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The Girl On The Stairs by Louise Welsh (view source)
Revision as of 13:33, 9 March 2018
, 13:33, 9 March 2018no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=The Girl On The Stairs
|sort= Girl On The Stairs
|author=Louise WelchWelsh
|reviewer=Lesley Mason
|genre=Crime
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1848546486
|pages=288
|publisher=John Murray
|date=August 2012
|website=http://www.louisewelsh.com/
|summary=Psychological drama set in modern-day Berlin, where pregnant and largely alone Jane Logan is concerned about the fate of her young neighbour.
|cover=1848546505
|aznuk=1848546505
|aznus=1848546483
}}
Jane Logan is seven months pregnant when she moves to Berlin to be with her girlfriend, Petra. Petra is the smart one: older, more chic and with a high-flying job in banking. It had been Petra's idea to have a baby, and Jane had taken a long time to say yes. But now it's nearly here. She's quit her job, cut her credit cards in half and left her old life behind, not realising just how utterly dependent she is making herself.
The downstairs neighbour is convinced that Anna's missing mother is buried in that building, murdered by a jealous husband. But then she is elderly and equally convinced that she is still a teacher and that they must hide from the Russians.
There are echoes of Don't Look Now in WelchWelsh's psychological tale, as the young Anna in her red coat darts about the graveyard at night. Also hints at cold war film noir (if that's not a contradiction) as a slow chase ends up in a darkened, rain wet Berlin railway station, a leap aboard a train without a ticket.
Jane is increasingly isolated. People who should believe her, who should help her, think she's going mad. Maybe she is... she hears things and sees things that can't be there.
For all its set pieces though, and they are all here... Catholic priest (check!), menacing old women (check!), screeching rooks (check!), child in danger (check!), prostitutes (check!), skinheads (check!), unhelpful / threatening police officers (check!) ... for all that, it doesn't quite work as a thriller.
The characters aren't as well-defined as I'd expect from WelchWelsh, indeed there's much that is clichéd. Even the lesbian element seems to serve no purpose other than to give someone a reason to hate the couple, beyond them being there. Perhaps the point is that there shouldn't be a point. Maybe we should accept the couple as any couple, but too much is made of the unconventionality of the relationship for that to be so. Plus there is a long backstory from Petra which suggests that Welch Welsh really is trying to make a point of some kind. I'm not sure what it is.
The place too doesn't really take centre stage the way it should for the novel to fully work. Sensibly the author stays clear of the well known landmarks, wandering into what was presumably part of the East of the city, but then assumes that the areas she quotes are as familiar to us as the Ku-damm and the Tiergarten. Because they're not, they need more description than she gives us.
It isn't a bad novel. It holds the attention purely by virtue of the fundamental mystery as to whether we have a pregnant woman getting delusional or worse, or a wife-murdering, child abusing, mad Doktor with a thing for prostitutes. But that's the point. It ''holds'' the attention; it doesn't ''grab'' it.
The general press were unstinting in their praise (if the extracted quotes on the web are anything to go by), but for me this is nowhere near Welch Welsh at her best. For that check out [[Naming The the Bones by Louise WelchWelsh|Naming te the Bones]]. For real Berlin darkness though you have to go back to the days of the Wall and you can't do better than Le Carré [[The Spy Who Came In From The in from the Cold by John Le le Carre|The Spy Who Came in From the Cold]]. {{amazontext|amazon=1848546505}}{{amazonUStext|amazon=1848546483}}
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