
by Celia Fremlin
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1959
Genre: suspense
Pages: 249
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of women
While sisters Meg and Isabel relax with their children on their seaside holiday, their older half-sister Mildred moves into the cottage where her bigamist husband Paul was arrested for the attempted murder of his first wife. First published in 1959 this psychological thriller follows the women as Paul's release from prison makes them ever more unnerved.
I was pointed in the direction of Celia Fremlin by a friend’s Goodreads timeline. It was honestly the cover that made me sit up a take notice – and when I read the plot summary, I was completely sold. I ended up buying a 3 book set of the Faber & Faber reprints, which includes this one, The Hours Before Dawn and The Long Shadow. So far, I’ve only read Uncle Paul. All of the covers are wonderful.
I don’t quite know where to slot this book, genre-wise. It’s not really a crime/mystery. It’s also not really a thriller. It’s fairly suspenseful, but in a 1950’s and 1960’s way, not in a 2020’s way. The pacing is fairly slow, and the ending took me by surprise, but didn’t shock me.
The main character is Meg, the youngest of three sisters, who is basically summoned to the English coast by the middle sister, Isabel, because the oldest sister, Mildred, seems to have taken leave of her senses by renting a dumpy, remote cottage where her imprisoned (bigamist) husband, Uncle Paul, attempted to kill his first wife a decade or so prior. So, yeah, that’s quite the set up.
Meg is a career girl, with a new boyfriend named Freddy, who behaves in some frankly bizarre ways throughout the course of the book. We really aren’t to know what to make of him. And the middle sister, Isabel, is also married to a man in the Navy, and about whom she seems to know basically nothing. Meg seems to be the only character with even a lick of sense or independence.
Once the characters are all assembled at the coast, the suspense begins to build because no one is talking about Uncle Paul, but everyone is thinking about him. Has he been released? Is he looking for revenge on the three sisters who seemingly betrayed him? Is Freddy Uncle Paul in disguise? Is Isabel’s husband Uncle Paul in disguise? Is everyone losing their ever-lovin’ minds (the answer to this is yes).
If you cross Elizabeth Taylor (the author, not the actress) with Patricia Highsmith, you might end up with Celia Fremlin. If that sounds intriguing, check her out.