Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries

by Gillian Gill

For 50 years, Agatha Christie ruled the roost in British mysteries. Her books have been translated into every major language, and her two most favorite creations, Detective Poirot and Miss Marple, independently solved dozens of murders since Poirot first appeared in 1920. Unlike today's more promotional authors, Christie was very private. Thus this book's gift is to take us behind the scenes. We get to know Christie's intimate world. We share her hopes and fears over a long life, and emerge with a better understanding of what made her so remarkable. "Agatha Christie did more than just write detective fiction. She was a novelist, and that is what will keep her books alive." --A.L. Rowse

Genres: Agatha Christie, Biography, Nonfiction, Mystery, Crime, History, Writing

242 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Gillian Gill, who holds a PhD in modern French literature from Cambridge University, has taught at Northeastern, Wellesley, Yale, and Harvard. She is the author of Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale, Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries, and Mary Baker Eddy. She lives in suburban Boston.

Reviews

[Chazzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read but a bit on the dry side.

Agatha Christie was a very private person. She did not grant interviews and kept a tight rein on any publicity preferring her books to get the press and not herself. She took it to the extreme in that she also wrote her own autobiography that was released after she had died. This way the public would know what she wanted them to know about her life, rather than what the press or publicity hacks concocted about her.

Gillian Gill presents a view of Agathat Christie, her life and writing, through analysis of a selection of Christie's books. Her premise is that Christie did write about her life through her books and characters. Various plot lines seem derived from events in Christie's life and her viewpoint on matters.

Christie also creates characters that are very different from the detectives of the time. Her characters are a bit ahead of the curve in that they are older chronologically but not in mind or activities. There is also the perspective that women as well as men can be the instigator of the crime regardless of class or age.

Some of the analysis of the books gets a bit deep and dry, but the overall information is quite interesting.

[Drgibson63 · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are strong Agatha Christie fans -- like my wife Kati and I our -- you will enjoy author Gillian Gill's in-depth research in trying to understand the camera-shy author, and explore her much-publicized several day disappearance as her first marriage was crumbling. Christie felt the press treated her badly and shunned publicity. In her autobiography, she doesn't mention the incident.

I enjoyed learning about that unfortunate incident and her happy second marriage to a much-younger man. Christie lived a lot like her characters, with large country homes and travels to the sands of Iraq, etc. It was also interesting to learn of her early life, growing up, living in her dream home, her father's death and her love for her mother. In fact, the reader learns that Christie detailed her life, including the deterioration of her first marriage, in novels published under a pseudonym.

So why do I give this only three stars? Two reasons: Gill's dense academic writing style gets in the way; and too much of her deciphering of Christie's life comes from pages-long recaps of her novels. This may have been unavoidable given Christie's penchant for secrecy, but it hampers the flow and reader enjoyment.

But it's worth tackling if you want to learn more about the greatest mystery writer ever.

[Matt Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great account of Agatha Christie's life and works that was very well described and easy to read. Obviously, a lot of time and research has gone into this book by Gillian Gill

[Christine Mathieu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not thrilled with this biography and read now the one by Lucy Worsley on Agatha Christie.

[Collin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not that I didn't expect to enjoy learning about Agatha Christie more, it's just that I'm surprised to have enjoyed the actual reading of her biography as much as I did.

Despite some technical/grammatical issues I had, it's obvious that Gill took her undergrad paper-writing lessons to heart, which makes for a nice reading experience, smooth and factual with enough spirit and authorial personality to keep from being dry, most if not all the time.

Probably the biggest accomplishment an artist's bio can have, for me, is making me want to go out and consume the subject's entire canon, and that's what this bio does.

Also, I'm probably a little in love with Agatha Christie now.

[Nora Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

The role of biographer was complicated by Christie's reserve and self-protectiveness. In order to provide a sense of Christie as a person, Gill analyzed her subject by parsing Christie's books for insight and explanations. This biographical technique requires conjecture and interpretation that may extrapolate beyond the available data.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Rating System:
* couldn't finish, ** wouldn't recommend, *** would recommend, **** would read again, ***** have read again.

[Christina Dongowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is by far the most comprehensive & simultaneously readable discussion of Christie as a writer meriting serious critical attention I‘ve read so far. Gill uses the methodological framework Gilbert & Gubar have provided with their literary studies’ classic The Madwoman in the Attic and it works quite well with Christie’s oeuvre. Gill respects Christie as an author who was very keen on keeping her private life private. So there’s very little talk of what were the real feelings & thoughts of Christie or even getting at the woman behind her secrets. Instead takes the secret seriously and contextualises them in the socio-cultural & historical context Christie operated in. Gill reconstructs, to me rather convincingly, a sort of Christiean worldview & its changes over her very long career & how her special form of conservatism might relate to her economical and literary successes as a classic crime story genre writer. She also tackles the racism & antisemitism in Christie head on. The reader learns a lot about the (not only crime) literary traditions Christie consciously worked in (even by rejecting some of them) and about the way she rewrote genre formula & invented a whole bunch of new ones. Gill is never condescending, neither to Christie nor towards readers of her books or of readers of popular genres in general. She even treats the Bulldog Drummond public school boys-school of adventure & spy stories with mild irony. Gills short, very funny summaries of some of the genre defining stories are one of the highlights of the book, actually. As a service to her readers Gill lists at the beginning of her book the stories & novels she’s going to spoiler, but she very intend on not giving away the solutions to most of the works of Christie she’s talking about. And she covers a lot of them, without spoilers. Even if you haven’t read some of her classics, you can read this entertaining & intelligent book about the most successful writer of the 20th Century. For Christie fans it’s a must read.

[Su · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Agatha Christie biography, so I certainly learned a lot more about the great authoress from this book than I'd ever known before. There was some great historical background as well that shed light on Agatha's thought processes/context for some of her novels, so good research from Ms. Gill. There were a lot of poignant thoughts and ideas scattered throughout, though sometimes I found the organization/flow of ideas messy or repetitive, which is why it's four rather than five stars. But a very informative, interesting, research-filled biography of a fascinating person that as easy to read and enjoyable. Recommended to fans of Dame Christie who want to know more about the great mind that created so many gems of the mystery genre!

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

as other reviewers have written: fascinating but dry. i could appreciate the theoretical lens here - christie had a unique view on gender for the time - but what i found most interesting was using her views on the world as a codex for the structures of her murder mysteries and vice versa. christie is critiqued for plots that are unrealistic, but as teed up by gillian gill, this makes so much sense when we see the real woman behind it. a woman who keeps so much of herself inside must feel a bit inclined towards creating worlds away from the real one. again, dry . but i feel inspired to revisit agatha christie’s work again equipped with gillian gill’s lenses

[Bárbara Cruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ya me parecía una escritora a la que admirar y a la que cualquier autor de misterio que se preciara debía tener muy en cuenta. Pero ahora que conozco cómo fue su vida me parece, sencillamente, que ella fue una mujer única. De las de una entre un millón.

[CathyMW · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. I found it quite boring. Plus I was unclear on how much of this was factual as the author's technique seemed to include taking things from Christie's novels/mysteries and applying them to her life. Who knows if that was true or not.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

VERY interesting and worth the read.

[Abigail Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, I would need to read the book again, but will provide review later.

[John Haydon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. Some great writing

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read after an interesting interview with the author on the All About Agatha podcast.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because I love Agatha's books, I pushed myself to read this. Some interesting accounts of her fascinating life.

[Namatirai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still going through it and enjoying my reading

[Jjean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting - well researched about her life - if you are a "fan" of the Agatha Christie's books, well worth reading.

[Reginah]

None

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very in depth account of Agatha Christie. Well written and researched..

[LA · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read about an interesting author.

[Johnson Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this Gillian Gill book cause it looks so fascinating

[Gigi Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about the woman herself. Chapter 4 was interesting in that Agatha had disappear for a 11 days in December 1926. She abandoned her car and her overnight belongings by the side of the road at Newlands Corner in Surrey and disappeared... 11 days later she was found, apparently the victim of amnesia, in the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate. In the remaining forty-nine years of her life, Agatha Christie never wrote about her disappearance or allowed it to be referred to in her presence or in any biographical material she sanctioned. To know anymore about what was written about this I recommend you read the book.

[Stephen Levesque · Rating 3 out of 5]

Claiming to address the “Actively Detecting Reader” out to discover how Dame Agatha crafted her mysteries, Gill discloses techniques and delineates patterns of plot and character, as well as locates Christie’s detective novels within the tradition of the genre. Its style geared to the general reader, AGATHA CHRISTIE nevertheless betrays its author’s scholarly training; in addition to a foreword, introduction, and afterword, the volume includes endnotes, a bibliography, and an index. It is just an OK read. I love Her Writing (Christie that is) and wanted to learn more about her, this helped. OK read.not great.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agatha Christie was jealous of her privacy and successful in guarding it. With limited access to previously unknown biographical information, Gill has instead chosen to go the biography-through-literary-analysis route, exploring Christie's life and worldview through the lens of her work.



The book is painstakingly researched and has occasional brilliant insights. I didn't always agree with Gill's interpretations of Christie and her works, but 'Agatha Christie' was a thought-provoking book.

[Malcolm Noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many books about our Agatha, but this one is, by a country mile, the best of the bunch. It is a biography in the true sense; it brings something new our understanding of the writer. One quirk .... I enjoy reading the reference notes on their own -- so well researched and interesting in their own right. Absoultely five stars

[Perky Texan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book that I think would only really appeal to avid Christie fans. I felt it was a little dry, and belabored some points. But I did enjoy it and learned quite a bit that I didn't know. Extremely well researched, it's obvious the author knows her topic. But I thought, at times, that there was detail for the sake of detail, and not for the sake of good writing.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems that Christie was too private to leave behind much of a portrait of the woman. Interesting connections between her life and the characters and events in her novels, but too much detail on plot structure.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wavered between biography and critical analysis of Agatha Christie’s mysteries. Hers are not the type of books I would typically consider suitable for literary analysis. Basically, very boring. I stopped reading after page 55.