The pursued

The Pursued is set against the quiet London suburbs of the 1930s and the daily life of a seemingly happy married couple. The prose is fast, pared-down and psychologically loaded, creating its own brand of English noir. Opening with a mysterious death, the plot reveals the inner workings of Marjorie and Ted's marriage, flecked with domestic abuse and sexual sado-masochism. Its thriller elements are blended with radical gender politics through this channel of disgruntled domesticity. A reader coming new to C S Forester might be forgiven for thinking this writer a woman. The domestic drudgery of Marjorie's everyday life is imagined in minute detail – the washing, cooking, shopping, the children, and the husband's tyrannical demands. The fulminating passions, the quiet rage, and the burning desire for violent revenge belongs largely to the disenfranchised female characters. Marjorie looks at her spinster friends – the newly independent, career-minded women of the 1930s – with a fear that she overcomes. Her mother, seemingly mild and meek, seethes with the sly, unquenchable vengeance of Clytemnestra.