Forgotten Book - A Private Inquiry

My recent Jessica Mann reading binge has continued with A Private Inquiry, first published in 1996. This came twenty years after The Eighth Deadly Sin, which I discussed here recently, and the story is very different – but there are two elements which are similar.

The first is the way Mann shifts viewpoints. In the early stages of the book, she does so to almost bewildering effect. We begin with a planning inquiry, overseen by Barbara Pomeroy, and it seems as though this will be her story. But then the focus shifts to one of the inquiry witnesses, Fidelis, with off-shoots involving her new young assistant Sophie, Barbara’s family life, and the dodgy entrepreneur whose planning application is under consideration in the opening pages. It’s a clever and unorthodox technique, which has the effect that you don’t really know what the book is ‘about’ in terms of the central mystery, for quite some time.

The second is the focus on women characters and the issue that concern them. We start with Barbara and her career, and before long her family life – which involves an impotent husband who takes a keen interest in a mysterious neighbour, and a child who has recovered from serious illness – becomes significant. Fidelis, who has had a double mastectomy, is a fascinating and complex character, who finds herself strangely attracted to, and envious of, young Sophie. Sophie herself is an intriguing character, a biker with an interest in psychology. And finally there is Buffy, the wife of the entrepreneur, who has gone missing in rather odd circumstances.

All these ingredients are mixed with subtle skill. I guessed some elements of the plot, but by no means all of it, despite the fact that the clues are fairly supplied, and for me, the suspense became truly gripping in the latter part of the story, as I began to realise the nature of the puzzle. An unusual and satisfying book, which unquestionably deserves to be better known.

Autobiographical crime fiction

‘Write what you know’ is a tired – and unnecessarily limiting - cliché of advice for budding writers, but like most clichés, it contains an element of common sense. However, the nature of fiction is that it is an imaginative form, and so to my mind, there is a limit to ‘writing what you know’ – because it’s good to escape from what you know, and to explore things you don’t really know at all. To take an obvious example, I’m fascinated by writing about murder, and motivations for murder. But I’ve never murdered anybody, and I don’t plan to. Honest.

Having said all that, it would be silly to deny that sometimes there is an element of autobiography in fiction, and this can sometimes creep in quite unintentionally. This is a point which Jessica Mann made when responding to my enthusiastic post about her book The Eighth Deadly Sin. A writer will often take elements from their own life and use them in fiction – but perhaps subtly, or dramatically, changed.

There is a great temptation, when reading a novel, to seek clues to the author’s personal life and thoughts. And sometimes the clues are fascinating. But this kind of amateur detective work is often liable to result in one jumping to the wrong conclusions. It’s fun to do, sometimes, but not to be taken too seriously.

With my own books, Harry Devlin shares a number of characteristics with me. He’s a lawyer based in Liverpool, who likes soccer, cricket, films and 60s pop music. But I never wanted him to be a portrayal of myself, so I wove in plenty of stuff that he and I do not share. For instance, he gets involved with criminal and divorce work, and I’d hate to do so. He also lives less in his imagination than I do, and as a result, he’s a lot braver than me. But I’ve never seen this as wish fulfilment – I created a life for him that I really would never want to have for myself!

With Daniel Kind, it’s different. He and I both come from the north of England, and went to Oxford, but otherwise our lives are dissimilar in countless respects. Sometimes the differences - as well as similarities, are written into the character without pre-planning. I still can’t understand why he got hooked up with people like Aimee and Miranda, and judging from emails I receive, nor can many of my readers!

Strangely enough, I’ve become more fascinated by Hannah Scarlett than by Daniel in recent years. I love exploring her life and psychology. The way women think is something else that fascinates me, even though sometimes it perplexes me. And I've written short stories from the perspective of historical characters, an American, and a gay politician. I’m just intensely curious about other people’s lives, and on the whole, fiction appeals to me much more as a means of exploring other lives than of presenting an autobiographical picture of myself.

The Eighth Deadly Sin

Jessica Mann is a British writer I’ve mentioned several times on this blog, and I’m surprised her work is not more widely discussed, as she has produced a number of very well-written novels over a long period. I’ve just read one that dates back to 1976, The Eighth Deadly Sin.

The set-up is intriguing. A sleazy lawyer (yes, believe it or not, they do exist!) meets an attractive woman at a party and they begin an affair. But she conceals her true identity from him. Gradually, his lust turns to love, but she doesn’t reciprocate. When he runs into significant financial trouble, he wants to turn to her for help. Trouble is, she has vanished, and his attempts to trace her run into a brick wall.

Then the viewpoint switches, and we start to see things from the woman’s perspective. And it becomes clear that Mann’s real preoccupation is not so much to do with the mystery of who the woman is, but the question of how she can escape from what stifles her in her everyday life. The rather unappealing and unfortunate lawyer fades increasingly into the background even though he remains, in a sense, pivotal to the plot.

There are crimes, a mystery, and ultimately a murder and a trial in this story, yet it is far removed from a conventional crime novel. If you are interested in the way women think and behave - and who is not? - I’d say that you are likely to find this unusual book worth tracking down. There aren’t too many fireworks, but the story-line does provoke thought.