Culture
Book Review: ‘The Peepshow,’ by Kate Summerscale
But Summerscale gives equal time to Christie’s unfortunate victims, treating them as real people rather than pawns in someone else’s story. And she skillfully examines the racism, sexism, economic privation and class prejudices that permeated postwar England.
No. 10 Rillington Place was a mini melting pot, occupied by Black immigrants from the West Indies as well as working-class white Britons. It was also, it seems, a hotbed of lawlessness, rife with extramarital sex, prostitution and illegal abortion (in addition, of course, to murder).
There’s so much to admire in this engaging, deeply researched book. But though nothing Summerscale writes is dull, her story loses steam, and a bit of focus, after the conclusion of Christie’s trial, about three-quarters of the way through.
As serial killers go, Christie remains a frustrating cipher, more opportunistic than cunning — and lucky in having particularly unobservant neighbors. (No one seemed to notice that the stick propping up the gate at No. 10 was in fact a human femur.) He continually changed his story, had a habit of railing against his Black neighbors and deployed a kind of “I Shot the Sheriff” argument about the Evans murders — confessing to killing Beryl, but maintaining, at least most of the time, that he had not killed her baby.
The Christie case provoked a great deal of soul-searching about the role of the newspapers in whipping up the public’s interest in its seamy details. Speaking at a church in Birmingham three days after sentencing Christie to death, the judge in the case, Mr. Justice Finnemore, urged the congregation to examine their own role in the spectacle.
“Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, ‘Am I partially responsible?’” he said. “‘Have I any part of this guilt to bear myself?’”
THE PEEPSHOW: The Murders at Rillington Place | By Kate Summerscale | Penguin | 310 pp. | $30
Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
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