A few years ago I marked the passing of legendary actress Joan Fontaine by curling up on a lazy Sunday afternoon with two of my favorite films: first Suspicion, then Rebecca. Both films cover similar territory. A shy, unsure-of-herself young woman marries a charming gentleman who sweeps her away from the dull life she’s known. Trouble isn’t far behind. The heroine of Suspicion comes to believe that her handsome husband (Cary Grant!) is planning to kill her for her money. And in Rebecca, as almost anyone of my generation would know, the nameless narrator battles the oppressive memory of her new husband’s seemingly perfect first wife. Both struggles play out with oodles of atmospheric suspense and end with the heroines growing into more knowing, confident women. Both happily married, I might add.
Though I passed a pleasant afternoon, my mood plummeted when Rebecca’s credits rolled. I experienced a sense of loss, even grief. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore, I thought, quickly followed by, Could they make them? Should they?
I’m revisiting this issue because I’m beginning to write in a new genre.
Interrupted Aria and the rest of the books in the Tito Amato Mystery Series are traditionally plotted historical mysteries set in the dazzling, decadent world of 18th-century Venice. While I loved immersing myself in this milieu to create puzzles for the reader to also enjoy, I feel drawn to write a gothic suspense novel, against the backdrop of belle epoque Paris, no less. I know I’m not the first to take a crack at crafting a gothic that will appeal to modern sensibilities. Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale is often mentioned as an updated gothic. I read this book with relish and feel Setterfield got it just about right in tone. Not sure about the plot, though. The twin plot is an old chestnut, and three little girls who look just alike is a bit much. I also never felt as grounded in time and space as I should’ve been. I’m gradually reading my way through Kate Morton, Wendy Webb, and several other authors who’ve been suggested to me.
Meanwhile my thoughts travel back to the films mentioned above. I have to admit that some of the scenes were cringe worthy. Early on, the heroines—even the word seems terrifically dated—allowed others to berate them and make decisions for them without standing up for themselves one iota. When the brooding Maxim de Winter is showing Rebecca’s narrator around Monte Carlo and he becomes angry for no apparent reason, the girl immediately blames herself and apologizes. When they finally reach Manderley, she is such a mouse that she’s afraid of removing Rebecca’s stationary from the desk that is now hers. To top it off, the endings of both films seem as sappily invested in happily-ever-after as a childhood fairy tale.
So why do I love these films so much? Alfred Hitchcock directed both, so there’s a clue right there. But excellent film making isn’t the entire story. Realizing that both films were based on popular novels of the time, I analyzed further.
Rebecca, as penned by Daphne du Maurier, epitomized a certain genre of the mid-twentieth century, the type that featured cover art of a woman running away from a mansion wreathed in fog. On a seaside cliff. On the night of a full moon. You get the picture. Other talented authors of the genre were Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart. There was a time when I devoured everything these authors and their better imitators wrote. We called the books “gothics” back then, and the genre gave more than a passing nod to such acknowledged classics as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Rebecca was probably the genre’s most outstanding representative.
Despite all this, du Maurier was reportedly puzzled by all the fuss over Rebecca and said that she had simply intended to write a novel that was a study in jealousy. Though few young women of today are as innocent as the narrator of Rebecca, this unnamed character is presented in a believable and sympathetic way. We root for her to find the motivation to grow into a confident wife because, as human beings, we’ve all been jealous and youthfully inept at some time in our lives. The manipulative housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is also powerfully written. Her diabolical nature perfectly balances the innocence of the narrator. It’s these characters that keep us turning the pages.
The novel that inspired Suspicion wasn’t labeled a “gothic” upon publication. Before the Fact was billed as a novel of psychological suspense. I wonder if the difference in named genre occurred because the author was a man, journalist and detective novelist Anthony Berkeley Cox using the pen name of Frances Iles. The gothics of old seemed to be mostly female author territory. Interestingly enough, the book ‘s plot didn’t culminate in the film’s happy ending. The Cary Grant character turned out to be a murderer after all. RKO Radio Pictures reportedly changed the ending because the producers shied away from presenting the much-loved Cary Grant as a cold-blooded killer. Being new to Hollywood and lacking his later clout, Hitchcock was forced to knuckle under. The book’s interplay between the murderer and the woman who fell in love with him has a more authentic feel to me.
Pulling all my musings together, I’ve decided the greatest challenge in writing a novel of gothic sensibilities that is set in a historical period but of interest to modern readers involves the characters. Deep research and becoming thoroughly familiar with the social and cultural mindset of the period is key. Basic human emotions don’t change, but how we interpret and manage them often does. Avoiding cliché and writing true to the characters can present expanded emotional horizons for the reader.
I’m drawn to explore this new path. A dark and suspenseful plot, a crumbling mansion with plenty of room for hidden secrets, and characters that play out their own criminal drama with little or no attention from the police—all these elements are calling out to me. So I’m reading and making notes and writing my own snippets here and there. We’ll see if the path eventually leads me to a mysterious old house in Paris.
Beverle Graves Myers, November 3, 2022
