For readers who think they've seen everything, Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (The Observations) is almost certain to be surprising. The novel's setting is Victorian-era Scotland, and its narrator, 35-year-old Harriet Baxter, is a nosy spinster with an interest in art--Scottish artist Ned Gillespie in particular. Harriet chronicles her friendship with the Gillespie family in a narrative that at first seems like the prim, tedious maunderings suited to a Victorian maiden aunt. By the end, however, Harriet's genteel prattling has constructed a nightmare that rivals anything by Stephen King.
Harriet's memoir alternates between the past and present, from the art world of 1880s Glasgow, to her current circumstances living in Bloomsbury in 1933. In Glasgow, Harriet recalls a critical time for the Gillespie household, when tragedy is poised to strike and destroy the lives of Ned, his wife and their children. Meanwhile, back in the present, Harriet realizes that the tragedy so many decades distant might be waiting to pounce on her--right in her own home.
Harriet's narrative voice is multilayered, the busybody old maid just a varnish on its surface. There are hints of Harriet's multiple dimensions, such as her avowed status as a "freethinker," her affinity for cigarettes and her envy of modern women who benefit from the freedom that was denied her in the 19th century. But few hints will prepare most readers for what is to come. Don't be fooled by this novel's stuffy exterior: it is psychological horror at its most unnerving. --Ilana Teitelbaum