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Uncle Paul: Welcome to the Nightmare Summer Holiday

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All augmented by sinister happenings that might be real or imaginary: the sound of footsteps outside; the creaking of a wardrobe within; the brush of something unknown against the cheek. As I read I imagined I was watching a play, and if it hasn’t been made into one already then it should be. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that the material is credited and referenced to JacquiWine’s Journal with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. though we're kept hovering between knowing whether there is material danger stalking the sisters or whether it's just paranoia.

I haven’t read anything else by Fremlin – except for one short ghost story – and have a strong feeling this isn’t her best. Captain Cockerill was gallantly anxious that Mildred and her two sisters should accompany him for a walk along the promenade; and Meg could only hope that the poor little man was prepared for the way in which this simple proposal, in the hands of Mildred and Isabel, at once took on the character of a large-scale manoeuvre. In the belief that Mildred would be far better off virtually anywhere else than in an isolated cottage with no amenities, Meg persuades her half-sister to move into a local hotel, a delightfully old-fashioned place with an odd assortment of guests.

I'd read a review saying it was old fashioned and dated but I didn't find it so at all, certainly no more so than any mid century Agatha Christie. It definitely reminded me of some of Shirley Jackson’s short stories in that respect – from her Dark Tales collection, I think.

Throughout the narrative, you keep wondering if anything is indeed happening or if our characters are ‘just’ somehow paranoiac, imagining threat where there is none. Such a clever balancing of different elements, and the thought of Shirley Jackson meets Barbara Pym is irresistible!

Mildred is staying in a nearby clifftop cottage where she honeymooned years ago with her first husband Paul and is not enjoying the eerie atmosphere and lack of creature comforts. I think it delivered - well, I was satisfied - but I wouldn’t say this is to the level of Patricia Highsmith.

The characterisation is sublime, from the worrying sister Isabel to Cedric, who is not a main character. Fremlin’s a name new to me, but she seems to have a good grasp on vagaries of the human mind and certainly sounds well worth exploring.In a spooky coincidence - or is it - said cottage turns out to be the same one that Mildred rented during a holiday fifteen years before, her ill-fated honeymoon to the titular Paul, a man who was shortly afterwards arrested for the attempted murder of his first wife. It seems that Mildred has left Hubert and ended up at a nearby cottage – the very same cottage where she honeymooned with her first husband, Paul, some fifteen years earlier.

I was very satisfied with the ending, which I guessed, but not until I was a good way in, and other possibilities seemed to be exhausted. I loathed the characters of Isabel and Mildred, the elder sisters of Meg, our narrator, who is calm, rational and stable in contrast to the silly-willy, dithering, blethering, can't ever decide on anything Isabel, 10 years senior to Meg, and then Mildred is stubborn, rich, spoilt, purposeless and worse, as the plot develops. Fremlin manages the tension extremely well here, dialling it up and down a few times as the story unfolds. I loved the balance between tension and normality in this one, and the humour played a key role in diffusing some of that angst. Unfortunately, the cover of Uncle Paul – the ‘nightmare summer holiday’ tagline and a cherry-picked quote branding the author ‘Britain’s Patricia Highsmith’ – oversells the book.

It would be great if Faber carry on with these Fremlin reissues as they have quite a few in their Faber Finds series – The Parasite Person included! Something that Fremlin does so brilliantly here is to exploit the individual fears of each of the three sisters, showing how their imagination can easily run amok. I can understand perhaps, that Isabel and Mildred are stereotypes of house-wifey, no career, no degree, middle-class women, who probably got on Fremlin's nerves; but really where is this going?

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