years? Why didn't the police look at the obvious?Only it is not so obvious.

I have read The Grasshopper,The Birthday Present, No Night is too long, Fatal Inversion, The House of Stairs and Minotaur by Barabara Vine. To me this is one of Barbara Vine's best.

Friday Memes

This week I am posting from Asta's Book by Barbara Vine
Friday Book Beginnings is a weekly meme where we share the opening line of our current read. Book Beginnings is hosted by the Rose City Reader.

My grandmother was a novelist without knowing it.
1
June 26th 1905
Idag til Formiddag da jeg gik i Byen var der en Kone, sommspurgte mig om der gik Isbjorne paa Garderne i Kobenhavn.

When I went out this morning a woman asked me if there were polars bears in the streets of Copenhagen.


Friday 56 hosted @ Freda's Voice is a weekly Meme where we share an interesting snippet from page 56 of our current book.

It sounds strange to me, nine pounds, two ounces, it doesn't mean anything much, but it must be all right because it's a lot more than when she was weighed at the chemists's a month ago.

The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine

Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine. It is not a Ruth Rendell story, so we know what to expect, something more dark.
The stroy is told in two narratives, one of Ivor Tesham’s brother-in-law some Delgado and Hebe Furnal’s friend Jane Atherton. The stroy is umm.. is the fall of Ivor Tesham conservative MP in the early nineties. Ivor Tesham is the handsome dashing politician who does not want to settle down in life. He wants to have fun. He embarks on an clandestine affair with married Hebe Furnal . Their simillar natures brings them together for sexual adventures. Tesham plans a “birthday Present” for Hebe, that goes wrong. While what Tesham had planned is not actually criminal, it could ruin his career and the press will have a field day at his expense. Jane Atherton, the not so good looking friend of the gorgeous Hebe tells her part of the story.
Ruth Rendell has always written about issues in contemporay soicety. Set in the early nineties this novel talks of the loneliness of modern life and how the scoiety plunges into depth those who are already in the edge. Like in many of her novels, we have a single girl who tries to find love and security unsuccessfully and slowly loses her sanity.
Ruth Rendell throws hint of things to come. So there is a constant sense of expectation of things to come that keeps one glued to the book. A very interesting read.