From the outset, The Fiend has a creepy element which readers hadn't yet experienced in the fiction Margaret Millar had published theretofore. "She was about nine. Having watched them all impartially now for two weeks, Charlie had come to like her the best." You're afraid to ask, aren't you: why
When I began to read this series, I worried - needlessly - about keeping the characters straight: actually, the main character is Jalna itself. "Everything about the house had been put in perfect order. Workmen had been there to mend the roof, tighten the supports of the shutters, and give
Of all the Mavis Gallant stories which I've read this year, this one I yearn to discuss. With many of the others, company would be nice, not only to see what other readers might unearth in the layers, but simply for the company because the characters' loneliness and sadness is
It begins in darkness. South side of the Luxembourg Gardens "Louise, my sister, talked to Sylvie Laval for the first time on the stairs of our hotel on a winter afternoon. At five o’clock the skylight over the stairway and the blank, black windows on each of the
There were “few openings for women in the nineties” and, so, Mary Wakefield is forced to consider work as a governess in the 1890s. She is fortunate, in fact, that Ernest Whiteoak is seeking a governess for his brother’s young son (nine years old) and daughter (seven years old). Their mother
