Listening in the Dusk

by Celia Fremlin

Listening in the Dusk (1990), Celia Fremlin's thirteenth novel, concerns Alice Saunders, a woman striking out on her own following a traumatic marital breakup. But when she rents a drafty attic room in a ramshackle London boarding house she meets the mysterious Mary - a young woman clearly terrified of something, or someone.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

183 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1990

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 3 out of 5]

This felt like a book of two halves to me. I loved the first in which we find Alice who, in her forties, finds her husband in love with another woman so she packs her bag and walks out. With only meagre savings, she finds a decrepit room in a shabby boarding house and makes a new life for herself.

This whole storyline is unexpectedly gripping and is told with Fremlin's unassuming wit. The rag-tag collection of boarders presided over by scatty Hetty are wonderful - except for broody Mary whose paranoia keeps her isolated.

Now, usually I'm all for Fremlin's offbeat thrillers but I couldn't help finding the Mary story a bit forced and straightforward - I was waiting for a twist, an eerie effect, some riding tension but just wasn't feeling it.

I would have happily followed Alice through her new life, but lost interest in Mary. Interesting eco angle, though, for a book published in 1990.

[Ankit Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one of its kind. Something unique. Its not extra ordinary but it always keeps you interested. Credit should go to the writer. There were some ordinary scenes in the book which she suddenly converted into something mysterious. The spontaneity of the writing caught me. There was not a single moment in the book where you felt bored. The plot was good, believable. It tells a story of a young boy who commits crime and what its effects are on his family.

The thing which I like the most about the books were the characters. Every character was enjoyable and nice in its role and they want out that way throughout.

Just loved this book


There actually isn't the kind of constant shadow of threat in this book that there is in most of Fremlin's other books. It isn't an edge-of-your-seat spine-tingler. Killings are revealed, but they take place on the periphery of the more daily world of the boarding house where the protagonist finds herself after her divorce.

The boarding house is almost unlikely in its lack of amenities. On the one hand, it seems hard to believe that a woman coming from a comfortable, middle-class marriage would settle in squalid digs with no heat, a leaky roof, and a clutter of other people's stored belongings. And yet on the other hand, the reader can see an all-embracing, likeable woman - like the protagonist, like the reader herself/himself - doing just that. It becomes easy to identify with Alice as she ventures into her new life.

Fremlin wrote this book toward the end of her career in 1990. Still, that's over twenty years ago. However, to the extent that the murders do play a role, their means and motive might have been drawn out of today's headlines.

As with all of Fremlin's work though, the real attraction is the writing. Fremlin has a knack for making all of her characters believable individuals, each one speaking in a distinct voice. Here she does an especially good job capturing the pleasure a 13-year-old-boy takes in roustabout physical challenge. She enabled me to feel for the first time what it must be like to be one of the lads, launching off into bruising, ebullient competitions - his "lungs filled with a glittering ecstasy of wind and winning."

But Cyril can also be reflective and insightful about the ways of the world. After he and his chums are reprimanded for making so much noise clattering their bikes down an outdoor flight of stairs, Cyril considers how it's always infirmity that is given the right of way. He inwardly regrets how "being ill and miserable is (considered) a much more worthy and important state than being happy and well, and must therefore be ministered to assiduously at all times; whereas happiness doesn't matter at all, and can be tramped down and trodden into the ground with impunity."

Fremlin writes a lot of such wisdom beautifully into her domestic suspense stories. This is another of her books that I'll be sure to keep always within easy reach on my library shelves.

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Celia Fremlin is a British crime writer who was published many times over four decades, but seems not to be in much current circulation, based on how many of her novels are now 'reference only' in the stacks of my library system. I hadn't read her before, but enjoyed this tale from 1990 (though it feels like a bit of an amalgam - sensibilities of an earlier time, together with an effort to stay current, rather like later Agatha Christie). She paints a wonderful picture of the tenants of a cheap London rental home to which the protagonist, recently separated Alice, comes to stay. The central tension is around an anxious and paranoid young woman, Mary, who has a secret past. The pacing was a little off, but it was a good read, reminiscent of Ruth Rendell.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's still a Celia Fremlin book, and yet no as good.
It should have been darker, creepier, wittier and more cynical.
It's probably the more empathic and sentimentalist novel I've read of hers.
You're met with promises and promising first chapters which eventually don't deliver.
You're on a tangent half way but start falling off a slope in the second half of the story.
It shouldn't be like that. I'm too hungry now. I crave for more of her writing style and narrative.
Where was her natural talent in making the everyday believably eerie? Most of the characters, their actions and reactions seemed too unrealistic.
Just too many good starting points, just too few good deliverables.

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Listening in the Dusk, her 13th novel published in 1990, Celia Fremlin, the master of domestic suspense novels, adapts her usual housewife protagonist into Alice, a former happy housewife and brand-new divorcee proclaiming her lack of dependance on her formerly supportive but recently philandering husband, by taking a room in a boarding house. Luckily for the story, it is not just any boarding house. It has a kindly, well-intentioned busybody of a landlady who operates completely in the philosophy of tu casa, mi casa and a collection of quirky boarders, especially Mary, a paranoid young woman with a mysterious background. A highlight is Alice’s ‘room’ essentially a storage room for the other boarders that she adapts into an artsy pad.

I enjoyed the story set-up, getting to know Alice and her relations to her ex and his new wife and the other tenants. Alice takes tutoring jobs now that she has to earn her income and the character of her young tutee Cyril was a highlight. But as the story got into its 3rd quarter, I thought the plotting and descriptions became murky and I found myself glossing over many sections as my interest started to wane. The story did come back alive with a more mystery/thriller ending but even that felt a trifle unsatisfactory. Mary’s character is key to the mystery/thriller aspects yet I never felt enough for Mary’s character or situation to fully appreciate her story arc. I also had hoped for a better resolution of Alice’s tale.

Despite the story and characterization flaws, though, I still enjoyed the read. Fremlin provides enough sharp social and human insights to make reading worthwhile even when her storylines bog down. I will rate this below average Fremlin as 3 stars (3.3 rounded down).

MY RATINGS FOR FREMLINS
(Instead of rating 4.5 or 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 – Listening in the Dusk
3.3 – Appointment With Yesterday

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die ganze Geschichte spielt in einer Art "Pension für verlorene Seelen" in London, wo einige höchst unterschiedliche Charaktere unter dem Dach von Miss Hettie aufeinandertreffen.
Skizzenhaft und doch sehr greifbar, zeichnet Celia Fremlin diese Charaktere - zwei von ihnen werden schliesslich ins Zentrum des Geschehens gerückt: Die Griechischlehrerin Alice Saunders, die ihren untreuen Ehemann und das begüterte Leben Knall auf Fall verlassen hat, und Mary, eine psychisch labile junge Frau, die ein schreckliches Geheimnis auf dem Speicher versteckt hält, in den Alice dank Miss Hetties Hang zur Improvisation plötzlich einzieht.

Celia Fremlin gelingt es mühelos, den Leser für ihre Figuren zu interessieren, weil sie diese mit wenigen "Strichen" lebendig werden lassen kann. Das ist der grosse Vorzug dieses Romans, dessen Handlung bisweilen etwas richtungslos dahin mäandert und dadurch den Spannungsbogen etwas aus den Augen verliert, den ich aber in keinem Moment als langweilig empfunden habe.
"Zwielicht" ist gelungene Unterhaltung, die einen plötzlich vor moralische Fragen stellt, denen man sich nicht entziehen kann.

Das Buch ist inzwischen vergriffen, antiquarisch ist es aber problemlos noch erhältlich.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Celia Fremlin has been a great find for me and has rapidly become one of my very favourite authors. I am also a sucker for a boarding house novel, so this really ticked all my boxes.

When Alice's husband announces he is in love with another woman, she rashly stalks out with only what she can carry and finds herself renting a draughty attic, with the amiable Hetty as her landlady and a wonderful assortment of other residents. One of whom is Mary, a nervous, fearful and suspicious young lady, who resents Alice's appearance and rebuffs any attempts to get to know her.

Still, Alice begins to make a new life. She is a teacher and begins to tutor (oh, for the time when you make enough money to live on by taking a handful of paying students!) and enjoy her freedom. However, Mary's nervousness is due to a secret she holds close and Alice's appearance threatens to reveal it with dreadful consequences.

This is a really enjoyable novel. I enjoyed all the characters, including pianist Brian, who is in love with Mary, and Cyril, Alice's new student. I am saddened that I only have a handful of her novels unread, but I am so glad to have discovered her.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another compelling read from this author.
It begins with Alice, a what she thought was a happily married woman, until her husband announces there is another woman in his life. At this she packs a suitcase, and tells him that she wants nothing from him and leaves. Now homeless she is desperate for somewhere to stay. She finds a boarding house whose landlady says she has no rooms vacant, but there is an attic under the eaves, where junk is stored. Alice looks at it and as there is nowhere else decides to take it, so finds herself in a cold, damp , cluttered attic. Hetty, the landlady is a very caring person and does what she can to make Alice comfortable, and the other lodgers accept her, except one, Mary, who resents her and wants her to go. It seems Mary has a secret, and is scared Alice will find out what it is.
As I said at the start, this book is one that you find it difficult to put down, which is one of the beauties of this author.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple story. The characters were the highlight.

[Dirk Schlage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein überraschend befriedigendes Leseerlebnis.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Antje Schrupp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Celia Fremlin, wie immer großartige Urlaubslektüre.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An short book with enough multiple threads to make it interesting.