The Murder Of My Aunt by Richard Hull

 "My father was unfortunate in his financial affairs … My aunt was made my sole guardian and trustee. Everything was to be hers for life, but out of it she was to make me an allowance, the size of which she was to determine, as long as I lived with her or in any place of which she approved. Should I leave her, she was under no moral obligation to assist me, and at no time was she under any legal obligation. … So then at Llwll I must live while my aunt lives and insists on my staying there. If only, if only my aunt— No, I’m not going to think about that possibility. It makes my pen tremble, it makes the most frightful thoughts rise to my mind." - Richard Hull, The Murder of My Aunt

The Murder of My Aunt (1934) by Richard Hull is a classic from the golden age of mystery novels. It's a different sort of mystery where the murderer or would be murderer is known to the reader right from the beginning. The mystery is not who did it but will they be caught.  

And so when the Murder of My Aunt begins we are introduced to Edward Powell. It is the early 1930's and Edward is living with his aunt in the fictional town of Llwll located in a rural part of Wales. Edward narrates the book through his diary and he is not happy to be living in Llwll which he regards as a place lacking in culture and refinement.  

Edward would love to leave Llwll for London or Paris but his Aunt Mildred controls the purse strings and due to a clause in her will she gets to decide where Edward will live. Granted, Edward could decide to defy his aunt and move out anyway but he would need to get a job. And every job according to Edward including office work is beneath him: "The idea of my solemnly expressing a preference as to which compartment of hell I preferred, was too comic". 

Most people are beneath Edward as he sees it. He regards his neighbors as fools and people of no class and they don't take kindly to him either. But Edward though he detests his aunt does have a real respect for her intelligence. It's very much a battle of wills between these two and the drama is in who will end up being victorious

I enjoyed The Murder of My Aunt.  Edward is not a likeable character but he is fascinating and also funny in a dark humor sort of way. And I finished the book wondering how much Edward is to blame for the way his life turned out?   His parents died when he was a baby under mysterious circumstances and Aunt Mildred was not the best parenting figure.  

She puts Edward down referring to him in one climatic scene as “a sponger on my bounty who hasn’t even the decency to admit that he is sponging”.  And  more insults proceed from there. That would have been a hard woman to grow up with. And so Edward's sense of superiority and not trusting anyone is probably a defense mechanism. But the empathy ends when we learn about the violent ways Edward is planning to murder Mildred.

I recommend The Murder of My Aunt. You don't always have to be in the dark with regard to who the culprit is for a mystery novel to keep your attention.

Autumn Day - A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

     

                                                     

What I've Been Reading

What a great reading year I am having and Libby is a major reason why.  Here are two more books that kept me enthralled and it's going to be hard this year to compile my top ten list.  So many wonderful books to choose from:

"Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger,” left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines of her favourite literature. To make matters worse, the police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her closest confidant, her diary, the only outlet she has for her darkest suspicions and fears about the case. - Goodreads. 

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths (2018) won the 2020 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel.  An academic setting can be a great place for a mystery.  It's a tight knit community.  The teachers all know each other and there can be conflicts.  The Stranger Diaries is my first time reading Elly Griffiths and this novel held my interest all the way through.  

I would also describe The Stranger Diaries as a fair play mystery where the author leaves subtle clues throughout the book so that the reader has a chance to figure out who the murderer is before the novel comes to a close.  Agatha Christie is the gold standard for fair play mysteries and as with Anthony Horowitz, Elly Griffiths is a writer who is expertly following in that fine Christie tradition.

"The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent. Native peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers ... The system of American slavery grew increasingly powerful and expansive ... Bitter party divisions pitted elites favoring strong government against those, like Andrew Jackson, espousing a democratic populism for white men ... Taylor’s elegant history of this tumultuous period offers indelible miniatures of key characters from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. It captures the high-stakes political drama as Jackson and Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster contend over slavery, the economy, Indian removal, and national expansion" - Goodreads

America right now is a very divided country and to try and make sense of it all I have started an American History reading project.  My first book was American Revolution by Gordon S Wood which covered 1763 to 1789.  And for my next book I decided on American Republics: A Continental History of The United States (1783-1850) by the award winning historian Alan Taylor.  American Republics is a gripping, well written history book that will engage the reader.

And one theme that Alan Taylor brings home in American Republics is that America was a fragile union way before the Civil War era.  We were divided not only by north and south but by east and west.  We were also divided politically between those who wanted a strong central government and those that wanted more power to the states.

Alan Taylor details the violent early beginnings of the United States: slavery, Native American removal and the philosophy of Manifest Destiny.  It's not a pretty picture and Taylor tells it honestly.  But if we are to learn from history we cannot ignore the past.  On the plus side there are always people in every age who speak out and try to right the wrongs at often tremendous cost to themselves. American Republics tells theIr stories as well.  

Two very different books both I highly recommend

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

"You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?" he said.  "Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton, she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future – death and hell: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton’s attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day." - Wuthering Heights

It was twenty, maybe twenty-five years ago that I first read Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte.  I felt then that it was a brilliant, mesmerizing novel. I still feel that way.  And now, after a second reading, I think I understand it better in terms of what Emily Bronte was trying to say although there are many different interpretations among the critics.  The great classics defy a neat summing up.  One can only speculate and so here are my thoughts.

When I first read Wuthering Heights I wondered did Emily Bronte approve of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff's passionate all consuming and self destructive love?  And what to make of Heathliff's actions once his beloved Catherine dies?  Everyone around Heathcliff: his wife, his son, Catherine's husband and daughter and Hindley's son must be made to suffer and Heathcliff takes a sadistic pleasure and glee in causing their suffering. 

Are we to approve of Heathcliff's selfish and vengeful behavior because a cosmic love like his does not have to play by the rules of decency?  But now due to a second reading of Wuthering Heights I see the novel more clearly thanks in part to the character of Nellie Dean.  Nellie is the longtime housekeeper of the Earnshaws and Lintons.  Nellie narrates most of Wuthering Heights telling the story of these two families to a young traveller Mr Lockwood who is staying in the area and eager to learn the sad history of Wuthering Heights.  

Nellie begins her story 30 years prior when Heathliff a six year old orphan was found on the streets of Liverpool by Mr. Earnshaw who brought him home and raised him as a son.  Mr Earnshaw's daughter Catherine formed a bond with Heathcliff but her brother Hindley saw Heathcliff as a threat.  After Mr. Earnshaw dies Hindley becomes the young master of Wuthering Height and Heathcliff reduced to a badly treated servant.  But Catherine tries to protect Heathcliff.  She remains his loyal friend and companion and Heathcliff never forgets her love and kindness.  

That is the genesis of what happens at Wuthering Heights and the ensuing heartache, tragedy and cruelty that will follow Catherine Earnshaw's death. Nellie Dean is the voice of reason in this novel.  She is clear headed, intelligent, kind and a sounding board for the other characters as they tell her their stories.  Nellie is not perfect.  She can meddle and withhold information out of a desire to help which can backfire. But she is the moral center of Wuthering Heights and I believe the voice of the author.

So how did Emily Bronte feel about Heathcliff and Catherine?  Like Nellie I don't believe she approved of alot of their behavior, particularly Heathcliff.  But as with Nellie I think Bronte had compassion for Heathcliff.  And there is something elemental and eternal about Heathcliff and Catherine. like the moors themselves which Emily loved and wrote about so  brilliantly.

I highly recommend Wuthering Heights, the 5th novel for my classics challenge, reread a favorite classic, hosted by Ann at In Search Of Wonder

The Solitude Of Self: Thinking About Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick is one of my favorite writers.  She started out in the 1970's at the Village Voice writing about feminism and has gone on to write a critically acclaimed memoir (Fierce Attachments) and Vivian has written numerous essay collections particularly about writers and their novels. No one reviews a book quite like Vivian Gornick. In Oct 2020 for example she published an essay in the New Republic called "The Anti-Social Novelist in which she wrote about John Steinbeck and why his novels of the 1930's, particularly The Grapes of Wrath, made such an impact: 

"From the start, Steinbeck knew where his raw material was to be found and how he was to respond to it. As a boy, living in the Salinas Valley and working summers beside the migrants who performed the backbreaking labor of picking fruit and vegetables in season, he had seen firsthand the social and economic exploitation to which their lives were yoked ... Once the Great Depression overwhelmed the country, people of almost every stripe and condition began to feel haunted by the astonishing multiplication of the human sacrifice that Steinbeck had observed at home in ordinary times ... then came the Dust Bowl disaster, and the spectacle of thousands of dispossessed sharecroppers on the road, streaming west across Route 66 like refugees fleeing a foreign invasion. Steinbeck’s moment had come" - Vivian Gornick

My plan is to eventually read, or reread, all of Vivian Gornick's books and one I have just finished is The Solitude of Self: Thinking About Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2005). Its a slim book about 130 page and its not so much a biography as a meditation on the life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  Stanton, along with her colleague and friend Susan B Anthony, fought for women's suffrage starting in the 1840's and would not be deterred.  That meant travelling across the country for decades, organizing meetings and speaking to crowds ranging from thirty to thousands. It was not easy.  

Susan B Anthony did most of the traveling, organizing and speaking because Stanton had a large family and needed to be home more. But Stanton wrote many of the speeches that were delivered at women's rights conventions and published in newspapers. Stanton was a gifted writer and In 1892 she gave her most well known speech at the third annual meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Stanton was 76 by that time and so The Solitude of Self has a summing up quality about why Stanton, Anthony and many 19th century suffragists fought so long and hard so that women today can exercise our right to vote:

"No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency, they must know something of the laws of navigation." ... This is a solitude which each and every one of us has always carried with him, more inaccessible than the ice-cold mountains, more profound than the midnight sea; the solitude of self. Our inner being which we call ourself, no eye nor touch of man or angel has ever pierced … Such is individual life. Who, I ask you, can take, dare take on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?" - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1892 

Vivian Gornick's books and the history of the women' s suffrage movement are well worth checking out.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

As genres go, I am not a big romance reader, but Emily Henry is very popular right now. Reviewers have said that Henry does not write stereotypical romances. Her novels often poke fun at romantic tropes and are about more than just the romance. So I was curious.

Beach Read (2020) is set in the fictional town of North Bear Shores, Michigan. When the novel begins, we meet January Andrews, the heroine and narrator of the story.  January has moved to North Bear Shores because her father has passed away and left her his beach house.

January is a writer of romance novels. But life for the normally hopeful January has taken a depressing turn. She is grieving her father's death, but she was also stunned to discover at the funeral that he had a mistress throughout the years she was growing up. January believed in her parents' love for each other. Needless to say, she now has writer's block when it comes to her next romance novel, and her publisher is growing impatient.

Enter Augustus (Gus) Everett, who lives in the beach house next door to January. Gus is a successful writer of dark fiction. He too is dealing with writer's block. January and Gus knew each other from a creative writing class in college. They never dated and mostly avoided each other. But here they are ten years later as neighbors and neither is happy about it.

January and Gus are opposites. January's life has hit a rough patch, but she still believes in happy endings. Gus has never believed in happy endings. We find out why as the book progresses. January and Gus do not respect each other's choice of genre but they make a pact to get themselves out of their respective writer's blocks.  Gus will write a romance novel and January will write a book that doesn't end happily ever after. They have the whole summer to do it. I’ll leave it there.

For me, what worked in Beach Read was Gus Everett. Chemistry is so important in a romance novel. And though I wasn't smitten with January and Gus as a couple, I was smitten with Gus. He writes dark fiction for a reason tied to his childhood. I am drawn to this kind of backstory in a romantic hero, and Emily Henry has drawn him very well.

What worked less well for me was January. She is a sweet person, don’t get me wrong, but throughout much of the novel, she can’t seem to have a thought about Gus without rhapsodizing over what an Adonis he is, and that can get old.

That said, I’m rating Beach Read a four, because while romantic comedies are not for me, Emily Henry held my interest all the way through because of Gus.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

I loved Magpie Murders (2016) by Anthony Horowitz.  It's an international bestselling mystery novel that for me not only lived up to the hype but exceeded it.  This novel is definitely going on my end of year favorite books list.  And actually Magpie Murders would make my favorites list every year since I began my blog back in 2015.  I had such a wonderful reading experience. Five stars.

But now I have a dilemma.  How much to reveal about the plot of Magpie Murders without spoiling the mystery?  And so I used the Publisher's Weekly starred review of this novel as my guide.  And here are my bullet points detailing what this excellent mystery novel is about without revealing too many spoilers:

1.  Magpie Murders is set in the UK and it's a very original "dual-layered mystery". The protagonist Susan Ryeland is an editor at Cloverleaf Books.  And Susan when the novel begins is looking back on her experience editing Magpie Murders book 9 in Alan Conway's very successful Atticus Pund mystery series.  Susan tells us that she is a fan of Alan Conway's series. But Alan himself is very difficult to deal with and that's an opinion shared by everyone who knows him.  

2.  In the short intro Susan also tells us that being given Magpie Murders to edit changed her life and not in a good way.  She doesn't elaborate why.  

3.  The next part of the book is the novel Magpie Murders itself by the fictional Alan Conway.  The real author Anthony Horowitz does a masterful job.  He gives us about 200 pages of Alan Conway's novel set in Saxby-on-Avon 1955.  Atticus Pund the private investigator in Magpie Murders is a smart, decent man who has experienced alot of tragedy in his life.  He is a Holocaust survivor who after the war turned to detective work and he is a great one. 

4.  Atticus arrives in Saxby-on-Avon to solve the death of Mary Blakiston, the housemaid, and her employer Sir Magnus Pye.  Both reside at Pye Hall and died about a day apart from each other.  Mary's death seems to be an accident.  She fell down the stairs.  Magnus' death is no accident.  It's murder.  And Atticus is trying to figure out if the two deaths are related.  And for Magnus Pye who treated people poorly the list of suspects is considerable.

5.  So there I was with my journal noting clues about who could have murdered Mary and Magnus.  And then 200 pages into Alan's novel it comes to an abrupt halt and we hear from Susan again:

"Annoying, isn’t it? I got to the end of the manuscript on Sunday afternoon and rang Charles Clover immediately. Charles is my boss, the CEO of Cloverleaf Books, publishers of the Atticus Pünd series. My call went straight to voicemail. ‘Charles?’ I said. ‘What happened to the last chapter? What exactly is the point of giving me a whodunnit to read when it doesn’t actually say who did it? Can you call me back?’ ... I wondered why the manuscript was incomplete and I was annoyed that Charles hadn’t called me back. Later that night I found out why. I’d treated myself to a taxi and the driver had the radio on. It was the fourth item on the evening news. Alan Conway was dead"

6.  Susan goes on a search to find the missing chapters of Magpie Murders so that Cloverleaf can publish Alan Conway's book.  But increasingly it's looking to Susan like Alan Conway's suicide was murder.  And Susan has now become an amateur sleuth.  And are the clues to Alan's death embedded in his novel?

Anthony Horowitz has said that Magpie Murders is his tribute to Agatha Christie and the golden age of mysteries.  And I can see that connection. If you are a fan of Agatha Christie, mystery novels or great writing and plotting in general,  Magpie Murders is a must read.