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The Weeping Tower
Barbara Marsden begins a nightmare of fear in an isolated Scottish mansion when she innocently agrees to impersonate a missing heiress.
Cover art believed to be by George Ziel.
Cover art believed to be by George Ziel.
- GenresGothic
Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 13, 2018
American photographer Cindy Sherman said:
“If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it.”
This quotes captures the essence of what I really appreciated about the character Barbara Marsden, the superbly crafted product of author Christine Randell’s imagination in “The Weeping Tower.”
Barbara, a New Zealander, trained as an artist in New York was travelling across Scotland when she decided to spend a day in the small town of Castleton in the Scottish Highlands. For lodging, she chooses a place called the “Old Bell Inn” whose owners, Jock and Mary proved to be so incredibly hospitable that Barbara decides to say a few days more. She quickly comes to enjoy the atmosphere of this storied Scottish town and the tales told so colorfully by the locals. As time passes, she comes to hear quite a bit about a certain elderly Lady MacFarlane, the Grande dame of Blackmoor Towers, a legendary, but crumbling old estate located about a mile out of Castleton.
One day Barbara decides to hide in the woods, near the main house of the estate and watch what’s going on. She quickly realizes that Lady MacFarlane is a creature of habit, and one of those habits is for her nurse to wheel her out to the edge of the lawn, near the tree line, to spend a half hour in solitude.
Barbara returns the next day with her easel and sketch pencils, hides behind a massive oak tree, waiting for Lady MacFarlane’s eleven o’clock arrival. Barbara waits until all the others have left and watches the older lady “receive” all of her invisible guests: John, her late husband, James, her recently deceased son, Elizabeth, her daughter, her parents, and a man she seems to dislike named Walter.
The reason I connected Barbara the artist with the above mentioned Cindy Sherman quote was that she hadn’t decided how she was going to sketch MacFarlane, instead she patiently waited to see what would unfold, then began to sketch. I thought Randell captured this so well:
“My easel was set up, and I automatically continued one of the sketches I had begun of her two days ago. No model at Art School could have provided such material as this. In her face I could see a hint of the beauty she had once been. But I could see much more. For she was a woman of many faces.
Some of my sketches had caught her pride and stubbornness. And although I had failed to capture her smile, I had managed to portray something of her humor and gaiety.
But the face she wore now was the face of truth. The face of a woman who cannot look forward, but only back. A woman who was quite alone.
A woman without love.”
This unique scene captured my imagination, the hidden artist trying to sketch a woman in all her complexities. I realized that lying in wait, and hiding was the only way this artist thought she might have a chance of catching her subject in her most authentic state.
And that seemed to symbolize the writer’s goal in this story…to show each character as their “truest selves.” The level of character development in “The Weeping Tower” was impressive especially considering that the book was only 159 pages long.
I remained engaged in this story right till the end.
“If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it.”
This quotes captures the essence of what I really appreciated about the character Barbara Marsden, the superbly crafted product of author Christine Randell’s imagination in “The Weeping Tower.”
Barbara, a New Zealander, trained as an artist in New York was travelling across Scotland when she decided to spend a day in the small town of Castleton in the Scottish Highlands. For lodging, she chooses a place called the “Old Bell Inn” whose owners, Jock and Mary proved to be so incredibly hospitable that Barbara decides to say a few days more. She quickly comes to enjoy the atmosphere of this storied Scottish town and the tales told so colorfully by the locals. As time passes, she comes to hear quite a bit about a certain elderly Lady MacFarlane, the Grande dame of Blackmoor Towers, a legendary, but crumbling old estate located about a mile out of Castleton.
One day Barbara decides to hide in the woods, near the main house of the estate and watch what’s going on. She quickly realizes that Lady MacFarlane is a creature of habit, and one of those habits is for her nurse to wheel her out to the edge of the lawn, near the tree line, to spend a half hour in solitude.
Barbara returns the next day with her easel and sketch pencils, hides behind a massive oak tree, waiting for Lady MacFarlane’s eleven o’clock arrival. Barbara waits until all the others have left and watches the older lady “receive” all of her invisible guests: John, her late husband, James, her recently deceased son, Elizabeth, her daughter, her parents, and a man she seems to dislike named Walter.
The reason I connected Barbara the artist with the above mentioned Cindy Sherman quote was that she hadn’t decided how she was going to sketch MacFarlane, instead she patiently waited to see what would unfold, then began to sketch. I thought Randell captured this so well:
“My easel was set up, and I automatically continued one of the sketches I had begun of her two days ago. No model at Art School could have provided such material as this. In her face I could see a hint of the beauty she had once been. But I could see much more. For she was a woman of many faces.
Some of my sketches had caught her pride and stubbornness. And although I had failed to capture her smile, I had managed to portray something of her humor and gaiety.
But the face she wore now was the face of truth. The face of a woman who cannot look forward, but only back. A woman who was quite alone.
A woman without love.”
This unique scene captured my imagination, the hidden artist trying to sketch a woman in all her complexities. I realized that lying in wait, and hiding was the only way this artist thought she might have a chance of catching her subject in her most authentic state.
And that seemed to symbolize the writer’s goal in this story…to show each character as their “truest selves.” The level of character development in “The Weeping Tower” was impressive especially considering that the book was only 159 pages long.
I remained engaged in this story right till the end.
March 24, 2026
A woman named Barbara decides to impersonate a missing heiress in order to bring comfort to a dying old lady. She's not after the old lady's money but there are others who are also in line for the inheritance, and they are not too pleased at her appearance, so Barbara soon finds herself in danger.
I was prepared to go along with the impersonation scheme despite how wildly improbably it was that Barbara would manage to pull it off, and it makes for an entertaining read. Unfortunately everything falls apart in the last few chapters. First of all are the romantic feelings that spring out of nowhere. One of the male characters abruptly confesses that he has loved Barbara the whole time, which is extremely unlikely given how his character behaves throughout the story. To which Barbara responds: "Oh well in that case I love you too, then".
But worse than that - and this is unforgivable - at the end of the book, Barbara suddenly changes her whole story and reveals a concealed "truth". But as she is the book's narrator, this means that everything we as readers have been investing in up to this point has been based on a lie. An author who basically cheats to get the desired ending doesn't deserve any praise
I was prepared to go along with the impersonation scheme despite how wildly improbably it was that Barbara would manage to pull it off, and it makes for an entertaining read. Unfortunately everything falls apart in the last few chapters. First of all are the romantic feelings that spring out of nowhere. One of the male characters abruptly confesses that he has loved Barbara the whole time, which is extremely unlikely given how his character behaves throughout the story. To which Barbara responds: "Oh well in that case I love you too, then".
But worse than that - and this is unforgivable - at the end of the book, Barbara suddenly changes her whole story and reveals a concealed "truth". But as she is the book's narrator, this means that everything we as readers have been investing in up to this point has been based on a lie. An author who basically cheats to get the desired ending doesn't deserve any praise
March 29, 2021
1967 romance? on the misty moors of Scotland. Old castle with spooky legends, murder, intrigue, interpersonal tension, all as expected. Great mystery, though.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews