Morag Joss and The Night Following

Morag Joss is by no means a prolific author. The Night Following is only her sixth book since the first appeared back in 1996. I’ve never met her at any writer’s event, and I don’t know a great deal about her – but one thing I do know is that she is a novelist of genuine distinction, currently working in the borderland between what, in this age of categories, might be described as ‘psychological suspense’ and ‘literary fiction’.

I thought her award-winning Half Broken Things was superb, right up there with the best of Barbara Vine; it was also very well done on television. The Night Following was short-listed for an Edgar, and is a fine novel, although to describe it as a crime novel is pushing the definition of crime fiction to the limit. But that doesn’t really matter – what does matter is that it’s a haunting and impressive piece of work.

Briefly, the catalyst for a strange series of events is the unnamed narrator’s discovery that her husband is having an affair. In a state of shock, she drives off and kills an elderly female cyclist. Rather than giving herself up, she becomes obsessed by the dead woman’s husband, Arthur, and when she starts to hang around his home, he deludes himself that his wife has returned from the grave. Interwoven into the unsettling narrative, seen from the perspective of both the main characters, is an unpublished manuscript written by the dead woman, which tells a disturbing tale of the past. Gradually, the narrator assumes the role of Arthur’s wife….

I reviewed the book for Tangled Web UK and explained that, for all my admiration of it, I thought there were some flaws, not least the implausibility of the narrator’s behaviour. But it often happens, I think, that when an author takes chances, as Joss does here, not all of them come off – it’s a sign of ambition, and often a sign of a very good book. And The Night Following certainly is a very good book.

Half Broken Things

It is very difficult to work in the same territory as Barbara Vine and not be completely overshadowed. But Morag Joss managed it with a quite magnificent novel, worthy of Vine at her best, Half Broken Things. It’s one of the best novels of psychological suspense that I have read in the last ten years.

So I approached the televised version of the book – which appeared on the small screen last year; I’m characteristically late in catching up with it – with mixed feelings. I wanted the tv programme to be as good as the novel, but doubted whether it would be possible.

Happily, my fears were unfounded. Thanks to a superb cast, led by the delightful and compelling Penelope Wilton, here at her considerable best, the screen version was gripping from start to finish. This is a wonderful story of self-deception, involving Wilton as a slightly barmy house-sitter who ‘adopts’ an odd couple who have only just met, and the young woman’s soon to be born baby. What follows is poignant and terrible.

If you haven’t read the book, or seen the tv adaptation, you have a treat in store.