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The Hours Before Dawn
In this Edgar Award–winning thriller, a young housewife with two lively daughters and an endlessly crying baby battles domestic chaos as well as growing suspicions of the household's new lodger. Are Louise's fears the product of sleep deprivation, as her unsympathetic husband suggests, or is there really something sinister about the respectable-seeming schoolmistress?
During the hours before dawn, Louise suspects, people with a precarious grip on sanity are likeliest to slip over the edge into madness — especially if there's someone ready to give them a push. Without spilling a drop of blood, this psychological thriller transforms everyday events and settings into the extraordinary, evoking an atmosphere of sheer terror. Crime novelist Andrew Taylor hailed author Celia Fremlin as "Britain's equivalent to Patricia Highsmith … her novels are domestic, subtle, penetrating — and quite horribly chilling."
During the hours before dawn, Louise suspects, people with a precarious grip on sanity are likeliest to slip over the edge into madness — especially if there's someone ready to give them a push. Without spilling a drop of blood, this psychological thriller transforms everyday events and settings into the extraordinary, evoking an atmosphere of sheer terror. Crime novelist Andrew Taylor hailed author Celia Fremlin as "Britain's equivalent to Patricia Highsmith … her novels are domestic, subtle, penetrating — and quite horribly chilling."
193 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1959
110 people are currently reading
2816 people want to read
About the author
Celia Fremlin
78 books91 followersCelia was born in Kingsbury, now part of London, England. She was the daughter of Heaver Fremlin and Margaret Addiscott. Her older brother, John H. Fremlin, later became a nuclear physicist. Celia studied at Somerville College, Oxford University. From 1942 to 2000 she lived in Hampstead, London. In 1942 she married Elia Goller, with whom she had three children; he died in 1968. In 1985, Celia married Leslie Minchin, who died in 1999. Her many crime novels and stories helped modernize the sensation novel tradition by introducing criminal and (rarely) supernatural elements into domestic settings. Her 1958 novel The Hours Before Dawn won the Edgar Award in 1960.
With Jeffrey Barnard, she was co-presenter of a BBC2 documentary “Night and Day” describing diurnal and nocturnal London, broadcast 23 January 1987.
Fremlin was an advocate of assisted suicide and euthanasia. In a newspaper interview she admitted to assisting four people to die.[1] In 1983 civil proceedings were brought against her as one of the five members of the EXIT Executive committee which had published “A Guide to Self Deliverance” , but the court refused to declare the booklet unlawful.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia...]
With Jeffrey Barnard, she was co-presenter of a BBC2 documentary “Night and Day” describing diurnal and nocturnal London, broadcast 23 January 1987.
Fremlin was an advocate of assisted suicide and euthanasia. In a newspaper interview she admitted to assisting four people to die.[1] In 1983 civil proceedings were brought against her as one of the five members of the EXIT Executive committee which had published “A Guide to Self Deliverance” , but the court refused to declare the booklet unlawful.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia...]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 326 reviews
July 1, 2017
I read this brilliant and vintage novel in one big gulp of a sitting this afternoon - positively beautiful writing, immensely creepy yet wittily hilarious in places, Celia Fremlin gives a masterclass in the genre of Domestic Noir years before Domestic Noir was a thing.
Winner of the 1960 Edgar award for best mystery novel (and you can see why) The Hours Before Dawn follows one tired young mother as she tries to differentiate between lack of sleep and actual danger - all the while the author describes the role of wife and mother of those times perfectly with humour and grace. Louise is all women who have ever had small children and a relatively useless husband to deal with - we can all relate to that surreal edge of the world feeling you get when you've been up half the night for endless nights. Is that a real shadow hanging over the family in the shape of a seemingly innocuous lodger or is Louise just so damned tired that everything seems horrifying? The path to the truth of the matter is an often laugh out loud funny but always very off kilter one and I loved every single word of this book.
It was so refreshing to read a story set in a time where there are no mobile phones that the protagonist can forget to charge/lose/have no signal in order to push the narrative, a time where mental illness was not automatically assumed to be at the heart of any character's issues with reality, where indeed almost all of the oft used plot devices in modern domestic noir are unavailable. The Hours Before Dawn is all the more authentic for it and whilst I'm sure if I read other such books written in the same time they may take on the same blur of repetitiveness for the moment I'm relishing in the unusual and original storytelling technique. It is beautifully done for sure so I will now most definitely be reading this authors other works. In fact it will be a pleasure I shall look forward to with much anticipation.
I loved how Celia Fremlin builds the family relationships- Louise and her husband have a strong, solid marriage (another breath of fresh air) , he is useless not because of a lack of care and affection for his wife, but because of the time he lived in where more traditional roles were the norm. She is not a domestic goddess, I often snorted at some very realistic asides on the vagaries of having dinner ready whilst answering obscure and insistent questions from your youngsters and soothing a fractious baby, but all the while there is this underlying menace pervading the story. Louise knows something is wrong but doesn't know what. The author creates this creepy vibe with darker prose invading the lighter moments, those corner of the eye type times that work so much better than obvious and insistent cues.
The Hours Before Dawn was truly brilliant, both in style and substance and I really can't recommend it highly enough.
Winner of the 1960 Edgar award for best mystery novel (and you can see why) The Hours Before Dawn follows one tired young mother as she tries to differentiate between lack of sleep and actual danger - all the while the author describes the role of wife and mother of those times perfectly with humour and grace. Louise is all women who have ever had small children and a relatively useless husband to deal with - we can all relate to that surreal edge of the world feeling you get when you've been up half the night for endless nights. Is that a real shadow hanging over the family in the shape of a seemingly innocuous lodger or is Louise just so damned tired that everything seems horrifying? The path to the truth of the matter is an often laugh out loud funny but always very off kilter one and I loved every single word of this book.
It was so refreshing to read a story set in a time where there are no mobile phones that the protagonist can forget to charge/lose/have no signal in order to push the narrative, a time where mental illness was not automatically assumed to be at the heart of any character's issues with reality, where indeed almost all of the oft used plot devices in modern domestic noir are unavailable. The Hours Before Dawn is all the more authentic for it and whilst I'm sure if I read other such books written in the same time they may take on the same blur of repetitiveness for the moment I'm relishing in the unusual and original storytelling technique. It is beautifully done for sure so I will now most definitely be reading this authors other works. In fact it will be a pleasure I shall look forward to with much anticipation.
I loved how Celia Fremlin builds the family relationships- Louise and her husband have a strong, solid marriage (another breath of fresh air) , he is useless not because of a lack of care and affection for his wife, but because of the time he lived in where more traditional roles were the norm. She is not a domestic goddess, I often snorted at some very realistic asides on the vagaries of having dinner ready whilst answering obscure and insistent questions from your youngsters and soothing a fractious baby, but all the while there is this underlying menace pervading the story. Louise knows something is wrong but doesn't know what. The author creates this creepy vibe with darker prose invading the lighter moments, those corner of the eye type times that work so much better than obvious and insistent cues.
The Hours Before Dawn was truly brilliant, both in style and substance and I really can't recommend it highly enough.
August 15, 2023
Thanks to Laura's review, I acquired a copy of this book, first published in 1958, and read it almost right away. Fremlin captures brilliantly the sleep deprivation of a young mother, as she tries to fulfill the endless daily needs of her three children (one a nursing infant) and a husband who comes across as useless and selfish to us, but is certainly of his time. He’s the breadwinner, of course, though Fremlin is not interested in him. Louise is her focus.
Besides Louise, I was interested in the character of her mother-in-law, a woman viewed as not "grandmotherly," though she's perhaps a role model for the later Laura. If not, her portrayal brings up questions as to how she might’ve raised her son. She sticks up for Louise at an early juncture and seems to be the only one who sees Louise’s strength, though she phrases it rather brutally near the end.
I was less interested in the unraveling of the mystery, most of which I’d already gleaned, but it brought to mind an essay I read just this week on “crime fiction” of the same time period (give or take a decade) written by women. In the essay, https://shirleyjacksonstudies.org/?p=109, Toth posits that Shirley Jackson subverts the genre for her own purposes in Hangsaman, also giving Dorothy B. Hughes’s In a Lonely Place as an example of the same. Though not specifically about men acting violently toward women, as the others are, Celia Fremlin’s The Hours Before Dawn shares this subversion of genre.
Besides Louise, I was interested in the character of her mother-in-law, a woman viewed as not "grandmotherly," though she's perhaps a role model for the later Laura. If not, her portrayal brings up questions as to how she might’ve raised her son. She sticks up for Louise at an early juncture and seems to be the only one who sees Louise’s strength, though she phrases it rather brutally near the end.
I was less interested in the unraveling of the mystery, most of which I’d already gleaned, but it brought to mind an essay I read just this week on “crime fiction” of the same time period (give or take a decade) written by women. In the essay, https://shirleyjacksonstudies.org/?p=109, Toth posits that Shirley Jackson subverts the genre for her own purposes in Hangsaman, also giving Dorothy B. Hughes’s In a Lonely Place as an example of the same. Though not specifically about men acting violently toward women, as the others are, Celia Fremlin’s The Hours Before Dawn shares this subversion of genre.
September 8, 2023
The most absorbing aspect of this novel is Louise's interior struggle with herself as she tries to be a good wife; and mother to her three children - two girls, eight and seven and a baby, I think, 7/8 months, who has to be fed at 10 pm, precisely and again at 2 a.m. His screams wake her every night. The irate husband demands, "Can't you shut that infant up..." and Louise drags herself to the scullery, her feet on the mangle, off the cold floor, her neck resting against the draining board . . . The scullery ? - in the hope that the rest of the house will not be disturbed. The baby keeps Louise awake for the rest of the night - and then falls into an angelic repose at the crack of dawn; Louise herself struggles to decide if it's worth going back to bed, or to begin the day's routine as the girls need to be woken, breakfasted and taken to school - husband's breakfast also.
This is Louise Henderson's life - the book opens with an unsupportive Nurse Fordham, who has no answers for the demanding baby. The round of housework, and meal preparations are interspersed with a moment's respite as Louise welcomes the gossipy stories of her neighbour, Mrs Morgan, who has all the local news. Life becomes even more demanding, when Louise rents the top-floor room to a single woman - who morphs into a menacing presence.
All our sympathies are with the stalwart mother, who receives no help at all from the husband, in fact, in several scenes, we see how his presence becomes simply another demand on her over-extended resources. For example, he suggests a cinema visit to have time to themselves and wants to know who Louise will phone to arrange as babysitter. "The short-list..." says Louise, referring to the ones who can feed and put the kids to bed - as the cinema requires an early departure. In the dark comfort of the cinema, Louise is instantly asleep and experiences a roaring dream-like version of the film. It is a forewarning, however, of the hallucinatory type experiences that will follow, as she becomes more and more sleep deprived. The story progresses with the lodger becoming more intent on her own agenda; she takes full advantage of Louise's vulnerable state . . . leading to public dramas, which can only place Louise, in the worst possible light in terms of her role as Mother.
In this short novel there is a lot going on - originally published in 1958 and again by Virago press in 1984 - you can literally see how this writer would have been classed as Women's Interests and allowed to slide into oblivion, but as one reviewer has stated there are strong overtones of Shirley Jackson and also Patricia Highsmith - strong comparisons indeed; and I agree, although the sinister aspect is the part that I found the least interesting. The ongoing question of Vera Brandon's interest in Louise's family certainly provides the frame and forward impetus for this domestic noir, but I think the internal questions that Louise poses about how she can keep her marriage alive and cope with the demands of the children are the real heart of the book.
Clearly there is a feminist agenda asking how is it possible that men get away with zero responsibility? In several comic scenes Mark disappears behind a newspaper or slides out of the room, when the social obligations bore, or even with his own kids at the fun-fair, he disappears. The question this author poses - WHY does Louise feel obliged to cope with everything and should she be responsible for every detail of their marital and family life? The draining emotional and mental toll on our valiant mother is demonstrated in a poignant scene when she is almost in tears at the school-gate having realised that she has bullied her little daughters through the whole morning routine - but she is forgiven by the child's warm embrace. Louise tries to convince herself that the children exist in a "deep pool of self-absorption in which all lives begin.." and will forget their mother's bad-temper.
To me those moments were the real questions underlying the whole. The decorative cream - if you like, is the Shirley Jackson type sinister threat from the lodger, the single woman - with her own bleak history.
Here's an extract from a chance meeting, with a couple (Beatrice and Humphrey) who are friends with the Hendersons, Louise and Mark. It's a great sample of the many comic scenes which balance out the dark and sinister episodes.
Humphrey choked exultantly into his coffee, delighted at being accused of having met a woman his wife didn't know the name of-even though he couldn't remember her name either. To cover his ignorance he launched into an enthusiastic description of the lady.
"A fine figure of a woman," he improvised manfully, ransacking his regrettably vague memory. "Juno-esque, you know. Splendid shoulders- Bee will kill me for this, won't you Bee," he added, winking conscientiously at his wife, who steeled herself to smile at him in absent-minded encouragement- just as she might have steeled herself to say "Isn't that nice, dear," to a husband with a different sort of hobby-the sort that spreads glue and balsa wood all over the sitting-room.
"That's right dear," she remarked patiently. "But what we want to know is- what was her name? Don't your remember, you told me she asked you for Louise's address, and you couldn't think what she wanted it for? Well, I was just wondering if she'd got hold of Louise all right and well- what it was all about?"
"I'll bet you wanted to know what it was all about," interposed Humphrey, with ponderous innuendo. "Doesn't do to tell the ladies everything, does it, Mark?"
Mark blinked up stupidly from the discarded evening paper to which the boredom of the last twenty minutes had driven him.
"Doesn't what?" he was beginning unhelpfully, when Beatrice broke in:
"I've got it! Brandon. Vera Brandon. . . . "
Vera Brandon is Louise's lodger, who has answered a newspaper advertisement and the above conversation provides the first of several clues to indicate that the lodger is odd. As Louise reasons, with her husband, later, - why would someone ask for an address if they subsequently answer an advert for lodgings? Mark doesn't see any problem with this and like everything else Louise is on her own in trying to make sense of the inconsistencies trailing The Lodger.
This is Louise Henderson's life - the book opens with an unsupportive Nurse Fordham, who has no answers for the demanding baby. The round of housework, and meal preparations are interspersed with a moment's respite as Louise welcomes the gossipy stories of her neighbour, Mrs Morgan, who has all the local news. Life becomes even more demanding, when Louise rents the top-floor room to a single woman - who morphs into a menacing presence.
All our sympathies are with the stalwart mother, who receives no help at all from the husband, in fact, in several scenes, we see how his presence becomes simply another demand on her over-extended resources. For example, he suggests a cinema visit to have time to themselves and wants to know who Louise will phone to arrange as babysitter. "The short-list..." says Louise, referring to the ones who can feed and put the kids to bed - as the cinema requires an early departure. In the dark comfort of the cinema, Louise is instantly asleep and experiences a roaring dream-like version of the film. It is a forewarning, however, of the hallucinatory type experiences that will follow, as she becomes more and more sleep deprived. The story progresses with the lodger becoming more intent on her own agenda; she takes full advantage of Louise's vulnerable state . . . leading to public dramas, which can only place Louise, in the worst possible light in terms of her role as Mother.
In this short novel there is a lot going on - originally published in 1958 and again by Virago press in 1984 - you can literally see how this writer would have been classed as Women's Interests and allowed to slide into oblivion, but as one reviewer has stated there are strong overtones of Shirley Jackson and also Patricia Highsmith - strong comparisons indeed; and I agree, although the sinister aspect is the part that I found the least interesting. The ongoing question of Vera Brandon's interest in Louise's family certainly provides the frame and forward impetus for this domestic noir, but I think the internal questions that Louise poses about how she can keep her marriage alive and cope with the demands of the children are the real heart of the book.
Clearly there is a feminist agenda asking how is it possible that men get away with zero responsibility? In several comic scenes Mark disappears behind a newspaper or slides out of the room, when the social obligations bore, or even with his own kids at the fun-fair, he disappears. The question this author poses - WHY does Louise feel obliged to cope with everything and should she be responsible for every detail of their marital and family life? The draining emotional and mental toll on our valiant mother is demonstrated in a poignant scene when she is almost in tears at the school-gate having realised that she has bullied her little daughters through the whole morning routine - but she is forgiven by the child's warm embrace. Louise tries to convince herself that the children exist in a "deep pool of self-absorption in which all lives begin.." and will forget their mother's bad-temper.
To me those moments were the real questions underlying the whole. The decorative cream - if you like, is the Shirley Jackson type sinister threat from the lodger, the single woman - with her own bleak history.
Here's an extract from a chance meeting, with a couple (Beatrice and Humphrey) who are friends with the Hendersons, Louise and Mark. It's a great sample of the many comic scenes which balance out the dark and sinister episodes.
Humphrey choked exultantly into his coffee, delighted at being accused of having met a woman his wife didn't know the name of-even though he couldn't remember her name either. To cover his ignorance he launched into an enthusiastic description of the lady.
"A fine figure of a woman," he improvised manfully, ransacking his regrettably vague memory. "Juno-esque, you know. Splendid shoulders- Bee will kill me for this, won't you Bee," he added, winking conscientiously at his wife, who steeled herself to smile at him in absent-minded encouragement- just as she might have steeled herself to say "Isn't that nice, dear," to a husband with a different sort of hobby-the sort that spreads glue and balsa wood all over the sitting-room.
"That's right dear," she remarked patiently. "But what we want to know is- what was her name? Don't your remember, you told me she asked you for Louise's address, and you couldn't think what she wanted it for? Well, I was just wondering if she'd got hold of Louise all right and well- what it was all about?"
"I'll bet you wanted to know what it was all about," interposed Humphrey, with ponderous innuendo. "Doesn't do to tell the ladies everything, does it, Mark?"
Mark blinked up stupidly from the discarded evening paper to which the boredom of the last twenty minutes had driven him.
"Doesn't what?" he was beginning unhelpfully, when Beatrice broke in:
"I've got it! Brandon. Vera Brandon. . . . "
Vera Brandon is Louise's lodger, who has answered a newspaper advertisement and the above conversation provides the first of several clues to indicate that the lodger is odd. As Louise reasons, with her husband, later, - why would someone ask for an address if they subsequently answer an advert for lodgings? Mark doesn't see any problem with this and like everything else Louise is on her own in trying to make sense of the inconsistencies trailing The Lodger.
February 13, 2020
I must admit that I had not heard of Celia Fremlin before this year. “The Hours Before Dawn,” was her debut – published in 1958 and winner of the Edgar award in 1960. Indeed, this was a worthy winner, I am sure. A psychological thriller, when such books were in their infancy, this is a wonderful read, with a storyline that all parents will sympathise with.
Louise Henderson lives with her husband Mark, daughters Margery and Harriet, and baby Michael. With another baby, the couple decide to take in a lodger, to help make more money and they find lodger, Vera Brandon. Or, rather, she finds them. To Louise’s surprise, Miss Brandon never questions the mess made by young children, or the inconveniences of the room, but moves in directly. Smart, intelligent and well turned out, she makes Louise feel a little dowdy and helpless. For Louise is tired – Michael is not sleeping through the night and Mark, not a modern, understanding, new man, is critical and distant. Why is his lunch not ready when he comes back from work? Why is Michael not sleeping through the night? How can he cope at work when his sleep is broken?
As Louise stumbles through the demands of housework, husband and children, she begins to suspect that Miss Brandon is not all she seems. Does she seen a little too familiar? What are her motives and is she spying on her? In her exhausted, and emotional, state, she begins to question not only the new lodger, but herself… I am delighted I have discovered Celia Fremlin and look forward to reading more by her., We are, as readers, so lucky that long, out of print, authors are being re-printed and re-discovered and Fremlin certainly deserves to find a new readership.
Louise Henderson lives with her husband Mark, daughters Margery and Harriet, and baby Michael. With another baby, the couple decide to take in a lodger, to help make more money and they find lodger, Vera Brandon. Or, rather, she finds them. To Louise’s surprise, Miss Brandon never questions the mess made by young children, or the inconveniences of the room, but moves in directly. Smart, intelligent and well turned out, she makes Louise feel a little dowdy and helpless. For Louise is tired – Michael is not sleeping through the night and Mark, not a modern, understanding, new man, is critical and distant. Why is his lunch not ready when he comes back from work? Why is Michael not sleeping through the night? How can he cope at work when his sleep is broken?
As Louise stumbles through the demands of housework, husband and children, she begins to suspect that Miss Brandon is not all she seems. Does she seen a little too familiar? What are her motives and is she spying on her? In her exhausted, and emotional, state, she begins to question not only the new lodger, but herself… I am delighted I have discovered Celia Fremlin and look forward to reading more by her., We are, as readers, so lucky that long, out of print, authors are being re-printed and re-discovered and Fremlin certainly deserves to find a new readership.
July 1, 2025
This book had me reading propulsively to see what the outcome would be. A domestic noir set in 1950’’s England.
Louise is a young mother of 3- 2 school age children and a baby of 7 months of age. Michael, the baby, still does not sleep through the night, so Louise is so sleep deprived, her days are a haze.The timing is important in this book- the 1950’s. Husbands did next to nothing to support their wives. In fact, Mark, her husband, would yell at her to “ shut the damn kid up.” Louise had to run around catering to his needs as much as the children’s. I seriously detested her husband. I had to keep reminding myself that this was another time.
Louise accepts a boarder into her home. They can use the money. Her name is Vera Brandon, a conservative middle aged teacher. From the moment she enters the home, things seem off. With her lack of sleep, Louise is getting worse. She tries everything to keep her baby quiet.
“Louise stood still, and with her hand resting lightly on the handle of the pram she gazed up at the night sky, which held no faintest glimmer of dawn. Wasn’t it during the hours before dawn that sick people were most likely to die? Perhaps it was during those same hours, too, that some people slipped over into madness…?
Was Louise losing touch with reality or was there more happening here than I, the reader, was aware?
A well written, totally engaging read. Having had many sleepless nights when my kids were babies, I could identify with Louise’s exhaustion. How the truth comes out was a bit too coincidental, but otherwise a very worthwhile read.
Published: 1958
Louise is a young mother of 3- 2 school age children and a baby of 7 months of age. Michael, the baby, still does not sleep through the night, so Louise is so sleep deprived, her days are a haze.The timing is important in this book- the 1950’s. Husbands did next to nothing to support their wives. In fact, Mark, her husband, would yell at her to “ shut the damn kid up.” Louise had to run around catering to his needs as much as the children’s. I seriously detested her husband. I had to keep reminding myself that this was another time.
Louise accepts a boarder into her home. They can use the money. Her name is Vera Brandon, a conservative middle aged teacher. From the moment she enters the home, things seem off. With her lack of sleep, Louise is getting worse. She tries everything to keep her baby quiet.
“Louise stood still, and with her hand resting lightly on the handle of the pram she gazed up at the night sky, which held no faintest glimmer of dawn. Wasn’t it during the hours before dawn that sick people were most likely to die? Perhaps it was during those same hours, too, that some people slipped over into madness…?
Was Louise losing touch with reality or was there more happening here than I, the reader, was aware?
A well written, totally engaging read. Having had many sleepless nights when my kids were babies, I could identify with Louise’s exhaustion. How the truth comes out was a bit too coincidental, but otherwise a very worthwhile read.
Published: 1958
May 27, 2024
Las dificultades en la crianza de una madre de 3 niños (uno de ellos un bebé) que con la llegada de una inquilina a su casa se convierten en algo muy oscuro.
Louise es ama de casa y sus días transcurren entre pañales, juguetes y quebraderos de cabeza. Apenas duerme porque su bebé no deja de llorar. La relación con su marido no pasa por su mejor momento y se mueve por la vida agobiada y agotada.
Deciden alquilar una habitación en la planta de arriba de su casa y la inquilina es una profesora de mediana edad que desde el primer momento hace que Louise se sienta intranquila.
La vida de esta familia se resentirá con la llegada de la inquilina y la cordura de Louise se verá puesta a prueba.
Buena novela, me gustó. Lo único malo es lo extenso de las tribulaciones de la protagonista que se alargan demasiado. Eché de menos un ritmo más ágil. Aún así, muy intrigante y muy buen suspense.
Louise es ama de casa y sus días transcurren entre pañales, juguetes y quebraderos de cabeza. Apenas duerme porque su bebé no deja de llorar. La relación con su marido no pasa por su mejor momento y se mueve por la vida agobiada y agotada.
Deciden alquilar una habitación en la planta de arriba de su casa y la inquilina es una profesora de mediana edad que desde el primer momento hace que Louise se sienta intranquila.
La vida de esta familia se resentirá con la llegada de la inquilina y la cordura de Louise se verá puesta a prueba.
Buena novela, me gustó. Lo único malo es lo extenso de las tribulaciones de la protagonista que se alargan demasiado. Eché de menos un ritmo más ágil. Aún así, muy intrigante y muy buen suspense.
October 19, 2021
Wasn't it during the hours before dawn that sick people were most likely to die? Perhaps it was during those same hours, too, that sane people slipped over into madness...?
The publisher's blurb is exactly right: this is an original domestic noir and there are definite shades of Patricia Highsmith and Shirley Jackson.
Way before the wave of contemporary domestic noir/psychological thrillers that focus on maternal madness, Fremlin was quietly subverting cultural ideals of serene suburban housewives with happy husbands and well-behaved kids. Louise is so sleep deprived with her young baby that she can barely function - so is she imagining odd things about the new lodger... or are her senses on high alert for very good reason?
Fremlin writes simply but with a natural flow that pulls us effortlessly through this book. She is also expert at the sort of tropes that have become standard in this genre, though using them in 1958 is far more radical and transgressive.
But even if the story were not ludicrously gripping in itself, I'd have loved this as a slice of 1950s social history: a time when a husband could hide behind a newspaper tutting while his wife feeds two kids, a baby, makes dinner, cleans away, washes up, all after having been awake most of the night with said baby while hubby doesn't even dream of lifting a finger to help. Even more stunning for contemporary readers is that Louise doesn't find anything wrong in this. Gender roles are so solid and naturalised that this is her work. Not only does she feed and clean the family but hubby turns up for lunch at home and expects something decent on his plate - and the washing, including dirty nappies, is done by hand. Not that this book is complaining about this - it is, though, exposing the burden of women's work, both emotional and physical.
Strikingly, Mark seems to display no paternal feelings at all - he abandons the family at a day out at the fair leaving Louise with three kids, leaves the room when visitors arrive, and avoids helping his own mother transfer books from the attic into her car. For all this, he is still represented as a 'good' husband and father who loves his wife and family - a prime example of how emotions as well as roles are culturally-shaped and historicised.
So a gripping race-through-it story but with a marvellous social history dimension. And it's sardonically funny about suburban neighbours and convenient friendships. More Fremlin for me, please!
October 16, 2017
4.5/5 stars for this classic crime story! Read my full review here: http://crimebythebook.com/blog/2017/1...
This is truly a remarkable read - written in the 1950's, this psychological suspense story can hold its own against our current crop of psychological and domestic thrillers. Modern readers of the genre will be fascinated by just how well timeless Fremlin's 1950's story seems.
This is truly a remarkable read - written in the 1950's, this psychological suspense story can hold its own against our current crop of psychological and domestic thrillers. Modern readers of the genre will be fascinated by just how well timeless Fremlin's 1950's story seems.
September 4, 2018
This is said to be the first, or at least one of the first domestic psychological thrillers. I really enjoyed the domestic setting- all that 1950s English period detail about what to give the children for lunch when they come home from school (or husband when he comes home from work!), how all the beds need to be made every morning, the nappies, and the endless feeding. I liked the writing, and the build up of dread that something bad was going to happen. But it was the discovery of what the bad thing was that let this down for me, and was very clunky. But a fun, quick read.
December 27, 2018
4.5/5. After having read one of Celia Fremlin’s short stories in this collection earlier this year, I knew that I wanted to read more of her work. The Hours Before Dawn is often described as one of the original, but sadly largely forgotten works of domestic suspense, a genre that has become increasingly popular through the works of authors such as Gillian Flynn or Shari Lapena. And even though this book was written and is set in the 1950s, I was shocked by how incredibly timeless it felt.
As Louise grows increasingly delirious from lack of sleep, the novel blurs the lines between dreams and reality. Is Louise an unreliable narrator? Is Vera Brandon, the family's lodger, really behaving suspiciously or is Louise imagining it? How do you even distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t when you’re stuck in a constant state of exhaustion and delirium? Louise’s frustration with her husband, her neighbours, her children and herself felt entirely real and palpable to me. The writing built up tension and dread so effectively that I could practically hear the baby screaming from the pages of this book.
Furthermore, The Hours Before Dawn is not just an exploration of the strains of motherhood and domestic life, but also works as a really engaging mystery. It’s maybe not as fast-paced as more recent domestic thrillers, but I thought the rather slow pacing worked really well to convey Louise’s unease and confusion. I think the way (or rather the medium through which) everything was revealed in the end wasn’t ideal and could’ve been handled a bit better, but that didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the book that much.
I really liked the social commentary this book offers and the way it plays with perspective and the (un)reliability of its characters – I can't wait to discover more of Celia Fremlin's novels!
Louise would give anything - anything - for a good night's sleep. Forget the girls running errant in the garden and bothering the neighbours. Forget her husband who seems oblivious to it all. If the baby would just stop crying, everything would be fine.
Or would it? What if Louise's growing fears about the family's new lodger, who seems to share all of her husband's interests, are real? What could she do, and would anyone even believe her? Maybe, if she could get just get some rest, she'd be able to think straight.
As Louise grows increasingly delirious from lack of sleep, the novel blurs the lines between dreams and reality. Is Louise an unreliable narrator? Is Vera Brandon, the family's lodger, really behaving suspiciously or is Louise imagining it? How do you even distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t when you’re stuck in a constant state of exhaustion and delirium? Louise’s frustration with her husband, her neighbours, her children and herself felt entirely real and palpable to me. The writing built up tension and dread so effectively that I could practically hear the baby screaming from the pages of this book.
Furthermore, The Hours Before Dawn is not just an exploration of the strains of motherhood and domestic life, but also works as a really engaging mystery. It’s maybe not as fast-paced as more recent domestic thrillers, but I thought the rather slow pacing worked really well to convey Louise’s unease and confusion. I think the way (or rather the medium through which) everything was revealed in the end wasn’t ideal and could’ve been handled a bit better, but that didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the book that much.
I really liked the social commentary this book offers and the way it plays with perspective and the (un)reliability of its characters – I can't wait to discover more of Celia Fremlin's novels!
March 5, 2020
The Hours Before Dawn was first published in 1958 and has been recently reissued along with other books by Celia Fremlin.
Celia Fremlin died aged 94 in 2009 and was labelled the grandmother of psycho-domestic noir. An appropriate tag if The Hours Before Dawn is anything to go by. It's a well written and beautifully observed story about Louise Henderson, a mother struggling to cope with her three children including a new born baby. This being the late 1950s gender roles are strictly delineated and her husband just leaves her to struggle. When a new lodger arrives things take a turn for the weird, and the tension is slowly ratcheted up.
The Hours Before Dawn is really enjoyable and worth it for brilliant evocation of domestic life in 1950s London suburbia, complete with horrendous neighbours who add to the sense of enduring a hellish nightmare. What is happening? Is Louise's chronic lack of sleep causing her imagination to run wild, or is there something sinister going on under her own roof?
The denouement felt a bit too neat and didn't quite live up to the earlier sections, however this is a minor criticism. It's very obvious why so many readers are rediscovering Celia Fremlin.
4/5
Discover the original psychological thriller...
Winner of the 1960 Edgar Award for best mystery novel
Louise would give anything - anything - for a good night's sleep. Forget the girls running errant in the garden and bothering the neighbours. Forget her husband who seems oblivious to it all. If the baby would just stop crying, everything would be fine.
Or would it? What if Louise's growing fears about the family's new lodger, who seems to share all of her husband's interests, are real? What could she do, and would anyone even believe her? Maybe, if she could get just get some rest, she'd be able to think straight.
In a new edition of this lost classic, The Hours Before Dawn proves - scarily - as relevant to readers today as it was when Celia Fremlin first wrote it in the 1950s.
Celia Fremlin died aged 94 in 2009 and was labelled the grandmother of psycho-domestic noir. An appropriate tag if The Hours Before Dawn is anything to go by. It's a well written and beautifully observed story about Louise Henderson, a mother struggling to cope with her three children including a new born baby. This being the late 1950s gender roles are strictly delineated and her husband just leaves her to struggle. When a new lodger arrives things take a turn for the weird, and the tension is slowly ratcheted up.
The Hours Before Dawn is really enjoyable and worth it for brilliant evocation of domestic life in 1950s London suburbia, complete with horrendous neighbours who add to the sense of enduring a hellish nightmare. What is happening? Is Louise's chronic lack of sleep causing her imagination to run wild, or is there something sinister going on under her own roof?
The denouement felt a bit too neat and didn't quite live up to the earlier sections, however this is a minor criticism. It's very obvious why so many readers are rediscovering Celia Fremlin.
4/5
Discover the original psychological thriller...
Winner of the 1960 Edgar Award for best mystery novel
Louise would give anything - anything - for a good night's sleep. Forget the girls running errant in the garden and bothering the neighbours. Forget her husband who seems oblivious to it all. If the baby would just stop crying, everything would be fine.
Or would it? What if Louise's growing fears about the family's new lodger, who seems to share all of her husband's interests, are real? What could she do, and would anyone even believe her? Maybe, if she could get just get some rest, she'd be able to think straight.
In a new edition of this lost classic, The Hours Before Dawn proves - scarily - as relevant to readers today as it was when Celia Fremlin first wrote it in the 1950s.
October 16, 2018
"If you went on neglecting your own tastes like this, did you, in the end, cease to have any tastes? Cease, in fact, to be a person at all, and become merely a labour-saving gadget around the house?"
Domestic noir, when done well, is one of my favourite genres, one that has the potential to cut especially deep when the dangers lurking are those surrounding us in our daily lives. Whilst this genre seems to have become increasingly popular over the last decade, it is by no means a new concept – as this book proves. Written in the 1950’s, it made for a truly refreshing read that took me on a special kind of time travel. Celia Fremlin, I learned, worked for the Mass Observation Movement during WWII, skills which stood her in good stead when she took to writing novels about ordinary women of her time caught up in frightening situations. Her writing style, full of small, telling details and characters that seem to leap from the page, is both vivid and engaging and full of tongue-in-cheek humour that mocks the gender division so “normal” at the time.
Here we have Louise, a young mother of two small children and a new baby, who struggles through her days in a fog of sleep deprivation from having to tend to her son several times per night. Her husband, who returns from work expecting a cooked dinner, a clean house and well behaved children, also demands that he – the man of the house – get a good night sleep, which sees Louise feed her baby downstairs in the kitchen or laundry for fear of waking him. Of course he cannot be expected to help out with menial tasks such as lending a hand with any form of housework, or looking after the children, so Louise gradually becomes more and more exhausted. When the family take in a lodger to help with finances, strange things are starting to happen in the house, but it seems that Louise is the only one who notices that something is amiss. Soon she is convinced that there is something fishy going on with their tenant – but is it all in her mind?
I simply loved the glimpses Fremlin offers into the daily lives of women of her era, so vividly portrayed here. Everyone seems genuine and relatable, from the busybody neighbour next door who regularly complains about the children’s noise, to the friend who imposes on Louise to do her favours (which she never returns), and lots of the other side characters who lend a dimension to the story that showcases Fremlin’s skill as a writer. I loved the way she not only manages to build tension by airing Louise’s growing suspicions, but also sow doubt in the reader’s mind how reliable the sleep deprived Louise is as a narrator. Thus combining all the elements that usually make for a clever psychological thriller, Fremlin creates a timeless story that is still relevant in our times today. I, for one, loved the opportunity to get an insight into Fremlin’s era and be truly chilled to the core at the same time. A lot of modern mysteries could take a leaf out of Fremlin’s book on how to create a timeless story of suspense. I was instantly drawn in and devoured it greedily to the end. Highly recommended to lovers of the genre!
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Domestic noir, when done well, is one of my favourite genres, one that has the potential to cut especially deep when the dangers lurking are those surrounding us in our daily lives. Whilst this genre seems to have become increasingly popular over the last decade, it is by no means a new concept – as this book proves. Written in the 1950’s, it made for a truly refreshing read that took me on a special kind of time travel. Celia Fremlin, I learned, worked for the Mass Observation Movement during WWII, skills which stood her in good stead when she took to writing novels about ordinary women of her time caught up in frightening situations. Her writing style, full of small, telling details and characters that seem to leap from the page, is both vivid and engaging and full of tongue-in-cheek humour that mocks the gender division so “normal” at the time.
Here we have Louise, a young mother of two small children and a new baby, who struggles through her days in a fog of sleep deprivation from having to tend to her son several times per night. Her husband, who returns from work expecting a cooked dinner, a clean house and well behaved children, also demands that he – the man of the house – get a good night sleep, which sees Louise feed her baby downstairs in the kitchen or laundry for fear of waking him. Of course he cannot be expected to help out with menial tasks such as lending a hand with any form of housework, or looking after the children, so Louise gradually becomes more and more exhausted. When the family take in a lodger to help with finances, strange things are starting to happen in the house, but it seems that Louise is the only one who notices that something is amiss. Soon she is convinced that there is something fishy going on with their tenant – but is it all in her mind?
I simply loved the glimpses Fremlin offers into the daily lives of women of her era, so vividly portrayed here. Everyone seems genuine and relatable, from the busybody neighbour next door who regularly complains about the children’s noise, to the friend who imposes on Louise to do her favours (which she never returns), and lots of the other side characters who lend a dimension to the story that showcases Fremlin’s skill as a writer. I loved the way she not only manages to build tension by airing Louise’s growing suspicions, but also sow doubt in the reader’s mind how reliable the sleep deprived Louise is as a narrator. Thus combining all the elements that usually make for a clever psychological thriller, Fremlin creates a timeless story that is still relevant in our times today. I, for one, loved the opportunity to get an insight into Fremlin’s era and be truly chilled to the core at the same time. A lot of modern mysteries could take a leaf out of Fremlin’s book on how to create a timeless story of suspense. I was instantly drawn in and devoured it greedily to the end. Highly recommended to lovers of the genre!
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February 13, 2020
Sleep deprivation is disorienting. It can cause memory problems and mood changes. The ability to concentrate is compromised. Babies are certainly wonderful, but I've never met a mother of a baby who didn't suffer from sleep deprivation and Louise Henderson is the best I've seen in print. All she wants in this world is one good night's sleep.
I have long since passed the stage where I had small children in the house and the complications that go with them. Louise was so inefficient! I say that like my house was always neat as a pin, the laundry always done, and well-planned meals on the table when the family expected them. Not so. Still, Louise stressed over her inefficiency way beyond needing to. However, Celia Fremlin's prose is quite good and I was quite willing to persist. It felt like a rock solid foundation for what was to come and in this I was right. The family dynamics of the 1950s is well presented, though only Louise's characterization was fully fleshed. In a novel of under 200 pages, I probably needed only this one.
Others may see where this heads, but it wasn't until about three-quarters through before I had any inkling, and even then I did not foresee the extent of Fremlin's imagination. This is a solid 4-stars for me and I'm expect to see more Fremlin in my reading future.
Louise stood still, and with her hand resting lightly on the handle of the pram she gazed up at the night sky, which held no faintest glimmer of dawn. Wasn’t it during the hours before dawn that sick people were most likely to die? Perhaps it was during those same hours, too, that sane people slipped over into madness … ?So. Do we have an unreliable narrator due to sleep deprivation or is there something else going on? To be honest, I spent most of the novel being completely unsure. Vera Barnard has arrived to rent the attic room. I kept half expecting her to turn out to be a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, ready to help when things fell apart even further. And then I felt that couldn't be where this was going. Back and forth I went between unreliable narrator and sinister woman in the attic.
I have long since passed the stage where I had small children in the house and the complications that go with them. Louise was so inefficient! I say that like my house was always neat as a pin, the laundry always done, and well-planned meals on the table when the family expected them. Not so. Still, Louise stressed over her inefficiency way beyond needing to. However, Celia Fremlin's prose is quite good and I was quite willing to persist. It felt like a rock solid foundation for what was to come and in this I was right. The family dynamics of the 1950s is well presented, though only Louise's characterization was fully fleshed. In a novel of under 200 pages, I probably needed only this one.
Others may see where this heads, but it wasn't until about three-quarters through before I had any inkling, and even then I did not foresee the extent of Fremlin's imagination. This is a solid 4-stars for me and I'm expect to see more Fremlin in my reading future.
December 19, 2012
One of the pleasures of reading all those old books for My Big Fat Reading Project is discovering gems like this. The Hours Before Dawn won the Edgar Award in 1960.
Louise Henderson is the young mother of two children in 1950s London. Her infant does not sleep much, especially between the hours of 2 AM and dawn. He cries incessantly so that by the time he is just a few months old, Louise is so sleep deprived she moves through her daily housewifery duties in a daze.
Mr Henderson is a typical 50s husband who wants his dinner on time and thinks his wife should be able to quiet that baby so he can sleep at night. Neighbor women on either side of their home are busybodies: one is full of advice on child rearing and the other threatens to call the authorities about the screaming baby.
When the Hendersons let out a bedroom to a local school teacher, strange things begin to happen. It takes Louise several weeks to realize something weird is going on, being so sleepy that she is always on the verge of nodding off.
Once she realizes their boarder Vera may be the cause of the trouble, Louise turns amateur sleuth and saves her family in the nick of time.
The Hours Before Dawn equals the best of Shirley Jackson for its abundance of creeping creepiness as well as its wry take on motherhood and the plight of the housewife. Luckily for me, the book was reprinted in 1995 by Black Dagger Crime Series and I found it at my local library.
September 29, 2018
First published in 1958, The Hours Before Dawn is considered a “lost classic” and the first example of psychological suspense in a domestic setting. Admirably succinct, laced with an incisive wit and vivid characters, the inspiration for this novel was the author’s own experience with the sleepless nights, subsequent exhaustion and isolating misery that are often the lot of new mothers everywhere. As relevant and powerful as when it was originally published, Fremlin’s insightful portrayal of relationships and a mother struggling as she caters to the demands of her eight and six-year-old daughters, Margery and Harriet, a howling seven-month-old baby Michael and complaining husband, Mark are unerringly accurate. Imposed upon by everyone and berated by neighbours who cast aspersions on her parenting skills to keep the noise down, the competing demands are immense. Set in an unknown location in middle-class London the story affords a huge insight into 1950’s family life but over fifty years later every mother will be able to recognise and empathise with Louise Henderson as she goes from run ragged to throughly spent and her imagination runs wild as she teeters on the verge of delirium then has to muddle through bright-eyed and good-tempered for another day of drudgery. Neglectful of her own tastes and feeling like she has ceded to be a person in her own right or take enjoyment from life, Louise feels she has become “merely a labour-saving gadget around the house.”
From the patronising mothers and nurse at the Infant Welfare Clinic to tired and irritable husband Mark chiming in with unhelpful and impractical advice when he returns from work and the gossipmongering busybodies, Louise is constantly trying to appease everyone and manage as Michael routinely wakes at 2am, 3.15am and 5am. Forced to take in a lodger by the arrival of Michael the first applicant for an ill-equipped and very basic attic space is commanding grammar school teacher, Vera Brandon, who accepts without hesitation. Brushed aside by the strident Miss Brandon with her vague background, dismissive answers and scant possessions, Louise and Mark both have an odd sense of recognition about their new lodger. As Miss Brandon finds common ground and shared interest with Mark, Louise is intrigued and increasingly disturbed by her behaviour. When she starts to appear in her lucid dreams and she struggles to distinguish whether the sound of footsteps on uncarpeted stairs are a part of her dream or the start of Miss Brandon’s encroaching threat to her family life the situation worsens. With Mark and her neighbours seemingly charmed by her lodger it is only Louise who is distrustful as she battles with daily family chores and begins to investigate. As Mark loses patience and becomes frustrated by a scatty and suspicious Louise yet fails to offer any help on the domestic front he seems to find ever more time to spend in the company of Miss Brandon, soon leading Louise to wonder about the true intentions behind her authoritative new lodger. Could her new lodger have designs of Louise’s husband, Mark, or might she have something decidedly more sinister in her sights?
The denouement is absolutely stunning and after two heart-stopping moments of suspense when Michael is “mislaid” it creeps up and the shocking truth becomes clear to the reader, and Louise, with bittersweet emotions for the truth is far, far worse than the anticipated... As the tension steadily ratchets up a palpable sense of unease pervades which chills and horrifies in equal measure despite never amounting to any definitive discoveries until the shocking finale. Celia Fremlin manages to inspire a claustrophobic tension and ominous threat to domestic life in middle-class suburbia with her success owing much to her brilliant eye for portraying authentic and honest familial relations and chronicling everyday domestic life.
Powerful, pithy and far more memorable than many of the legion of domestic noir thrillers that have followed on its heels!
From the patronising mothers and nurse at the Infant Welfare Clinic to tired and irritable husband Mark chiming in with unhelpful and impractical advice when he returns from work and the gossipmongering busybodies, Louise is constantly trying to appease everyone and manage as Michael routinely wakes at 2am, 3.15am and 5am. Forced to take in a lodger by the arrival of Michael the first applicant for an ill-equipped and very basic attic space is commanding grammar school teacher, Vera Brandon, who accepts without hesitation. Brushed aside by the strident Miss Brandon with her vague background, dismissive answers and scant possessions, Louise and Mark both have an odd sense of recognition about their new lodger. As Miss Brandon finds common ground and shared interest with Mark, Louise is intrigued and increasingly disturbed by her behaviour. When she starts to appear in her lucid dreams and she struggles to distinguish whether the sound of footsteps on uncarpeted stairs are a part of her dream or the start of Miss Brandon’s encroaching threat to her family life the situation worsens. With Mark and her neighbours seemingly charmed by her lodger it is only Louise who is distrustful as she battles with daily family chores and begins to investigate. As Mark loses patience and becomes frustrated by a scatty and suspicious Louise yet fails to offer any help on the domestic front he seems to find ever more time to spend in the company of Miss Brandon, soon leading Louise to wonder about the true intentions behind her authoritative new lodger. Could her new lodger have designs of Louise’s husband, Mark, or might she have something decidedly more sinister in her sights?
The denouement is absolutely stunning and after two heart-stopping moments of suspense when Michael is “mislaid” it creeps up and the shocking truth becomes clear to the reader, and Louise, with bittersweet emotions for the truth is far, far worse than the anticipated... As the tension steadily ratchets up a palpable sense of unease pervades which chills and horrifies in equal measure despite never amounting to any definitive discoveries until the shocking finale. Celia Fremlin manages to inspire a claustrophobic tension and ominous threat to domestic life in middle-class suburbia with her success owing much to her brilliant eye for portraying authentic and honest familial relations and chronicling everyday domestic life.
Powerful, pithy and far more memorable than many of the legion of domestic noir thrillers that have followed on its heels!
January 23, 2025
Me ha sorprendido para bien, una novela de misterio con crítica social.
July 21, 2025
Enjoyed this, particularly the psychological aspect of motherhood. Definitely a low-grade sinister feeling bubbling away below the surface. The only drawback for this reader was the ending - it didn't do the overall story arc justice.
July 19, 2020
Setting: London; 1950s. Louisa Henderson, living in London suburbia in the 1950's with her husband Mark and three children, is trying to maintain the social norms of the time by being a good wife, mother and neighbour. But her baby, Michael, refuses to sleep through the night and his constant waking and screaming is driving the neighbours to distraction and complaint and driving Louisa to her wit's end through lack of sleep - typical of the time, husband Mark is no use whatsoever and doesn't interfere in 'women's work' save to complain about being woken in the night! Then into their lives comes spinster schoolteacher Vera Brandon to occupy their spare room - Louisa and her husband are sure that they have seen her somewhere before but can't remember where or when. As sleep deprivation begins to take its toll on Louisa, there are a couple of bizarre incidents involving her baby son Michael which lead her (and others) to think that she is losing her mind....
Written in 1958, this book has been dubbed as a 'lost masterpiece' - certainly it is probably one of the earliest written that I have read of the now popular and prolific 'psychological thriller' genre. This book reads very much as being 'of its time', not only in setting but also in style and the social attitudes depicted (reflecting apparently the author's own experiences) - there is no bloodshed but feelings of threat that build up as the story progresses. The ending is perhaps wrapped up a bit too quickly and neatly but it wasn't really one that I saw coming. A good if not a great read and certainly worth seeking out, this being a modern-day reprint of the original book - 7/10.
Written in 1958, this book has been dubbed as a 'lost masterpiece' - certainly it is probably one of the earliest written that I have read of the now popular and prolific 'psychological thriller' genre. This book reads very much as being 'of its time', not only in setting but also in style and the social attitudes depicted (reflecting apparently the author's own experiences) - there is no bloodshed but feelings of threat that build up as the story progresses. The ending is perhaps wrapped up a bit too quickly and neatly but it wasn't really one that I saw coming. A good if not a great read and certainly worth seeking out, this being a modern-day reprint of the original book - 7/10.
February 11, 2022
This is a very enjoyable and quick read. I loved the novel’s use of the tiredness of a new mother as a devise to question her perceptions. As Wikipedia states about Fremlin, she “helped modernize the sensation novel tradition by introducing criminal . . . elements into domestic settings.” And Fremlin does that very effectively. The author’s insights into a late 1950s mother of a new baby were believable and drew me into the story.
I found the more ‘relaxed’ parental attitudes of the time to be amusing as were many of the side character portrayals. I loved the discussions with the reluctant grandmother and self-centered Mrs. Hooper and her know-it-all friend Magda.
I found myself thinking of the book in cinematic terms. The suspense involving the main character’s perception of a threat reminded me of the tension in Hitchcock films such as Suspicion and Rebecca. I also viewed the domestic plot as a forerunner of later movies such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
I can see why this book won the 1960 Edgar Award. While the ending may have been a bit too 'clean,' I found that the housewife/mother domestic plot and great side characters made this a very satisfying story, even better than her second novel Uncle Paul. A 4+ star read.
I found the more ‘relaxed’ parental attitudes of the time to be amusing as were many of the side character portrayals. I loved the discussions with the reluctant grandmother and self-centered Mrs. Hooper and her know-it-all friend Magda.
I found myself thinking of the book in cinematic terms. The suspense involving the main character’s perception of a threat reminded me of the tension in Hitchcock films such as Suspicion and Rebecca. I also viewed the domestic plot as a forerunner of later movies such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
I can see why this book won the 1960 Edgar Award. While the ending may have been a bit too 'clean,' I found that the housewife/mother domestic plot and great side characters made this a very satisfying story, even better than her second novel Uncle Paul. A 4+ star read.
February 15, 2025
Las horas antes del amanecer.
Celia Fremlin
Este libro es una auténtica joya (como casi todo lo que publica este sello editorial).
Si bien la historia podría parecer una película de las típicas de Antena 3, la maestría con la que escribe la autora, con esas fabulosas frases llenas de sarcasmo, hacen de algo que podría ser una obra normalita, una novela de escritura brillante.
No hace falta ser madre para sentir lo que siente la protagonista, aunque si eres madre y te reconoces en ese cansancio extremo cuando te ha tocado un bebé de los que no descansan, sabrás de lo que habla la autora.
Esas horas antes del amanecer en las que algunos enfermos empeoran y mueren o en las que la falta de descanso te puede hacer rozar algo parecido a la locura, son las que la protagonista teme. En las que no es capaz de discernir cuando está despierta o dormida teniendo a su bebé en los brazos.
No es un libro de giros, de rapidez en la trama. Pero sí te va llevando poco a poco a un clímax en el que intuyes que se avecina algo gordo.
En fin, una obra que Alfred Hitchcock eligió para hacer una película en su serie "La hora de Alfred Hitchcock". Por algo será
Celia Fremlin
Este libro es una auténtica joya (como casi todo lo que publica este sello editorial).
Si bien la historia podría parecer una película de las típicas de Antena 3, la maestría con la que escribe la autora, con esas fabulosas frases llenas de sarcasmo, hacen de algo que podría ser una obra normalita, una novela de escritura brillante.
No hace falta ser madre para sentir lo que siente la protagonista, aunque si eres madre y te reconoces en ese cansancio extremo cuando te ha tocado un bebé de los que no descansan, sabrás de lo que habla la autora.
Esas horas antes del amanecer en las que algunos enfermos empeoran y mueren o en las que la falta de descanso te puede hacer rozar algo parecido a la locura, son las que la protagonista teme. En las que no es capaz de discernir cuando está despierta o dormida teniendo a su bebé en los brazos.
No es un libro de giros, de rapidez en la trama. Pero sí te va llevando poco a poco a un clímax en el que intuyes que se avecina algo gordo.
En fin, una obra que Alfred Hitchcock eligió para hacer una película en su serie "La hora de Alfred Hitchcock". Por algo será
May 21, 2024
Muy bien escrito, tensión creciente y algún toque de humor. En resumen, una grata sorpresa. Gracias a Rara Avis por no dejar que estas autoras y sus historias caigan en el olvido.
January 8, 2018
Rarely have I read a book in which the tension builds with such a crescendo. I had thought at one stage that it was slow in the first half, but if it is then that very much contributes to the story. For the protagonist Louise also, everything is building up and sooner or later there will be disintegration. But of course, there are twists...
This is set in the 1950s when it was first published and tells the story of a somewhat ordinary London couple with a young family, two daughters of 8 and 6 year old, and an infant. They take in a lodger and the pressures on Louise grow.
It’s the original ‘domestic noir’ in many ways, especially in the last couple of years when there have been so many novels successful in this genre. It reminded me a little of Doris Lessing’s To Room Nineteen which similarly deals with a woman under a pressure that few around her even notice. I suspect also that this is one of those novels that I will appreciate more looking back at it in a few days or weeks, so maybe I will push that rating up to 5 stars...
This is set in the 1950s when it was first published and tells the story of a somewhat ordinary London couple with a young family, two daughters of 8 and 6 year old, and an infant. They take in a lodger and the pressures on Louise grow.
It’s the original ‘domestic noir’ in many ways, especially in the last couple of years when there have been so many novels successful in this genre. It reminded me a little of Doris Lessing’s To Room Nineteen which similarly deals with a woman under a pressure that few around her even notice. I suspect also that this is one of those novels that I will appreciate more looking back at it in a few days or weeks, so maybe I will push that rating up to 5 stars...
March 4, 2011
I have been looking for this title for 40 years! I read this book repeatedly as a child of 8, 9, 10, maybe up to 11 years old. It truly frightened me. Over the years I lost track of the book (it belonged to my mother) but the story has remained vivid. An exhausted mother who is beginning to lose her grip on reality and cannot be as grateful for her beautiful baby as she wants to be because of her exhaustion. A husband who is less than patient. And a helpful neighbor who may (or may not) be as kind as she appears. A classic.
Recommended for: for anyone who has ever been an exhausted mom and for people who enjoy stories that will stay with them for decades.
Recommended for: for anyone who has ever been an exhausted mom and for people who enjoy stories that will stay with them for decades.
January 3, 2014
A superb and beautifully written tale of suspense that won Fremlin an Edgar Award - not bad for a first novel. The plot is not that complex, but the mystery excels at presenting an exceedingly believable protagonist in housewife Louise Henderson, and the mid- century setting (the novel is from 1958) lends the proceedings a vintage, yet realistic appeal.
February 16, 2021
One of the best descriptions of the sheer drudgery and exhaustion of motherhood and sleepless nights, interlaced with humour, wit and a very mature style which seems to have disappeared from contemporary domestic noir.
December 8, 2018
4.5 stars. Written in 1958 this book could be one of the very first domestic noir publications. It tells the tale of harassed mother of 3 Louise Henderson whose main aim in life is to get a decent night’s sleep, which is very unlikely due to her young baby’s penchant for crying all night long. After they take in a lodger, Miss Brandon, Louise’s grip on reality becomes even more tenuous and it’s soon hard to see what is fact and what is fiction.
I just loved this book. Although very of its time I found it fascinating that a new mother’s desire for sleep following the birth of a child has never changed. I also thought her depiction of squabbling older children was absolutely spot on - my current 8 year olds behave in exactly the same way as the 2 young girls in this book did, 60 years earlier!
Whilst some of the book shows its age, i.e. leaving the baby in the pram out in the garden/outside the shop/while you go on a fun fair ride (can you imagine?!) so much of it still resonated. And I just loved the writing with its wonderful imagery;
“But Louise had escaped. Past the Lucky Numbers. Past the goggling clown’s heads with mouths agape to receive ping pong balls. Past the swings. Past the Big Wheel which rose with strange dignity into the quiet sky”
And as well as all of that it had a pretty damn good plot too. I was genuinely unnerved by the plot reveal. Probably the only thing which spoilt it a little was that I read it on the kindle, halfway through I realised it should definitely have been read on that old fashioned stuff called paper!!!
I just loved this book. Although very of its time I found it fascinating that a new mother’s desire for sleep following the birth of a child has never changed. I also thought her depiction of squabbling older children was absolutely spot on - my current 8 year olds behave in exactly the same way as the 2 young girls in this book did, 60 years earlier!
Whilst some of the book shows its age, i.e. leaving the baby in the pram out in the garden/outside the shop/while you go on a fun fair ride (can you imagine?!) so much of it still resonated. And I just loved the writing with its wonderful imagery;
“But Louise had escaped. Past the Lucky Numbers. Past the goggling clown’s heads with mouths agape to receive ping pong balls. Past the swings. Past the Big Wheel which rose with strange dignity into the quiet sky”
And as well as all of that it had a pretty damn good plot too. I was genuinely unnerved by the plot reveal. Probably the only thing which spoilt it a little was that I read it on the kindle, halfway through I realised it should definitely have been read on that old fashioned stuff called paper!!!
February 27, 2026
Louise is a mother of three, her youngest a 10-month-old, Michael, who cries constantly. Louise and Mark are exhausted, but at least Mark has a job so gets away from the house for hours every day. The new baby also means their finances are stretched, so they take in a lodger – Vera Brandon, a spinster school teacher. Or is she? Through the haze of her exhaustion, Louise grows progressively wary of Miss Brandon, whose behaviour seems… strange.
Lots of humour in this, although it’s also very insightful about the stress and exhaustion of dealing with a constantly crying baby, and the disapproval heaped on the head of the poor mother who somehow is held entirely responsible, even by her husband. It’s a bit stretched in the first half – too many descriptions of Louise falling asleep at awkward moments – but it gradually becomes a tense read as Miss Brandon becomes increasingly sinister. It remains fairly light‑hearted throughout, though – great fun! 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
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Lots of humour in this, although it’s also very insightful about the stress and exhaustion of dealing with a constantly crying baby, and the disapproval heaped on the head of the poor mother who somehow is held entirely responsible, even by her husband. It’s a bit stretched in the first half – too many descriptions of Louise falling asleep at awkward moments – but it gradually becomes a tense read as Miss Brandon becomes increasingly sinister. It remains fairly light‑hearted throughout, though – great fun! 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
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February 9, 2025
Se trata de una novela catalogada como domestic noir o de misterio doméstico y fue premiada en 1960 con el Premio Edgar a la mejor novela de suspense. Pero desde ya os digo q el misterio no es lo más impactante. Lo q asusta es lo q nos grita desde sus páginas; una realidad q esta mujer nos presenta en 1958 y q por desgracia sigue siendo actualidad: la denuncia de la mujer, madre y esposa, por la falta de libertad, falta de apoyo y por la anulación de sus sueños. Una mujer q deambula como una sonámbula, q cree haber perdido el juicio y q nos interpela desde la soledad del hogar q la oprime y q siente q la encarcela. En resumen, la renuncia a la vida por la entrega en cuerpo y alma a las necesidades de los demás.
Una novela donde el narrador poco fiable nos muestra una situación agobiante, creando un ambiente de misterio q nos arrastra hasta el final. Una novela cortita, bien narrada, fácil de leer y absorbente. La han comparado con Patricia Highsmith, pero creo q su estilo nada tiene q ver. Una novela q váis a disfrutar y q os recomiendo 100%.
Una novela donde el narrador poco fiable nos muestra una situación agobiante, creando un ambiente de misterio q nos arrastra hasta el final. Una novela cortita, bien narrada, fácil de leer y absorbente. La han comparado con Patricia Highsmith, pero creo q su estilo nada tiene q ver. Una novela q váis a disfrutar y q os recomiendo 100%.
February 20, 2026
If the title "The Lodger" hadn't been first used in 1913 by Marie Belloc Lowndes, it would've been an appropriate title for this 1958 novel. Capturing the hallucinogenic nightmare of an intensely sleep-deprived mother of three young children in a household spinning into chaos, The Hours Before Dawn presents her concerns and fears about a lodger who has recently taken a room in the house. Is the young mother's inability to sleep making her paranoid and delusional, or is she a questionably reliable narrator seeing red flags that no one else can distinguish. Not a murder mystery, but a mystery nonetheless and relatable to anyone for whom sufficient sleep is a foreign country. This was Celia Fremlin's award winning first novel, and has been called one of the first examples of domestic suspense. Certainly one of the most domestic of the domestic noirs I've read.
August 24, 2017
Celia Fremlin's 1958 debut novel, The Hours Before Dawn, which has been recently reissued by Faber & Faber, sounded utterly splendid. The novel, which won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1960, marked the beginning of Fremlin's prolific career, in which she went on to publish sixteen novels in all. Fremlin's metier, says Laura Wilson's intelligent and informative introduction, 'was psychological suspense in a domestic setting; no grand guignol or melodrama, but something a thousand times creeper and more insidious in its small-scale, suburban gentility.' A forgotten period novel, lost to the annals of time, which contains an awful lot of psychological tension, was wholly appealing to me.
The novel, which focuses upon a young mother named Louise Henderson, and details her troubles of sleepless nights following the birth of her youngest child, is based upon the experiences which Fremlin herself had. It opens with just this issue: 'I'd give anything - anything - for a night's sleep...'. Louise has two school-age daughters, and a new baby named Michael. She 'struggles to service the needs of her family, keep things on an even keel with husband Mark, keep the noise down for the neighbours and keep up appearances in middle-class London.' Her life is stagnant, and stuck in a rut; she continually has to perform the same tasks day after day, and the majority of these revolve around her children: 'The dull, relentless daylight of a wet spring evening was still undiminished; it seemed to go on - and on - and on. Would it never be time to switch on the lights, draw the curtains, and let it slip back into firelit winter again?' Louise does not have a great support network around her; or, arguably, much of one at all. Mark is very much of the view that it is a mother's, rather than a father's, prerogative to look after the children; he implores Louise to make his life easier without making any efforts of his own: '"You've got to see that Michael stops crying at night. You can't expect anyone else to put up with it. I've had just about all I can stand myself."'
Following Michael's birth, the Hendersons find that they have to take in a lodger to make ends meet; Miss Vera Brandon comes along, and Louise soon feels a growing uncertainty about her: 'Miss Brandon, in both voice and appearance, gave the impression of being a successful woman of the world, both critical and self-assured; not at all the sort of person whom one would expect to choose for her house an inconvenient, ill-equipped attic in someone else's house.'
The Hours Before Dawn begins in an Infant Weighing Clinic; Louise tells the nurse that Michael cries all the way through the night, and will not settle. Her discomfort with her son, and his with her, is made immediately apparent: 'As she spoke, she jiggled Michael with mounting violence, feeling through her palms, through her thighs, the tide of boredom rising within him. Harder - harder - it was like baling out a boat when you know without any doubt that the water will win in the end...'.
Louise is constantly surprised by rather awkward situations that occur. When Vera comes into the family's lounge when she is breastfeeding Michael, for instance, Louise is at first embarrassed, and then unsettled, talking quickly in order to divert attention from her bodily exposure: 'Louise stopped, uneasily conscious that she was beginning to run on about her children in just the kind of way that up-to-date mothers must be so careful to avoid. To talk shop if you are a mother is not socially permissible as it is if you are a typist or a bus conductor.'
Fremlin realistically draws her characters with just a few deft strokes of her pen. Of Louise's youngest daughter, she writes: 'Harriet, smaller, darker, carrying nothing, free as air, flew past her woebegone sister, skimming like a dryad across the crowded pavement and into Louise's arms'. Louise certainly has an easier relationship with her daughters than with her son, but her lack of sleep and constant worry certainly affects every member of her family, sooner or later.
Written in, and of, a period in which 'gender-demarcation was well-night absolute and motherhood fetishised as woman's highest calling', The Hours Before Dawn still holds much relevance for the modern woman. Its prose is nuanced and modern in its feel. The novel is immersive, and has none of the telltale signs which one might associate with a debut. Fremlin has found her voice in The Hours Before Dawn, and her writing appears to be more practised than practising. Fremlin's pace is spot on, and she builds tension and terror admirably. The denouement is both surprising and clever, and I for one cannot wait to discover the rest of her work.
The novel, which focuses upon a young mother named Louise Henderson, and details her troubles of sleepless nights following the birth of her youngest child, is based upon the experiences which Fremlin herself had. It opens with just this issue: 'I'd give anything - anything - for a night's sleep...'. Louise has two school-age daughters, and a new baby named Michael. She 'struggles to service the needs of her family, keep things on an even keel with husband Mark, keep the noise down for the neighbours and keep up appearances in middle-class London.' Her life is stagnant, and stuck in a rut; she continually has to perform the same tasks day after day, and the majority of these revolve around her children: 'The dull, relentless daylight of a wet spring evening was still undiminished; it seemed to go on - and on - and on. Would it never be time to switch on the lights, draw the curtains, and let it slip back into firelit winter again?' Louise does not have a great support network around her; or, arguably, much of one at all. Mark is very much of the view that it is a mother's, rather than a father's, prerogative to look after the children; he implores Louise to make his life easier without making any efforts of his own: '"You've got to see that Michael stops crying at night. You can't expect anyone else to put up with it. I've had just about all I can stand myself."'
Following Michael's birth, the Hendersons find that they have to take in a lodger to make ends meet; Miss Vera Brandon comes along, and Louise soon feels a growing uncertainty about her: 'Miss Brandon, in both voice and appearance, gave the impression of being a successful woman of the world, both critical and self-assured; not at all the sort of person whom one would expect to choose for her house an inconvenient, ill-equipped attic in someone else's house.'
The Hours Before Dawn begins in an Infant Weighing Clinic; Louise tells the nurse that Michael cries all the way through the night, and will not settle. Her discomfort with her son, and his with her, is made immediately apparent: 'As she spoke, she jiggled Michael with mounting violence, feeling through her palms, through her thighs, the tide of boredom rising within him. Harder - harder - it was like baling out a boat when you know without any doubt that the water will win in the end...'.
Louise is constantly surprised by rather awkward situations that occur. When Vera comes into the family's lounge when she is breastfeeding Michael, for instance, Louise is at first embarrassed, and then unsettled, talking quickly in order to divert attention from her bodily exposure: 'Louise stopped, uneasily conscious that she was beginning to run on about her children in just the kind of way that up-to-date mothers must be so careful to avoid. To talk shop if you are a mother is not socially permissible as it is if you are a typist or a bus conductor.'
Fremlin realistically draws her characters with just a few deft strokes of her pen. Of Louise's youngest daughter, she writes: 'Harriet, smaller, darker, carrying nothing, free as air, flew past her woebegone sister, skimming like a dryad across the crowded pavement and into Louise's arms'. Louise certainly has an easier relationship with her daughters than with her son, but her lack of sleep and constant worry certainly affects every member of her family, sooner or later.
Written in, and of, a period in which 'gender-demarcation was well-night absolute and motherhood fetishised as woman's highest calling', The Hours Before Dawn still holds much relevance for the modern woman. Its prose is nuanced and modern in its feel. The novel is immersive, and has none of the telltale signs which one might associate with a debut. Fremlin has found her voice in The Hours Before Dawn, and her writing appears to be more practised than practising. Fremlin's pace is spot on, and she builds tension and terror admirably. The denouement is both surprising and clever, and I for one cannot wait to discover the rest of her work.
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