Grannyknot
I finished the book during a week's holiday (it was perfect holiday reading). I found it very easy to read with the story zipping along at a pace. As others have said, it captures the era (Sixties) very well. It is difficult reading to be reminded of how very little power women had if they didn't have a career or money of their own.
I found the juxtaposition of what took place between husband and wife in Katy's parents' seemingly ordinary family, as well as that as carried out by the main perpetrator, very interesting, with one situation resolving itself, and the other not. My question to Lesley Pearse is what made you write about this particular subject? (Apologies for being cryptic as I am trying to avoid spoilers)!
My generation of women were conditioned to see their husband as ‘he who must be obeyed’ we did all the household chores, looked after the children, and in return we had a husband who kept us. Few of us had any money of our own. I realise to younger women this must seem very archaic. But in fact I was very happy with it. I had a nice home, I spent my time with our children, cooking, sewing, gardening. I had the house tidy, dinner on the table when my husband got home. To me it was a fair division of labour, I didn’t have to go out in the dark and cold each morning, he earned the money. But in contrast I personally also knew many women who were never satisfied and totally controlled their gentle, kind husbands. But even if women like that were suffering from depression or had other mental problems, there wasn’t any real help for them, counselling was virtually unheard of and anti-depressants were then in their infancy. People hid their problems or difficulties away as something shameful.