{"id":971,"date":"2013-04-01T17:47:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T23:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=971"},"modified":"2013-04-01T17:47:02","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T23:47:02","slug":"elizabeth-haynes-into-the-darkest-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/elizabeth-haynes-into-the-darkest-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Haynes: Into the Darkest Corner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You know how back in the 30\u2019s and 40\u2019s there was a famous \u201cDetection Club\u201d, with members like Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh?\u00a0 That was the so-called \u201cgolden age\u201d of detective fiction.\u00a0 I think the U.K. now needs a new club for writers \u2013 \u201cThe Creepy British Women Mystery Writers Club.\u201d\u00a0 Either it\u2019s something in the water over there or a national predilection, but it can\u2019t be a coincidence that writers like S.J. Bolton, Sophie Hannah, Jane Casey, Denise Mina, Mo Hayder, Tana French, Val McDermid (and I\u2019m sure there are others) are producing such genuinely disturbing books that they almost make you flinch to open them.\u00a0 All of these women are the direct descendants of the great Ruth Rendell, who could teach just about any of them the meaning of the words \u201cconcise<\/em>, yet creepy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Add to that list Elizabeth Haynes.\u00a0 Her first novel, Into the Darkest Corner, <\/em>gets under your skin and stays there.\u00a0 Her heroine is one Catherine Bailey, and you\u2019re inside her head as she lives her present life, where she obsessively makes sure her doors and windows are locked and closed correctly, to her previous life where she was a club hopping party girl, dating a man named Lee.<\/p>\n

We know there\u2019s something wrong with Lee as the book opens with him being questioned at his trial, but Haynes builds a careful portrait of a relationship that looks good on the outside and is so wrong on the inside.\u00a0 She contrasts this with the healthier relationship Catherine has in the present with her upstairs neighbor, a psychologist named Stuart.\u00a0 She can\u2019t really open herself up to Stuart because of her past, and he\u2019s incredibly patient with her.<\/p>\n

Haynes is excellent at illustrating how a smart, capable woman like Cathy could get involved with and end up being trapped by a man like Lee.\u00a0 It\u2019s an exquisite \u2013 and exquisitely painful \u2013 portrait of domestic abuse.\u00a0 One of the most difficult parts for Cathy is that her friends think Lee\u2019s just great \u2013 handsome, sexy, and so obviously devoted.\u00a0 Well, Haynes shows us all the ways that kind of devotion can be super creepy.<\/p>\n

This book is a little bit too long, and even though I raced through it, I think the author could have compressed both parts of Cathy\u2019s life to make the pace of the book a bit brisker, and it\u2019s very much a first novel in that sense, even to the point of having one or two loose threads when the story is finished.<\/p>\n

While I was reading it I was also almost horrified with myself for reading it \u2013 it\u2019s a truly awful and terrible story, but it has a giant redeeming quality.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure the author intended the feminist slant she gives her story, and it\u2019s ultimately a story of strength and survival.\u00a0 You can almost hear Gloria Gaynor singing \u201cI Will Survive\u201d in the background.\u00a0 And thank goodness. This is a harrowing, but definitely a compelling, read.\u00a0 You might want to make sure you read it when the lights are on, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know how back in the 30\u2019s and 40\u2019s there was a famous \u201cDetection Club\u201d, with members like Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh?\u00a0 That was the so-called \u201cgolden age\u201d of detective fiction.\u00a0 I think the U.K. now needs a new club for writers \u2013 \u201cThe Creepy British Women Mystery Writers Club.\u201d\u00a0 Either it\u2019s something in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6,14],"class_list":["post-971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-british","tag-psychological"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":973,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}