Title: The
Undoing of Violet Claybourne
Author: Emily Critchley
Publisher: Zaffre
Pages: 349
My GoodReads
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
I love stories about houses, and so
when this story came up, I was excited to read and review it.
When the story begins, Gillian
McCune, an old woman in 1999, looks back on her childhood, particularly on the
fateful days she spent as a guest at Thornleigh Hall, and the part she played
in the events that took place there.
Gillian ‘Gilly’ Larking is in her
sixth year at Heathcomb school when the privileged Violet Claybourne is
admitted there, and they find themselves roommates. Gilly, with no real family
and no good friends, is swept off her feet into Violet’s world. The friendship
grows quickly with both girls believing in tandem with their Classics lessons,
Nos Contra Mundam (Us against the world).
Invited to the Claybourne home,
Thornleigh Hall, for Christmas, Gilly becomes enamoured with their world. There
she meets Violet’s older sisters, Emmeline and Laura, and her parents, Giles
and Olivia Claybourne. Gilly longs to have Emmeline and Laura see her as one of
their own, as an equal. At every step, she tries to set herself apart from
Violet, and closer to Emmeline and Laura, who are classist and believe
themselves superior even to their sister, Violet.
Before the Christmas break is over,
Thornleigh Hall will be beset by tragedy, with one life lost and another
destroyed. What part will Gilly play in this travesty of justice?
The book is set in 1938, so the
shadow of World War I still looms large over the characters. Lord Claybourne
and many of the members of the police force have served in the war, but Frank
Marks, a gameskeeper who lives on the grounds of Thornleigh Hall, has been a
conscientious objector. As the book progresses, the characters find themselves
in the middle of World War II.
This is a time when a woman is called
upon to make a good marriage, then be a good wife and mother. It is against
this background that the Claybourne family hopes that 22-year-old Emmeline will
be wooed by the nearly forty-year-old Viscount Cadwallander, who might help
save Thornleigh Hall from almost certain ruin.
The bulk of the story takes place
between Christmas and New Year. The construction of the period was done well.
The book also makes a mention of
post-partum depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), both conditions
for which the medical science of the time might not have had satisfactory
answers. Undoing is how Violet refers to the odd rituals she does “to undo what
might happen.” The Undoing is Violet’s OCD. It is also a reference to how her
life is undone, and how she seeks to undo that wrong.
The chapters end on a note of
finality and expectation, inviting us to turn the page. I kept thinking about
the events of this book even when I wasn’t reading it, especially about how far
the characters deserved the fates that had befallen them.
The author has done a fine job with
the descriptions of Thornleigh Hall, the Randolph Hotel, and Heathcomb school.
I can’t remember when I last detested
a bunch of fictional people. I despised nearly all the main characters here. In
the case of the narrator, Gilly, I must add that this was the first time that I
began by liking a protagonist and then went on to change my mind about her. The
author does make an effort to redeem her in our eyes, in a later part of the
book, but it didn’t work for me.
Only the smaller characters like
Frank Marks, a groundskeeper who lives on the property, and Robin, the
fatherless son of Mary, the maid, and, to an extent, Violet, left a positive
impression on me.
There are scenes featuring elaborate
and intense gaslighting that are well written.
I also loved the resonance in the
book, the parallels between Gilly and Robin. The fact that they have each lost
a parent.
Gilly’s first meal with the
Claybournes reveals their habits and characters, the sense of superiority they nurture
in themselves. In true upper-class fashion, Laura and Emmeline insist that the
foxes enjoy the fox hunt. “You can see it on their faces,” they say, in
justification of their own pleasure and lifestyle. I couldn’t help reflecting
on the hypocrisy of one of the sisters who hates any show of emotion but thinks
nothing of the flutter of disgust that crosses her own face.
The colonial mindset is evident when
Violet says about school, “We only learn sums, and which bits on the map still
belong to us.”
Gilly, with her tendency to steal and
lie, has her own flaws, making her believable.
I felt a sense of sorrow for Violet,
for the ‘undoing’ of her at the hands of those she trusted. I hoped the book
would not end on a note of wrongdoing and injustice.
(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank
you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)
