The parasite person

by Celia Fremlin

Celia Fremlin's twelfth novel, originally published in 1982, tells the tale of Martin Lockwood, a man stuck between a wife and a mistress and frustrated by his faltering doctoral thesis on depression. Then he encounters Ruth Ledbetter, a smart, unbalanced, potentially dangerous young woman who soon insinuates herself into Martin's life, his home - and his PhD.

'Britain's equivalent to Patricia Highsmith, Celia Fremlin wrote psychological thrillers that changed the landscape of crime fiction for ever: her novels are domestic, subtle, penetrating - and quite horribly chilling.' Andrew Taylor

'Celia Fremlin is an astonishing writer, who explores that nightmare country where brain, mind and self battle to establish the truth. She illuminates her dark world with acute perception and great wit.' Natasha Cooper

185 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Celia was born in Kingsbury, now part of London, England. She was the daughter of Heaver Fremlin and Margaret Addiscott. Her older brother, John H. Fremlin, later became a nuclear physicist. Celia studied at Somerville College, Oxford University. From 1942 to 2000 she lived in Hampstead, London. In 1942 she married Elia Goller, with whom she had three children; he died in 1968. In 1985, Celia married Leslie Minchin, who died in 1999. Her many crime novels and stories helped modernize the sensation novel tradition by introducing criminal and (rarely) supernatural elements into domestic settings. Her 1958 novel The Hours Before Dawn won the Edgar Award in 1960.

With Jeffrey Barnard, she was co-presenter of a BBC2 documentary “Night and Day” describing diurnal and nocturnal London, broadcast 23 January 1987.

Fremlin was an advocate of assisted suicide and euthanasia. In a newspaper interview she admitted to assisting four people to die.[1] In 1983 civil proceedings were brought against her as one of the five members of the EXIT Executive committee which had published “A Guide to Self Deliverance” , but the court refused to declare the booklet unlawful.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia...]

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I don't want to be of enormous help to you. Why should I? I'm the one who attempted suicide - right? And so I'm the one who ought to be helped. Not you."

This is perhaps one of the snarkiest of Fremlin's books, giving us a despicable and hopeless male protagonist in Martin. Divorced from his bullied wife, now having recently moved in with his erstwhile mistress, the fragrant Helen (why, Helen? why?), he is rude and exploitative to his students and the people he interviews for a stalled PhD thesis. The book opens with a heartless interview of a patient who has attempted suicide... but keep your eye on Ruth Ledbetter, the 19 years old who won't take any nonsense from Martin as this is not the last we'll see of her.

It's hard to think of anyone else other than Fremlin who could have written this book. In lots of ways it's a continuation of the story she's been telling since the 1950s of women exploited and used in the domestic sphere, of hapless and sometimes deliberately manipulative men who are toxic to their fingertips. But this is also gloriously funny in exposing Martin for the selfish, illusionary fool that he is. With a decent first degree, he's now 40 and in a dead-end lectureship at a minor tech college and is kidding everyone he can write a decent PhD thesis. But he has no ideas, he's too lazy and slapdash to actually do any reading or research and he's hideously inept at interviewing subjects given his total lack of empathy and superiority complex.

So when someone else comes along and hands him the theory of the parasite person on a plate, Martin thinks he's made... but, don't we know, we should be careful what we wish for!

Fremlin unravels this story with consummate ease and while it's not hard to see where it's going, it's hard to stop reading once you start. Wry, snarky and chilling, this is a domestic psychological thriller in a genre that Fremlin helped to invent.

[Emma]

This is a bit more uneven than some of Celia Fremlin's others. As is often the case with her books though, it's the thematic detours and character sketches which make the book worth reading even when the plot seems to have been dropped for a few pages. The way a new girlfriend can burden herself with domestic duties by being competitive with an ex-wife provides a lot of amusement, as does the desperation of a once brilliant academic. And the conspiracy that closes in around them is all the more shocking because their worries throughout most of the book have been so ordinary.

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this her 12th novel, Celia Fremlin, the master of domestic suspense novels, for the third novel in a row strays from her typical housewife protagonist and, for the second time, has a male protagonist.

Martin Lockwood, college lecturer at a “run-of-the-mill polytechnic” and the protagonist of this novel, is as feckless a male as was Adrian, the protagonist male in her 10th novel, The Spider-Orchid. Feckless sems to be the standard trait for Fremlin’s male characters as Fremlin also portrays her female lead characters’ male partners as relatively clueless schmucks. Fremlin male leads, unlike her usual female leads, are neither heroic nor sympathetic.

Martin has left his nagging wife Beatrice and moved in with his supportive, loving and devoted mistress Helen. Helen is supportive of Martin as he tries to prepare a case study on depression to obtain his PhD in Social Psychology, which he is seeking even though he is over 40. It becomes clear that the exceedingly self-centered Martin is unworthy of Helen or anyone’s devotion.

Even with Helen’s support, Martin is blocked and spinning his wheels on his case study until Ruth, one of his subjects in the depression-study and an ex-psychology student, thrusts herself into his life. Ruth’s provides extraordinary input to Martin’s case study, changing its focus to the existence of a Parasite Person to the subject depressives and conducting all the subject interviews. Her efforts inspire Martin to unexpected heights of productivity. But Ruth’s actions have the reader wondering if she is just forceful and talented or dangerously psychotic.

I really enjoyed the fairly unusual ‘thriller’ storyline and Fremlin’s creative source of dramatic tension. My favorite parts of the story involved Fremlin’s sharp insights into academics, academic research, male/female relations and social psychology.

Unfortunately, the denouement of the story did not work that well. It had some dramatic events and an intriguing final sentence but felt rushed, unrealistic and incomplete, especially with the characters.

Despite the story and characterization flaws, I still enjoyed the read. I will rate this Fremlin as 4 stars (3.7 rounded up to 4) rather than 3 stars due to my appreciation of Fremlin’s creative ‘thriller’ subject and her razor-sharp human and social insights.

MY RATINGS FOR FREMLINS
(Instead of rating 3.5 stars I rate at 4.3, 3.7 and 3.3 stars for better rounding).

4.3 - The Long Shadow
4.3 – The Spider Orchid
4.3 – The Jealous One
4.3 – The Hours Before Dawn
4.0 - Prisoner’s Base
4.0 – The Trouble Makers
3.7 - Uncle Paul
3.7 – The Parasite Person
3.7 – With No Crying
3.7 – Ghostly Stories
3.3 – Seven Lean Years
3.3 – Appointment With Yesterday

[Reet · Rating 3 out of 5]

The parasite person is not who we think it is, at first. This psychologist, Martin, who is a lecturer at some mundane university, succeeds in getting a year off, in order to finish his PhD: writing his thesis. With all this time on his hands, he's got writer's block. One day he is interviewing a young woman who had attempted suicide half-heartedly, and this young woman will change his life. Ruth ledbetter comes barging into his house in the middle of the night, telling him her theory about parasite persons: persons who feed off a depressed person. She gradually enthuses martin, who decides to make it the subject of his thesis.
But the real parasite person is Martin. He left his wife Beatrice because she was boring, and took up with and moved in with helen. Helen is a school teacher; she is also a foolish woman. Here is this boring man, and she serves his every need, shortening her sleep intervals, typing up all his notes and interviews, and for what -- to serve this man-baby?
1982, Hardcover, Doubleday and Company
P.55:
" 'I won't be a minute,' she assured him soothingly, though in fact she would be several minutes, the electric kettle having conked out and the teapot still being full of yesterday's cold tea-leaves. 'would you like some biscuits as well?'
'if you like,' Martin muttered, meaning 'yes, only I don't want to be the one who's being demanding,' and buried his face in the pillow, an invalid, sick with insomnia, and entitled to be waited on by those who are not thus sick.
Helen, grovelling under the bed for her slippers, wondered, fleetingly, was it always like this? Did happiness always mean not getting enough sleep?
A most cursory survey of her own past experiences would seem to indicate that the answer was, indubitably, 'yes.' When you were happy, you got home after midnight. when you were happy, you had to get up and wash your hair before breakfast, because there was no other time. When you were happy, you spent the early hours of the night making love, and very often the early hours of the morning too. At those periods of your life when you have a man to sleep with, you don't actually sleep much at all. This was something that no one ever told you, you had to find it out gradually, for yourself."

Ruth even barges in on beatrice, Martin's ex-wife. Beatrice calls up Helen to complain to her.
P.100:
"...' "a parasite person," that's what she called me, if you please! A parasite! Me. And it's not even as if I was getting the bloody alimony yet, it may be months, my solicitor says! A parasite, indeed! How would you like it, sly, foul-mouthed little bitch hardly out of her teens standing there in your own drawing room calling you names like that?'
'well, I wouldn't,' said Helen reasonably. 'I'd be very annoyed. I'd ask them what they meant by it -- what it was all about? Look, beatrice, she must have said something... Didn't you even find out her name..?'
'Oh, her name! Now what's the use of that, I'd like to know, when I'd never heard of her in my life before? Ruth, she called herself. Ruth-bloody-leadswinger or something of the sort, in case that leaves you any the wiser, it doesn't me..!'
In Helen's mind, everything suddenly clicked into place. the ledbetter interview. Ruth ledbetter, the girl Martin had interviewed in hospital after her suicide attempt. So that's who it was who turned up so mysteriously in the middle of the night, had seemed so mysteriously familiar. It was her style of speech that was familiar, not her person: all those slangy abbreviations and throwaway americanisms that had been so wearisome to decipher and transcribe."

But Helen is troubled by what she learns from typing up the interviews. She happens upon, in her school staff break room, a newspaper where the obituaries section catches her eye. Two of the names in the obituary section are names of people that Ruth interviewed, having taken over that part of Martin's work.
And here is one more instance where we see what a pendejo Martin is:
P.130-1:
"Two people have died. The words would not leave her alone, hammering away inside her skull in and out of season. Two of Martin's research subjects, for the interviewing of whom he, martin, was strictly responsible, even though he might choose to delegate the job -- two of them were dead. He, and no one else, would be held responsible -- and rightly -- for any malpractice that might be going on.
Reluctant though she was to re-open the recent quarrel -- already Martin seemed to have got over his burst of ill-temper and was humming contentedly as he moved around the room assembling glasses, bottles, ice, for their usual evening drinks -- Helen knew she must speak. It could not be left like this. It just could not.
'Darling,' she began -- and already her voice was so full of nervousness, reluctance and downright fear that the innocent little word stopped him in his tracks. He stood, tray of glassware in hand, as if in front of a camera. 'Darling, I don't want to upset anything, I'm as thrilled as you are that it's all going so well -- that Ruth's getting you such marvelous interviews. but had you thought at all -- I mean, it's quite usual in these surveys, isn't it? -- had you thought of the odd call-back on the people she's interviewed? Just as a matter of routine, I mean, the way they do it in market research -- the supervisor calls back on, say, 1 in 10 of the addresses just to..'
'just to what?' martin's voice was so cold, so menacing, that Helen found herself shrinking back into her corner of the settee, unable to look at him.
'And since when have I needed a little o-level schoolmarm to explain to me the proper way to run a survey? I might remind you, helen my dear, that I was working on public opinion surveys -- including market research projects -- when you were hardly out of primary school! When I need you to instruct me on the elementary principles of this branch of social science I shall ask you, thank you very much!' "

Martin is a sloppy, lazy researcher. And he is so moronic that he thinks he can actually "pull the wool" over the doctoral committee's eyes:
P.159-60:
"Keeping up the pace: that was the problem now. The heady joys of success -- the euphoria, the incredulous Joy -- were all that he had ever dreamed. What he hadn't quite envisaged was the way you had to keep at it to fulfill the ever-mounting, ever flattering demands to which, in his jubilation, he kept saying 'yes'... And 'yes'... And again 'yes.' Already he was committed to an article on 'parapsychology and the parasite person'; and another, for a business magazine, 'parasite persons in management.' most urgent of all, there was a piece for readers roundabout on 'the parasite person in myth and legend.' they were actually going to pay him for it, and in his headlong delight he said that he could produce it by the weekend.
Myths. There must be hundreds of myths illustrating this theme.. thousands of them. Why spend hours -- days -- weeks -- pouring over those weighty historical tomes that filled shelf after shelf after shelf of the humanities wing of the library? One myth is as good as another. Anyone can make up a myth. Slipping a new sheet into the typewriter, he found his fingers almost doing it for him:
'there is a story' -- (well, there is now) -- of two bullocks who broke loose from the abattoir and went careering around the town, to the terror of the population. No one dared try and catch them, everyone rushed inside and bolted and barred their doors. Within half an hour, both bullocks were back at the abattoir, lowing to be allowed in...' [um, no.]
Where will I say this story come from? Hell, why should I say anything? A story like that wouldn't be copyright, even if it was genuine. If they lean on me about it, I'll say venezuela. Who wants to go to venezuela? It's delectable places, like yugoslavia, that you have to be careful about, where proving you wrong can be combined with a delightful holiday, sea-bathing and scuba-diving and the rest." [Um, no.]

The ending was fabulous. I absolutely loved it. Here is true karma visited on Martin the pendejo. A must read for Misandrists.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had its promises. It had its savoury parts but the lack of a proper story, believable characters and the Fremlinian real-istic touch just bog down any enjoyment in reading.

It's a story in its primeval cocoon, a tired sketch maybe sent out to fulfil a contractual obligation.
Nowhere near any other Celia's book I've read so far.

It's also more Rendellian then any other of her stories.

Everything seemed too rushed, swept through to a most unsatisfactory finale where only the last sentence maintains the bravery of an old school Celia Fremlin's breathtaking skill.

The characters are just an illusion, stay as a mirage of what could have they been if the story, the actions and reactions had been expanded to create a full-fledged novel.

For now and ever it's just a larva.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel was published in 1982 and has, unusually for Fremlin, a male central character. Martin Lockwood is, basically, a fool, but he is a familiar character as we have all met someone like him. He is a minor lecturer, a man whose career has ground to a halt and who is trying to convince himself, and his supervisor, that his PhD is going well. However, he is out of ideas and he is also lazy and self-centred. Having left his wife, Beatrice, who he complains is unsupportive, he moves in with his mistress, Helen, a teacher who convinces herself that she needs to be the opposite of Beatrice. So, she tiptoes around him, making three course evening meals from scratch, typing his notes and being as helpful and encouraging as possible.

Martin reminded me of a lecturer at college I had, in the same year in which this novel is set. A man with an obvious drinking problem, who continually said he would have had a political career had his wife not had children and upturned his plans. In the same way, Martin is aggrieved, sarcastic, impatient, constantly irritated, frustrated and basically, although he has a sabbatical allowing him to do nothing but work on his research for a year, is unable - or unwilling - to put the effort in.

Enter Ruth Ledbetter, a teenage he interviews at the very beginning of the book as part of his research on depression and suicide. Fremlin herself had an interesting history with such themes, as she believed in assisted suicide and whose own daughter took her own life, so this book has themes which must have been almost unbelievably personal for her. Still, Ruth as a character, is a rather ruthless, manipulative, cunning, extremely unstable and verbally sharp young lady, who is immediately seen as such by both Helen and Beatrice. Martin, though, grasps, like a drowning man, the lifeline she throws him with the suggestion his stalled PhD should be on parasite people. This despite Ruth's insults towards Helen, which Martin is happy to ignore if the work is being provided by someone other than himself. Ruth herself having dropped out of college, where she was studying psychology, she offers to help him and, before long, surprise surprise, everything is going extremely well. You know it will not last long...

This is a very perceptive, observant, rather shocking novel in parts. Fremlin was an author who worked, as so many women do, within the domestic sphere. She understood what people really thought, their complicated relationships and the danger that often lies in situations which seem banal and safe. I am thrilled to have discovered her and have yet to read a book by her which has not engaged and entertained me.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there was ever a parasite person, then Martin, the protagonist of this story would definitely win the title. A forty year old man who is still working on his thesis, but he is working in a polytechnic collage as a job. Martin who finds his wife unsupportive, takes a lover, Helen, a school teacher, who has been yearning for a romantic partner and makes sure she is the exact opposite to Martin's wife. Still, even with Helen's support he is unable to find any inspiration to actually concentrate on his thesis. He does however like his lifestyle as Helen is waiting on him hand and foot. He is supposed to be interviewing people with depression, although he has an unreliable student who is doing most of the interviewing.
His first interview we see is with a young woman,Ruth, who has attempted suicide, however she is not at all cooperative, and refuses to help him, but she is a major character in this story. She is in fact an ex psychology student, and pushes her own ideas onto Martin.
I liked the story as I always do with Fremlin, and as always I expect to be surprised by the ending. This was no exception.