Juicy grape from Vine

Press, 18 December 1989, Page 36

Juicy grape from Vine

The House of Stairs. By Barbara Vine. Penguin, 1989. 283 pp. $13.95. (Paperback). (Reviewed by Ken Strongman Writing in her Barbara Vine nom-de-plume, Ruth Rendell has produced yet another novel that makes it quite clear that crime fiction can be as good as any, and that she is better than most. “The House of Stairs” is a rich and thorough story, full of penetrating psychological insight. But Ms Rendell has added an extra dimension on this occasion. Without being a feminist tract, this is a book essentially about women, complex women with a depth and subtlety of character normally reserved for the men of fiction. The story is knitted between, the present and a few years past, when the three main characters lived in “The House of Stairs” a tall, narrow London house with 106 stairs. It was owned by Cosette, widowed and keen both to love and to be loved. She was depended on by a gang of young spongers. Elizabeth Vetch, almost a daughter to Cosette in all but name, looks back on this time from her perspective as a

successful popular writer. The third and most memorable character who had such an influence on both Cosette and Elizabeth, is Bell Sanger, tall, thin, beautiful, crude, and a wearer of black. A menacing and infuriating she is as near to being a female psychopath as has appeared in crime fiction. “The House of Stairs” is a tale of murder, of selfishness, of disloyalty, and of love and hate between women. There are men involved, but they are only as foils to the women, a comment which it has rarely been possible to make of any novel, be it crime or otherwise. But, as ever with Ruth Rendell, there is far more to the book than

compelling characters and an intriguing plot. Although very modern, the book is dominated by a house, in a very old-fashioned way. This gives the story a powerful gothic strength, as though the characters are driven by dark forces beyond their control.

However, there is more than one force in “The House of Stairs.” The other is not so easy to name, and its effect is not so much on the mental state of the reader as on the physical. It affects the fingers directly and ensures that they keep turning the pages until there are no more to turn.