Mr. Wrong

by Elizabeth Jane Howard

A short story anthology of thrills, chills, and the impulses and longings that drive us, from the bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles.

In this dazzling collection, author Elizabeth Jane Howard mines the rich terrain of the heart with her trademark wit and style, as well as a Hitchcockian dose of spine-tingling suspense.

In "Pont du Gard," a man on holiday with his sixteen-year-old daughter and her best friend gets his comeuppance when he confesses his infidelities to his long-suffering wife, and in Howard's masterly hands, the seduction of the na�ve, betrothed Englishwoman of "Toutes Directions" by a worldly Frenchman is fresh, tender, and liberating.

In another story, a twelve-year-old child star plots how to get the "Whip Hand" over her monstrous mother, while the effects of a family patriarch dying on Christmas day are shown through the shifting perspectives of his loved ones, including a loyal servant, in "The Devoted." And in the hair-raising, hallucinatory title story, a young woman moves to London to satisfy her mother's desire for her to meet her soul mate--only to encounter a menacing stranger who gives terrifying new meaning to the finding of Mr. Right.

In these and other tales, Howard proves once again that she is a master of the subtle, revealing domestic detail. Featuring wronged spouses, stalkers, and men and women falling in and out of love, the nine stories in this haunting collection skew our perceptions and reality while brimming with emotion that is at once unique and universal.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, British Literature, Mystery, 20th Century, Literature

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Elizabeth Jane Howard, CBE, was an English novelist. She was an actress and a model before becoming a novelist. In 1951, she won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her first novel, The Beautiful Visit. Six further novels followed, before she embarked on her best known work, a four novel family saga (i.e., The Cazalet Chronicles) set in wartime Britain. The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off were serialised by Cinema Verity for BBC television as The Cazalets (The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion and Casting Off). She has also written a book of short stories, Mr Wrong, and edited two anthologies.

Her last novel in The Cazalet Chronicles series, "ALL CHANGE", was published in November 2013.

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pqdsc

Meg comes to London to buy a second-hand car, but all is not as it seems. Chilling tale read by Matilda Ziegler.

After a fright on the M1, will Meg be able to sell the car that she now knows is haunted? Read by Matilda Ziegler.

[Carol Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Jane Howard is probably best known for her panoramic CAZALET series, which chronicles the rise and fall of an upper middle class British family before, during, and after WWII. (It was made into a Masterpiece Theater Presentation.)But in this collection of short stories she shows off her versatile range, writing about contemporary (Sixties)English women of privileged backgrounds who sometimes -- but not always -- find modern life in democratic, post-war Britain both exhilarating and empowering.

MR. WRONG, the title story, is a chilling tale of murder and suspense worthy of Hitchcock at his finest. The heroine is a young woman of means, yet alone in vast and impersonal London she is easy prey for a satanic stalker with almost superhuman powers. The endless agony of suspense is almost worse than the ghastly conclusion. Definitely not for the faint of heart!

But not all the stories in this collection end in sheer horror. In the sensual and tender TOUTES DIRECTIONS, a sheltered English miss engaged to a dull but suitable man takes a short trip to France, with entirely predictable results. The seduction of a prim and proper English girl by a skilled and knowing Frenchman is a concept that goes back centuries, but in this story the romance is fresh and modern and very, very sophisticated.

It's interesting that Howard presents most of these women as being modern and liberated in the outward sense, smoking and drinking and having casual affairs, yet still subject to all the timeless tears and heartbreak of being a woman. Cynical and romantic, tender and scornful, perceptive and bitter, these stories of modern British women -- both in love and out -- are works to treasure.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories by one of my favourite authors is full of Mr Wrongs. From a Mr Wrong who mysteriously gets into a woman's haunted car, to a Mr Wrong who confesses an affair to his wife, and a father who loves his daughter at the expense of his wife. There are a few Mrs Wrongs too including an abusive mother trying to get her daughter a part in a film. The book starts and ends with creepy stories, and while all feature of course Howard's elegant prose, there are a few stories where the ending is too much of a tah-dah! moment. The ones that worked best were those that lingered in my mind.

[Debbie Robson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Wrong is a pretty scary story and I was surprised by how effective the story was. But then I shouldn’t have been. Elizabeth Jane Howard is adept at getting us to understand and care about her characters. It is a skill that she has developed over a long writing career culminating with her Cazalet Chronicles. And of course you need to care about characters in a story to be scared for them. Well, that’s what I’ve found anyway.
This story was first published in 1975 and is set late 60s early 70s. The main character’s parents are disappointing to say the least - the father selfish and of a nervous disposition and her mother just wanting her daughter to meet Mr Right. “So, Meg had come to London, got a job in an antique shop in the New King’s Road, and shared a two-room flat with two other girls in Fulham.” Everything is fine until she buys a second hand car and the tension builds unrelentingly.
Meg’s father has advised her never to give lifts to strangers but when she comes across the girl she feels sorry for her:
“There was nothing in the least remarkable about her appearance at first glance: she was short, rather dumpy, wearing what looked like a very thin mackintosh and unsuitable shoes; her head was bare, she wore glasses. She looked wet through, cold and exhausted, but above all there was an air of extreme desolation about her, as though she was hopelessly lost and solitary.”
When Meg stops to give a lift to the girl, HE gets in and the nightmare begins. Highly recommended. This is the title story, a Phoenix edition, printed on its own - 60 pages. The rest of the stories appear in Howard’s book of the same name, Mr Wrong.

[Kaethe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I somehow missed writing this one up, so I���m backdating it on August 8. A piece of trivia: I hadn���t realized that Howard was married to Amis. Interesting marriage that would be.
Now for the stories: ���disturbing��� comes to mind when you read the first one, and stays with you. ���Mr. Wrong��� is about a young woman, no life, who moves to London. She buys a second-hand car to commute and visit her parents, and discovers on her first trip that the car is haunted. There are shades of the Vanishing Hitchhiker in the way she picks up a young woman and a creepy man, but when she stops the woman has vanished. She comes to believe the car had something to do with the murder of another young woman (her���s being the ghost) but is relieved to learn the murderer is picked up. She tries to sell the car, that seems ominous now, and the next time she goes home the murderer is in her car waiting for her: the police had got Mr. Wrong, but since she may realize what���s going on, she must die. Otherwise the stories seem to be mostly about married people having affairs: they are exceptional only in their cruelty.

[kp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful surprise. Howard dedicates this book to her friend the novelist Elizabeth Taylor, and the writers share some characteristics. They are both master craftswomen, incisive, funny, dark, and cynical. They also both know that ordinary life offers all the themes of human existence, a quality for which male authors (Steinbeck, Updike, Amis--who was Howard's husband for a time) are more often praised than are female authors, who are seen as writing smaller stories, vaguely genteel, like cucumber sandwiches. Only someone who had never read them could think this; both writers have a lot to say about deception, loss, desire, loneliness, and cruelty. This collection, ranging from creepy to tawdry to quietly despairing, is admirably hard to sum up.

[Kimmy C · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grab bag of short stories

All in the style that readers of the author’s previous works will love. From a haunted car, to a spectre on the canal, a reunion with an old friend, and the familiar theme of families - flawed as they may be. In fact, the theme of illicit liaisons runs though the book, as with volumes of the Cazalet Chronicles, and a bit of research (Wikipedia) shows that Elizabeth Jane Howard wasn’t averse to a bit of extra-marital dallying, which explains the contents of many of her stories, and this, along with her upbringing, explains many of the subjects covered in her stories.

[Ailsa Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

E J Howard at her absolute best. Sat shaking my head in awe after each story- sheer perfection. Was less keen on the very last one. She was a maestro, why she is not a household name is beyond me.

[Juliana Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very diverse collection of short stories, some quite unsettling, others less affecting. Easy to read but quite disturbing at points. I really love her style of writing though, and she can paint a scene effortlessly.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little short story that you can enjoy in one sitting. I thought it was a bit predictable, but the suspense was nicely done so that I kept on reading.

[The Literary Chick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every story is a gem. Every story in this collection can stand on its own as its own eerie world.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant collection of brilliant short stories.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whether I think each story works, as a short story. Plus other thoughts if I feel like it.

1. Mr Wrong: Yes. Fantastic atmosphere: the suffocating dread as she realises her car is haunted, yes, and more prosaically a brilliantly captured sort of numb waiting. Meg has acted, she has wrested herself from her stifling familial home and moved to the city! But she is still stuck aching waiting for her life to begin, eating eggs she boils in her shared kitchen, waiting waiting waiting.

2. Summer Picnic: Yes. Very different atmosphere but again beautifully rendered, you can practically hear the droning of the bees.

3. Pont du Gard: No, I don't think so; still interesting.

4. Whip Hand: Yes. Odd, very odd - the detail of Fern's bandaged breasts! And then a very abrupt transformation/transfer of power which gives the whole thing a fairy-tale air.

5. The Proposition: No. Weakest story of the bunch, for me - the twist felt clumsy and contrived.

6. The Devoted: Yes, a stand-out. Love the way the narration starts with James, the youngest character, and then moves up in order of age through his older sister, the young nanny, their aunt and then the grandmother - works really well.

7. Child's Play: Yes. I grow sentimental in my old age & the note from Percy at the end knocked me FLAT. Brian the disappointing husband is very much of a piece with Alan the disappointing husband from Pont du Gard.

8. Toutes Directions: Yes. I was not expecting the absolutely bonkers, Lady Chatterley-esque sex scene but I think it works.

9. Three Miles Up: Yes. Again the atmosphere is brilliant! As the reader you are practically screaming at the characters to turn back (they don't) which is always enjoyable.

Overall: a very enjoyable read. Howard's narrators have that reserved bitchiness one enjoys so much ("Mrs Mouncey had no friends, which she equated in her mind with broadmindedness") and she regularly stabs you in the mind with a hatpin. Also it is fun seeing details of ✨ the past ✨ (the book was initially published in the 70s)(she said magnanimously lol)

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4.5 stars. So good.

"...blonde in a mini-skirt with huge legs that seemed tortured by her tights…" (11).
"...a service station...loomed and glittered in the wet darkness" (24).
"...in the river, which was now the light greeny brown of unreliable eyes" (55).
"...her long, wandlike legs..." (56).
"Christine's face softened to self-interest..." (57).
"Her remarks, she thought, were like the exit signs from a motorway; inevitable, evenly spaced, designed for safety" (61).
"He put his hands painfully on her sunburned shoulder" (62).
"The soft, cold air had carried only the rasping cry of young lambs across great shoulders and valleys of silence" (62).
"...and Mrs Bracken was twitching her hands into gloves" (68).
"...got Mrs Bracken to her feet and herded her (she really was someone who suited this collective verb) up the stairs..." (88).
"...and Jake, surprisingly, went with the minimum of implied martyrdom" (92).
"Unfair – unfair – unfair – he jolted up a steep incline of resentment, louder and faster, till he got to the top and thought he might shriek" (101).
"...but each refusal from Harriet strengthened their, or rather, Mrs Mouncey's, theoretical hospitality" (142).
"...beneath which her corsets felt like a salad basket… " (143).
"...oil on her face that had none of the unobtrusiveness that those embracing her might have hoped for" (143).
"Harriet had accepted with a sense of excitement; some mirages turn out to be real, after all..." (144).
"The ducks were silent with fright, and the air smelled of hot feathers" (146).
"She reverted to her general, panic-stricken theories that she was no good with people, did not understand them, could not love" (148).
"...and that any mention of it hurt – like mentioning his stillborn child to its mother. This was the kind of analogy of a tragi-sentimental nature that people only make when they have had one half of the experience…" (149).
"...she had the kind of ankles admired by many, but no good for the dark, and she twisted one quite soon" (150).
"The mosquitoes were now homing in on her as though she were London Airport" (152).
"...against the crowded sound of the cicadas" (156).

[Helen Bookwoods · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a diverse collection of nine stories - some suspense, as in the fairly chilling title story, and others more about relationships (as in Howard's later books, such as the Cazalet series). I much prefer the scary ones such as 'The Whip Hand' about a cruel mother pushing her young daughter into performances and who denies her the small consolation of a stray dog, and the eerie 'Three Miles Up' about the consequences of taking a wrong turn on a canal boating trip. I also like the stories that have a tough twist to them: 'Toutes Directions' where a lonely, middle-class woman visits her old school friend in the south of France and finds her pregnant and pragmatically considering a backyard abortion, and 'Child's Play' where a woman has just confirmed the adultery of her husband with a female farm-hand when her adult daughter comes home escaping a marital tiff. The story turns on the mother having to endure a lavish display of affection between the father and daughter, excluding her.

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't often gravitate to her work because it doesn't include my favourite things - detectives, crime solving, creepy old houses, etc. But every time I do read Elizabeth Jane Howard I love her. She's just a masterful writer - each story has its entire world and all the characters fully fleshed out, and you can easily imagine everything she mentions. She writes people so well - the way they behave, the things they think, what they don't say. Some of these stories are about ordinary situations, some have very creepy, sinister elements. Often something happens at the end of the story to make you think about the whole thing in a different way, and I love that.
I gave this book time, reading one story and then putting it down so they didn't blur into each other, and that was perfect. Every single story was good, and memorable. Some of them I'm still thinking about days later. I really must pick up her books more often.

[Paul Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

[The Viking Press, Inc.] (1976). 1/1. HB. 223 Pages. Signed/Inscribed. Bought at auction (eBay).

Nine short stories; all interesting. The first and last are supernatural in nature: “Mr. Wrong” and “Three Miles Up”. Both are excellent, though the former - whilst creepy and disturbing in part - tails off somewhat at the denouement.

Tartarus Press collected them in a fine May 2003 Limited Edition (350 copies), along with an introduction (Glen Cavaliero), “Perfect Love” and “Left Luggage”. It’s well worth tracking down.

All bar the titular entry first appeared in “We Are For The Dark” (1951) along with three of the great Robert Aickman’s strange tales.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This little book was a great disappointment to me.
A bunch of strange short stories, most of them without head or tail, a waste of time as far as I am concerned. I always like this author very much but this was not to my taste at all

[Clare · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this book from a charity shop, to make up 5 for £3. No experience of this author, but always open to try something different. Gave up on page 103, just didn’t enjoy these ‘strange’ stories. I found them quite odd.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked it up because I loved The Cazelet hronicles. This is very different - a collection of short stories.

[Digby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad and disturbing but awesome writing.

[Sal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the stories were ok but others left me confused. Maybe this author’s style is just not for me.

[Sue Slater · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the short stories were scary in one way or another. Not an easy read.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason, I didn't expect these stories to be quite so edgy. I really enjoyed them.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories by the excellent Elizabeth Jane Howard.
First published 1975

[John Endacott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliant writing. The short stories mainly focus on mother daughter relationships but some ghost story aspects and also other relationships feature

[Merricat Blackwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories pivot hard through different modes and genres; it’s a fun and mean trick to start with the title story, a very nasty miniature thriller, and leave you completely in suspense about which of the subsequent stories are going to go in that direction. There’s one story that prominently features an adorable found dog, and I whispered oh no oh no oh no throughout the whole thing, but it turned out to be horrifying in a different direction. Another story seems like it’s building to a particular gruesome image but turns away almost into gentleness in the end; another one starts as a very cramped social comedy, turns into graphic medical horror, and ends in a romantic swoon.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Wrong ****
Summer Picnic ***
Pont Du Gard ****
Whip Hand ****
The Proposition ****
The Devoted ***
Child’s Play ***
Toutes Directions ****
Three Miles Up ****

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t normally enjoy short stories, but I very much enjoyed this book. The author has real talent in portraying the minor incidents that form character and that sometimes amount to tragedy. There is some whimsy and a fair amount of heartache.
Highly recommended.

[Jane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wrong book for me. I can't say I enjoyed it. The stories were odd and never went anywhere. It's a wonder I stuck with it so long, but I guess that's what so many women do with "Mr. Wrong."