Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

This was quite a strange book in that I quite liked the first half and could barely abide the second half of the book.
The story is about a spinster London lady who decides to visit Scotland, the fatherland of one of her parents. She befriends and is befriended by a family living near her and spends a great deal of time with them. They have two young daughters, both very different from the other. Strange things begin to occur within the household of her friends and finally the horrific kidnapping of one of the daughters comes about.
Here is where the story got dicey for me and I shan't tell you any more as I wouldn't wish to ruin it for anyone wanting to read the book.
The best thing about this book for me is that it is on the 2012 Orange Prize long list. I found it not to be very well written and the second half I found to be exceptionally boring.
Another good to fair story poorly written, I guess would sum it up for me. I gave it 2 1/2 stars and guardedly recommend it.
I am sure those of you who follow the Orange will wish to read it and I hope the majority of you enjoy it more than I did. It took me five days to read the thing and that is an anomaly.

Honest and good review, Belva and I share the same hesitations with the flow of Hazel's story. I shy to say I wasn't overly taken with The Observations either though Ms. Harris's writing is so fine with so many possibilities. I more often chalk it up to the timing of the reading...don't you think?

My review of Gillespie and I, which I rated 5 Stars.

“It would appear that I am the first to write a book on Gillespie. Who, if not me, was dealt that hand?” These words are penned by Harriet Baxter, the narrator of “Gillespie and I,” in 1933, as she begins to write a memoir about events that transpired in Scotland in the late 1880s.

Harriet, an unmarried woman of ‘independent means,’ decides to travel to from London to Glasgow for the International Exhibit. While there, she becomes friends with the Gillespie family - Ned, a talented artist who is beginning to make a name in the Glasgow art world, Ned’s wife Annie, their two daughters Sibyl and Rose, and assorted extended family members. When tragedy strikes the family, Harriet is in the midst of it all, and this is the story she reveals in her memoir.

It is a spellbinding tale, and Harris is a gifted and dazzling storyteller. Harriet is most definitely an unreliable narrator, a daunting task that the author handles with remarkable dexterity. In fact, it is this that makes “Gillespie and I” the phenomenal book that it is. The reader is always left to wonder what is truth and what is not, a fact that becomes more and more obvious as the story unfolds. Nothing about the book is predictable. Just when you think you have something figured out, the author twists it ever so slightly and leaves you puzzled. And the ending….well, it’s just perfect in a way that is decidedly oblique and creepy.

I completely loved “Gillespie and I” and recommend it to anyone who enjoys Victorian gothic, twisted plots, and good storytelling. (And, really, how can you not enjoy those things?)

I agree Cate, that it could be the timing of the reading. I do not, however, see this one making the short list.

I'm reading Gillespie and I at the moment. Initially I wasn't as taken with Harriet's voice as I was with Bessy's in The Observations but slowly I've been drawn into the story more and more until I can barely put the book down.

Belva and Cate - sorry you didn't enjoy the book more. I think I'm probably going to end up with HRO once I've finished.

I too am sorry that this book didn't work out for you, Belva. I'm in the "love it" camp! Here's my review if you want to read my thoughts.

This book has a bit of an Alias Grace feel to it....

#6 That's a great review Jill and it reminded me of Alias Grace too.

I'm also in the love it camp. Didn't really write a review, but I did find this article about the inspirations behind the book on Jane Harris' homepage. There's a link to her flickr collection of images and paintings which inspired some of Gillespie's pictures as well as some pictures of the exhibition and Glasgow. They're well worth looking through.

Librarything thinks I will love this book, I can't wait to get to it.

I thought that the book was terrific.

I'm enjoying the book but not loving it about half-way through. I do have to say that noting that the narrator is unreliable, which I read before I began it - not in a review but in some random comments - has given me less of a fresh reading experience than I might have had otherwise. I don't know for sure, but that's what I think right now. As I see how it plays out, I'll come back and comment again and also read the article that Heather found.

#11 Peggy, I'm sorry you're not enjoying Gillespie more. I think it was the second half of the book that really bowled me over but I'm glad I read it not knowing much about the story. Some of the reviews/comments I saw after reading the book said more than I felt I would have wanted to know before reading it.

I finished it, and I enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure that I would have enjoyed it more had I not read comments beforehand. As it was, I suspected what was going on as soon as it started going on - a lesson to me to skip discussion until I've given a book a chance on my own.

Here's my review (5 stars):

Harriet Baxter is an 80 year old woman living alone in Bloomsbury in 1933. As she nears the end of her life, and while she possesses a full mental capacity, she decides to write a memoir about Ned Gillespie, a brilliant Glaswegian painter who never achieved the fame he deserved.

Harriet is a single and outspoken woman of good taste and independent means in her mid-30s, who travels from London to Glasgow to attend the 1888 International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry. She is introduced to Ned after she has a remarkable encounter with his mother Elspeth and wife Annie, and she recognizes him from an art exhibition in London held several years previously. The two women befriend Harriet, who integrates herself into the lives of the Gillespie family, including their younger daughter Rose and her older, troubled sister Sibyl, along with Ned's overbearing mother and his secretive brother.

She decides to lengthen her stay in Glasgow, as she becomes a somewhat awkward yet appreciated fixture in the Gillespie household. Sibyl exhibits increasingly strange and disturbing behavior, which strains the marriage and Annie's relationship with Elspeth, and culminates in a shocking crime that devastates the Gillespies and their new friend.

The novel shifts between 1888 Glasgow and 1933 London, as Harriet tells her side of the events that surrounded the crime and its notorious trial and aftermath, in order to set the record straight. The action and tension build in both settings, as Harriet proves to be an increasingly unreliable narrator, which left this reader fascinated and on the edge of his seat until the final page.

Gillespie and I is a devastating and brilliant accomplishment, with a deliciously unreliable narrator, superb and compelling characters, and a highly captivating story that ranks amongst the most enjoyable novels I've ever read. As other readers have mentioned, I wanted to start it again from the beginning immediately after I finished it, and its characters will remain with me for a long time to come.

Whenever I picked up this book, I was always quite engaged, but I never rushed to pick it up again, and that continued for a couple of weeks...until I passed the mid-point.

Once the wider world appears to be holding Harriet in a different view than I had been holding her, I was hooked. Well, we knew from the way that she framed her story that other people didn't always see her in a flattering light, but when her role more overtly changes, and we have to consider a more horrifying possibility, everything suddenly intensified, and I finished the second half in a single sitting.

I think I enjoyed The Observations more, but only because I always find stories of maids/governesses/staff particularly interesting; I think Gillespie and I was just as well written, though I can't say whether I think it should have gotten a spot on the shortlist as I've not read the others yet.

*** CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

I enjoyed this novel but think there were a lot of clues that Harriet was an unreliable narrator from almost the very start so I wasn't particularly surprised by the outcome. It was more of a horror that my fears had been realised!

I think it was the odd ways she described the daughter from the beginning that made me think there was something more sinister about her self-deceptions than merely wanting to see herself in a more flattering light than others did. I kept thinking that she didn't like children and her negative judgements said more about herself than the girl.

***discussion - contains spoilers***

I wasn't particularly surprised by anything that was revealed about Harriet, either. I thought the beauty of the book was that Harris revealed so much about Harriet's personality though other people's eyes (especially Annie and Ned's day to day interactions with her) even though the first person account meant it was told from Harriet's biased viewpoint. Even though she tried to paint herself in a good light, snippets of her real personality and how others felt about her came through. I also thought that the present day diary reinforced that. I'm not sure it was Harris's intention to have Harriet's true personality be a total surprise.

Just finished reading it. I too had picked up comments about the 'unreliable narrator' before I started reading, and wonder how quickly I would have become aware of that without the forewarning. There are certainly plenty of clues there.

I don't yet know if I liked this book or not.

Count me in to the "I love it!!" camp, folks! :)

I ended up in the "like a lot" camp if there is such a thing. However well written, I didn't think there was enough depth to make is onto my LOVE list. That, I understand, is the minority report.

I'm in the "liked it a lot" camp too.

"liked it a lot" x 3.

I loved it! Like many, I think I had advance warning of the unreliable narrator so I wonder, if I hadn't know, would I have picked up on that as soon as I did? But still ... I enjoyed the creepiness of wondering, even after I finished, what Harriet really did or didn't do.

Just finished this book minutes ago. I am left with the same feeling after reading Jane Harris's debut The Observations, namely that the writing was good, the story was interesting, but somehow I fall a bit short of loving it. For me, the first half of Gillespie and I dragged on, but not enough to keep me from reading. The second half moved much quicker and was much more interesting to me. Unfortunately for me, I also saw some Amazon reviews and came across the "unreliable narrator" bit. (I don't know why I did, I make it a point never to look up info about books I haven't read yet.) However, I was able to foreshadow some events prior to them happening. I am intrigued enough to now look up some reviews on it & see others' opinions.

** SPOILER ALERT** and Question

Just read the book and I have to say that despite the clear clues that Harriet was over-involved and obsessed with Ned, that poor Sybil was more sinned against than sinning, not to mention noticing that since meeting Harriet, family member after family member was disappearing from the poor man's life, and finally the fact that it was apparent quite early in the 1933 sections that Harriet was paranoid, I was still surprised by her arrest regarding Rose's murder, still sympathetic to her and inclined to think her innocent.

By the end of the trial though it was pretty evident that she was a full-fledged monster. Her smug protestation that only someone very clever could have suborned a witness, Christina Smith, from prison was perhaps the final proof to me of her guilt.

What I would like to ask is whether anyone else got the impression that in the 1933 storyline she had also murdered poor Sarah? The fact Sarah never appeared again at Miss Clinch's, but only "left a letter on the doormat" announcing her return to Dorset and the mention of the subsequent flies in the apartment, as well as the odd details of the dead finch seemed to me to leave open that rather sinister interpretation.

Ewww, I hadn't thought of that. How creepy! I thought the flies and the finch were evidence that Harriet was losing the ability to care for herself. But your theory is plausible. I'm interested to know what others think.

>25 quartzite: Yes, absolutely!

I thought the finches were symbolic of Ned and Harriet and her obsession for him. The finch's names are the same as those in a classic Arabic story in which a man is considered to be too insane to marry the love of his life. (You can read about it on wikipedia HERE.) I thought that what happened to the finches was Harriet's way of playing out the conclusion of the doomed unrequited love between herself and Ned, as in the story of Layla and Majnun. The author used this story to 'say without saying' exactly how warped and twisted Harriet's thought process was (and obliquely inferred that Harriet was most definitely insane enough to commit murder).