Possession

by Celia Fremlin

Clare Erskine thought it was a wonderful stroke of luck that her 19 year old daughter, Sarah, was engaged to marry an accountant. Sarah would live happily ever after and Clare pull ahead in the unspoken race that mothers run. But beneath the surface of suburban tranquillity, lies a story of a possessive mother and her twisted son.

Genres: Horror, Mystery, Fiction

158 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 25, 1969

About the author

Celia 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...]

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another brilliantly subtle chiller from Fremlin, the queen of the mid-twentieth century 'dark domestic' narrative. I love the way everything starts off so normally: wayward teenagers, a suburban London mother congratulating herself on how modern she is with her understanding of Freud; gossipy neighbours, and a husband whinging about dinner not being on the table...

But, gradually, things start to darken and, as this is Fremlin, unravel in unexpected directions. With a particularly eerie ending, this is one of Fremlin's best that I've read so far. Best not to know too much about this before reading: just plunge in and rely on her skills to take the everyday and turn it into something horribly macabre.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 2 out of 5]

My taste in psychological suspense fiction runs pretty narrow. This was okay, if a bit heavy on the parental hand-wringing, but the ending felt rather abrupt, like Fremlin wasn't sure what to do once she got there so she rushed into it full-on, leaving behind a plot in disarray.

[WndyJW · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my least favorite Fremlin novel, but I still loved reading it. Fremlin’s portrayal of harried housewives, confused husbands, rebellious teens, catty, gossipy neighbors is stereotypical and should offend my feminist sensibilities, but it’s all so campy and fun I can’t be mad.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Celia Fremlin, Possession (Pocket, 1969)

This, the debut novel by a woman who's since gone on to pen close to a hundred more, should have been a barnburner. The plot is simple and easy to work with (family watches daughter fall in love with chap with overbearing mother-- shades of Bloch, Hintze, et al.), the twists are intriguing (the main character's friend, whose house is always full of interesting strangers); etc. Fremlin had a lot of really good ingredients, and is capable of writing scintillating prose when she wants to; every five pages or so a sentence or a paragraph would make me stop cold and marvel at the quality of this woman's writing. The problem is, once every five pages or so isn't enough to make the book shine, especially when it's under two hundred pages. So I ended up dropping this one into the "wasted potential" file. It showed enough promise that I'll probably attempt to pick up a few of her later works and see if she ever put it all together properly, but it didn't work in this one. * 1/2

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again Fremlin entertained me with a truly captivating story, but I don’t think this is quite up to some of her others. The book is told through a mother of two teenage girls, who very much cares what others feel about her mothering and her family. As all mothers do, she cares about the future of her children, and has reservations about the man her elder daughter has chosen to marry, but when she meets him, it is only about the age difference between the pair, until she begins to hear more about his family. Slowly we drawn into his history, Fremlin building the tension.

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great suspense novel. I loved the voice of the narrator and the insights into late-twentieth-century middle-class English people's values.
(P.S.: I thought the scary hanging dolls on the cover of the Pocket Books edition were just for effect. I was wrong.)

[Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keeping up appearances in suburbia while battling your daughter's mother-in-law from hell - such fun! Clare, respectable wife and mother of two does a great job, and half the fun in this domestic suspense novel is seeing her trying to keep it all together with well-intentioned lies. Fascinating peek into parent-child relationships in the late sixties. Creepy as hell.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I read of Fremlin, the more I love her and this has definitely been one of my favourites so far. This was her seventh novel, published in 1969, and there is a real sense of the late Sixties in this storyline. Our main character is Clare Erskine, married to Ralph (although husbands tend to be quite peripheral to Fremlin's novels - her mind and thoughts are with the women, who gossip and who are both confidantes and judges) and mother to two daughters, Sarah and Janice.

Sarah is nineteen and when she says she is engaged, Clare is delighted. She is of a mindset that says parents should not interfere or judge and so she is ready to approve of Mervyn Redmayne. However, soon things are not as blissful as Clare had hoped, because Mervyn has a mother and she definitely does not conform to the Sixties idea of free speech or free love. She interferes. She is nervous, invents excuses why Mervyn should not leave her alone at night, calls up Clare and refuses to accept the engagement. Gradually, Clare finds herself drawn into the life of Mrs Redmayne, firstly as she attempts to create space for the young people and then to find out what is behind her behaviour.

This is domestic noir at its best. Fremlin points a sharp and clear eye on women, their relationships and how they navigate relationships with each other. So much of what she writes is still so very true and this is an absolutely brilliant read. I look forward to reading on and am so thankful she has been republished for new readers to discover.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars? Maybe...

I am conflicted!

The pacing on this one seemed to drag a bit. And while I understand that a slow burn builds tension, if the burn is too slow, it builds boredom. The mother's POV was horror unto itself. The burden of being a modern parent, straddling the line between being smothering and parenting... Impossible. And I cannot address that nightmare of the Hardwick's house.

I agree with other reviewers who felt that the ending was too quick and too jarring -- a tad "throw away".

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Celia Fremlin indeed.
Maybe her less realistic novel but with some truly scary passages well beyond any eerie or suspenseful episodes present in her bibliography.
When half way it subtly allows you to guess right, the ending brings you suddenly back to the initial one hundred questions. Celia Fremlin indeed.
A further but less elusive twist would have elevated the reading experience to a higher level of pleasurable suspense and excitement.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I read many years ago, and decided to reread while waiting for a pickup from my library. It was written in the 60’s, so many of the attitudes are quite outdated, but it was still entertaining. I especially enjoyed the description of the household with 3 grown sons who refuse to move out and bring home all sorts of girlfriends and hangers-on to stay indefinitely. Ridiculous, but funny. The main story was also pretty silly, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it.

[Lora Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Celia Fremlin does slow-burn creepy domestic psychological thrillers so well! Her biting wit and dark humor make it even better. This one had me on the edge of my seat more and more as the story (and the narrator's stress) progressed.

[Lisbeth Mizula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Master of psychological suspense.

[toots · Rating 3 out of 5]

undoubtedly well written. for me, a bit too domestic a drag.

[Bea Alden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Celia Fremlin excels in the domestic mystery genre. This one is told by a mother who seems to be enduring her childrens' teen years with great difficulty. The descriptions of terrible teens - hers and those of her neighbors and friends - and the torture endured by their parents are hilarious. Yet there is a serious plot, involving the eighteen-year-old daughter's engagement to a man whose mother seems to be pathologically possessive of him.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the idea of writing from the point of view of a conflicted, gossipy Mother who uses the standing of her child for her own social status, but some of the descriptions and events dragged on without suspense. Decent book and premise, interesting parent-child relationships throughout, but overall pretty clunky.