Vanishing Point: Where Intimacy Turns to Violence

by Pat Flower

Cruel, egotistical Noel, a thistledown, a cheap balloon whisking willy-nilly away from the piercing, deflating needle of her fine judgment. Geraldine needs to keep her cool through the highs and the lows, but it's maddening when Noel keeps missing the point. The trek up north was grueling, yet every plant and bird she saw, every sweaty, purposeless mile she crossed, convinced her that they were made for each other. Back home in Sydney, when there's still a gap between them, he has to be made to see.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Patricia Mary Bryson Flower, crime novelist and television playwright, was one of four children of James Bullen, hotel porter, and his wife Jessie Sarah, née Bryson. Pat left Worthing County High School in 1928 when the family emigrated to Australia. In the 1940s she worked as secretary for the New Theatre League in Sydney, writing radio plays and revue sketches in her spare time. She married Cedric Arthur Flower, a painter, on 4 March 1949. While they were in England from 1950 to 1955, she began to write crime novels, the first of which, Wax Flowers for Gloria, appeared in 1958. She published at least one crime novel every two years until 1975, moving from detective stories such as Goodbye Sweet William (1959)—featuring Inspector Swinton, her Australian 'Maigret' character—to psychological thrillers, among them Cobweb (1972), Slyboots (1974) and Crisscross (1976). Some of her books were translated into French and German.

Back in Sydney, Pat Flower worked as an advertising copywriter until 1963 when she began to write full time. By 1961 she was also writing film and television scripts. Her play The Tape Recorder, a Pinteresque piece for an actress and tape recorder, was televised by the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1966 and produced in colour by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1967. An adaptation of her novel, Fiends of the Family 1966), for A.B.C. television won an 'Awgie' award in 1969 from the Australian Writers' Guild. In the late1960s some of her television plays were screened in the A.B.C.'s 'Australian Playhouse' series. She also wrote scripts for commercial television. In 1971 the Flowers again visited Europe where Pat gathered further material for her suspense novels. Returning to Sydney in 1972, they took separate flats at Paddington, so that she could concentrate on her writing.

Pat Flower was an amusing companion with a dry wit, but suffered from insomnia and arthritis for many years and was increasingly isolated as her health deteriorated. The two sides of her writing—comedy and horror—reflected aspects of her personality, with her novels becoming progressively darker. On the night of 1/2 September 1977 she died from the effects of poisoning by pentobarbitone, intentionally taken. Her husband survived her.

Scholarly interest in crime writing led to the republication of Vanishing Point (1993) and several critics have championed Flower's later novels as among the best of the genre in Australia.

--condensed from the entry by Susan Lever in the Australian Dictionary of Biography,
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/flowe...

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

VANISHING POINT by Pat Flower was originally published in 1975, and re-released by Wakefield Press as part of their Crime Classics series in 1993. It is the first of three important thrillers written by this author before her suicide in 1978.

The Wakefield edition has an afterword written by editors Michael J. Tolley and Peter Moss which is well worth reading for some background to the author herself, as well as their take on the book. It includes this quotation from the author:

"People sometimes ask as they edge away, Why Murder? I'm absorbed in characters, not in murder. In ordinary people a bit round the bend. I like to follow the effects on my characters of heredity, environment and circumstance, and reveal in action, reaction and interaction the instability which might in real life go unnoticed but in my books is fatal. For my crackpots, murder is the only way out. Instead of moving to another town, or trying sweet reason, they resort to the "final solution". And find, of course, that it isn't."

VANISHING POINT is most definitely a book about character. A character who, it becomes obvious, is more than just a bit around the bend. This central character - Geraldine - is completely, utterly and ruthlessly obsessed. Whilst her main obsession will always be with herself - the way that she sees the world and the way that she believes others see her; she imposes that obsession on her husband Noel, who would never quite live up to her expectations.

The portrayal of Geraldine is the core genius of this book. The book is told in her own voice surely making her a sympathetic character - "spinning" the story in her own favour. Geraldine is convinced of the truth of her life, her perceptions and her behaviour. She believes fully in herself. She has some awareness that other's find her a difficult character but that is obviously as a result of their short-comings. Her opinions are absolutely sacrosanct, her behaviour exemplary. Everything that happens in Geraldine's life is commentated on, observed by, understood and rationalised by Geraldine, yet she cannot engender sympathy in the reader. Her force of belief in herself makes her a disconcertingly creepy and sinister figure - myopic and self-involved, unwilling to entertain any contrary opinions (most likely totally and absolutely unaware of contrary opinions), Geraldine can't entertain the idea that she can possibly be at fault. That her behaviour might be questioned by others. There are no adverse reactions that cannot be dismissed. But the reader is watching Geraldine misreading situations, misunderstanding people's reactions and wilfully refusing to recognise what is happening around her by simply ignoring any inconvenient facts. It's a masterly writing effort - it's fascinating whilst also being ever so slightly repellant.

The book is also a story about murder - but understanding Geraldine makes it conceivable that murder is a boring inconvenience. Geraldine must retain total control over her life and if removing a few tediums along the way is no more taxing than any other boring little daily task - then so be it. Geraldine isn't so much a woman without a conscience as a woman completely without conscious.

There are some sparse hints of Geraldine's background - there is possibly a reason why she is like she is. But the background, or the causes for Geraldine's personality are not the point of this book. This isn't a why or even much of a how story. It's a stunning reminder of how unaware people can be about their affect on others. It reminds the reader of the nature of obsession and the way that it can override all logic. All reasoned perception, all mitigating behaviours are gone as Geraldine encourages obsession to rule.

Unfortunately Pat Flower doesn't seem to be very well known in Australia which is pity. Whilst some of her earlier books are less interesting, more by way of mainstream entertaining crime fiction (not that there is anything wrong with that!), her final three thrillers have often been remarked upon as fascinating examples of their type. It's a pity that they aren't more widely read. I remember reading her final three books when they were first released, but I suspect I wasn't quite old enough at that stage to understand the full impact of them. I certainly remember finding Geraldine a discomforting but somewhat illuminating character. Reading it again 30 something years on - the full impact of how Geraldine has created and reinforced and fought for her own reality is sobering.

[Kerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in 1974, a thriller set around a trip from Sydney to Cape York. I found this a demanding read. It is written from the point of view of Geraldine Blaine who sees herself very differently to the ways other people see her. Her husband Noel really marries Geraldine for her money, which she never quite understands. By the time they undertake the trip North, Geraldine's hold on reality has become very stretched.

Eventually Noel drives Geraldine to an extreme act, but she thinks she has got away with it.

The final pages of the Wakefield Crime Classic version of this novel contains a thought provoking review by editors Michael J. Tolley and Peter Moss.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Australian psychological thriller from 1975, focusing much more on character than action, with 30 year-old wealthy wife Geraldine, jealous, self-obsessed and unaware of how others see her, going on a camping trip to Cape York with her now distant husband and his friends, before returning to Sydney and murder and then a return to the Peninsula with another friend of her husband’s in a suspenseful culmination to an involving story. Brief but intense, with good descriptions of tropical north Queensland assisting the plot