Forgotten Book - Appointment with Yesterday

Celia Fremlin was a remarkable woman, and a remarkable writer. I had the pleasure to meet her briefly in the early 1990s, at a CWA conference, although I didn't have the chance to talk to her at great length. I've admired her writing for a long time, though I haven't read all her books by any means, and I've only recently caught up with her 1972 mystery Appointment with Yesterday.

This is a really terrific novel. It's a story of domestic suspense, but it's the wittiest example of that sub-genre that I can recall having read. There are many acute insights and touches of humour, which relieve a rather dark storyline, and make the whole book entertaining as well as perceptive. It's at least as good as her excellent debut, The Hours Before Dawn, which won an Edgar.

This is the story of a woman who calls herself Milly Barnes. We know that isn't her real name, and we also know that she is on the run, fleeing from something terrible. What has she done, why is she so afraid? Milly can be exasperating, and can seem weak and rather stupid, but gradually Fremlin reveals the circumstances that have shaped her personality, and our sympathy for her grows.

Milly runs off to a seaside town where she takes a number of part-time jobs as a cleaner. Fremlin herself had worked in domestic service, and her presentation of the relations between employer and employed is as enjoyable as it is plausible. Meanwhile, the tension mounts, since someone is trying to find Milly. Who can it be, and what do they want? I can strongly recommend this excellent novel. It deserves to be much better-known.

Forgotten Book - The Hours Before Dawn

Celia Fremlin's Edgar-winning debut novel, The Hours Before Dawn, earned great acclaim on its first publication in 1958, and it only qualifies as a Forgotten Book by virtue of its age. Many readers are well aware of Fremlin as a gifted novelist of suspense, and this book, along with a few others such as The Spider Orchid, retains its appeal to this day. It certainly should never be forgotten.

My edition, which dates back to the 80s, is a paperback which benefits from an interesting introductory note by Fremlin herself. I always find such pieces interesting. She describes how the idea of the story came from having her second baby, who used to scream through the night. A similar problem is encountered by Louise, the central figure in her book, whose third child, a little boy who can't get to sleep at night, causes increasing difficulties which are exacerbated by the arrival in their suburban London home of a female lodger, who seems to be something of a woman of mystery.

Louise isn't helped by the selfishness of her husband, and before long she starts to fear for her marriage. The husband doesn't seem to be very sympathetically portrayed, but Fremlin denied that she regarded him as some sort of monster. I'm not sure that her intentions with regard to his characterisation were perfectly implemented, but his behaviour contributes to Louise's sense of isolation and fear, and helps to build the tension.

This is a short book, with a relatively straightforward plot, and the device Fremlin uses for revealing what is happening to Louise strikes me as a little clumsy. This was, after all, a beginner's book. But it has a raw power which I find impressive, and well deserved its success. Today's experts in psychological suspense often write long, complex book, but this relatively slender and early work in the field stands comparison with the best of them.

Celia Fremlin

I was sorry to learn that Celia Fremlin, a British suspense novelist of genuine distinction, died earlier this summer. I only found out because I read an obituary notice by Rebecca Tope in the CWA’s private members’ newsletter. If her passing has been discussed in the newspapers, or online (and surely it must have been?) then I have missed it.

One thing is for sure – Fremlin’s work is not talked about too much these days. But it deserves to be, because she was a class act. To my regret, I only met her once, very briefly, at a CWA conference in the early nineties. Her sixteenth and last novel appeared not long after, in 1994, when she was 78.

The lack of attention paid to Fremlin’s work is all the more sobering when one reflects on the immediate impact she made when her first novel, The Hours Before Dawn, appeared in 1958. It’s a good title and an even better book – it went on to win an Edgar. My copy is a 1988 reprint, which benefits from a pithy preface by Fremlin. The story involves a harassed mother, Louise Henderson, who lives in suburbia and who takes in a lodger with unexpected consequences. The domestic milieu is very well drawn, and Fremlin was one of those who led the way in developing the psychological suspense set in recognisable everyday surroundings.

It’s a long time since I read Fremlin, but although I can’t remember much about them, I do know that The Spider-Orchid and Appointment with Yesterday were good books, written by a novelist both sensitive and intelligent. Are any readers of this blog Fremlin fans? I hope so, for she should not be forgotten.