Lucie Whitehouse's London Cultural Diary
Lucie Whitehouse, author of psychological thriller Before We Met, talked to Culture Whisper about Liars' League, some inspiring portraits and why she hates the label 'Chick Noir'.
Lucie Whitehouse, author of psychological thriller Before We Met, talked to Culture Whisper about Liars' League, some inspiring portraits and why she hates the label 'Chick Noir'.
A Warwickshire girl who read classics at Oxford, Lucie Whitehouse met her husband in the U.S., and moved to New York after a whirlwind romance. It’s a story that skims perilously close to the experience of Hannah and Mark, characters in Whitehouse’s gripping novel, Before We Met (findable in most London bookshops). But, the author is happy to report, that’s all she shares with her fictional Hannah, whose life unravels after the inexplicable overnight disappearance of her husband.
Art imitating life
The thrilling story might not be based on experience, but it is real-life London: “I saw a police incident sign in Fulham appealing for witnesses to an abduction: a man had been pulled from his bed in the small hours of the morning, bundled into a car and driven away.” Whitehouse tells CW. “I imagined what it would be like to be that man’s wife, to find out very suddenly that the person in the world to whom you’re supposed to be closest has a terrible secret. ” At that point Whitehouse took a trip to New York, and her own romance began. “Life imitated art – and art then imitated life.”
The marriage thriller moment
The ‘marriage thriller’ form has plenty of literary precedent, in Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and Lady Audley’s Secret, but their authors' influence on Whitehouse was indirect: “There’s a photograph of Daphne du Maurier in the Forties rowing a boat and wearing trousers and a shirt that for me captured the spirit of female independence when I was growing up.”
The genre might be established, but the marriage thriller is definitely having a moment. As well as Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl , we’ve had S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep , The Silent Wife , and of course the murderously Delia-esque Season to Taste: How to eat your husband , by Natalie Young. Women have independent lives before they marry now, Whitehouse explains, going from self-sufficiency to mutual dependence brings new tensions. “When so many of us move from city to city – country to country, even – it’s much easier to hide an unsavoury past. That’s rich material for a thriller writer."
In an age of social media and reality television, people remain discreet about their marriage. “When something is withheld in a society where so much is made public, it draws curiosity. Marriage thrillers allow us to go inside someone else’s dysfunctional relationship and show us where the bodies are buried. There’s a definite element of ‘There but for the grace of God…’ about these books.”
Chick Noir
‘Marriage thriller’ is self-explanatory, but Whitehouse has a lot less patience with that other moniker loved by the glossies,‘Chick noir’: “Must the word ‘chick’ be applied to any contemporary novel written by a woman with a young – or even youngish – female central character? It feels deeply sexist, as if these books are being ring-fenced and dismissed.”
We certainly won’t be dismissing Before We Met; in fact, we're struggling to put it down. For a glimpse of Lucie's cultural inspiration, we had a look at her diary for some summer things to do in London…
Liars’ League @ The Phoenix, August 12
Liars’ League is a fantastic event held monthly at The Phoenix, 37 Cavendish Square. Writers everywhere are invited to submit stories between 800 and 2,000 words on a given monthly topic– for August, it’s Beauty and The Beast – and professional actors read the five best aloud at the event, which is also recorded for podcast. It’s one of the best spoken-word events London has, and it’s a great opportunity for new writers to get their work read by the publishing folk who run it.
The new Foyles' bookshop London @ 107 Charing Cross Road
I’ll be in the UK in July to do a series of events and one of the things I’m most looking forward to doing is visiting the new flagship Foyles, which opened last month at 107 Charing Cross Road, the former home of Central St Martin’s. The old café was one of my favourite spots in which to write so I’m looking forward to seeing the new one. 200,000 books on four miles of shelves? Glorious.
I grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and so have a huge soft spot for the Royal Shakespeare Company. I missed their production of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant Wolf Hall when it was on in Stratford – tickets seemed to sell out in minutes –so I’ll be angling to see it at the Aldwych, where its run has been extended until October.
Puffin Books Summer Exhibition @ Waterstones Piccadilly
Puffin Books, the children’s arm of Penguin, are exhibiting material relating to some of the best-loved children’s books. Among the material on display will be the original cover art for Mary Norton’s The Borrowers and extracts from the hand-written draft of Goodnight Mr Tom. I have a fifteen-month-old daughter and I am counting the days until she’s old enough to enjoy some of the books that I loved growing up.
BP Portrait Award 2014 @ National Portrait Gallery
I’ll make sure to visit this exhibition of this year’s best entrants for the international portrait-painting competition. The book I’m working on now features a portrait painter who meets her death in mysterious circumstances. It’s a great excuse to visit galleries in the name of research.