A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris

Synopsis
Now I’m in charge, the gates are my gates. The rules are my rules.

It’s an incendiary moment for St Oswald’s school. For the first time in its history, a headmistress is in power, the gates opening to girls.

Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely forty, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered.

But Rebecca is here to make her mark. She’ll bury the past so deep it will evade even her own memory, just like she has done before. After all…

You can’t keep a good woman down.

Review

I was really excited when I received the notification from NetGalley to say I had been approved for A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris. I have been a huge fan of her writing since reading Chocolat over twenty years ago. A Narrow Door is the third book in the Malbry Cycle of books, and takes the reader back to St Oswalds boy school,and to the classroom of Classics Master, Roy Straightly. You don’t need to have read the previous books to enjoy this, each is set in a different time with it’s own plot line. A Narrow Door sees changes to St Oswalds, a new female head in Rebecca Buckfast and the merger of St Oswalds with the neighbouring girls school Mulberry House, both of which fill Roy Straightly with fear and dread as he favours the more traditional approach. The day before term starts a group of students comes to Straightley to say they think their is a body in the excavated ground where the new swimming pool is due to be built. But not even a dead body will stop Rebecca in her tracks, her ambition and need to excel are all that matters. And so a story unfolds, a mystery that started with the disappearance of Rebecca’s brother when she was five, and the aftermath of that incident. Written with style and substance this is a dark slow burner of a thriller.

What I admire most about Joanne Harris’s books is her wonderful characters. She has a way of really getting under the skin of her characters, capturing their every feeling and thought, building a three dimensional image so that you feel you really know them. A Narrow Door is a very character driven book, told from the perspective of Rebecca Buckfast and Roy Straightly, both of whom have appeared in the previous books, Rebecca as Becky Price. Rebecca is a very driven character, who has spent her career fighting for her job, a female teacher in schools dominated by male masters, and is the first female head of St Oswalds. As she narrates her past to Straightly we see how the trauma of her brother’s disappearance affected her life, and the struggles she had to overcome to be where she is now. Her determination and ambition definitely come from her difficult childhood, as does her lack of emotion and feelings even towards her daughter. She could be described as ruthless and cold, but deep down I think there is more to Rebecca than the controlled and distant person she appears. Roy Striaghtly is a stalwart of St Oswalds, been a Classics Master for over thrity years. He is very much a traditionalist, set in his ways an not open to the changes ahead; the merger with Mulberry Girls School or the position of Head being given to a woman. We see his reminisces of the time Rebecca’s brother went missing, and also about his career as contemplates the horrible thought of retirement as his health declines; his life is St Oswalds and its students. Rebecca and Striaghtley are the two oposing sides on this chess game of a book, Rebecca represents the new guard, bringing in change and much needed modernistion to the school, whereas Striaghtly represents the old guard, the history and tradition of St Oswalds and what it stands for.

Not only is Joanne Harris’s characerisation amazing, but so is her plot building and story telling. Neither narrator is reliable, Rebecca is relying on childhood memories in her telling of the disappearance of her brother and the consequential events, and Roy is unwell, maybe confused in his recollections. This unreliabiliy adds to the tension of the plot, that is a real slow burner. The details are dip fed, slowly stoking the fire that ultimately builds the suspense keeping the reader gripped throughout with its smoke and mirrors. Rebecca’s story shows how hard she had to fight for her position as a female teacher in these men only environments, and this is where the title A Narrow Door, comes from; Men have the doors wide open for them to get jobs and progress in this world, whilst Rebecca has a narow door that she has to fight to get through. One of things I really enjoyed was the many classical references, like the parts of the book being names after the five rivers in the underworld that run into Acheron and onto Hades, an analogy that could represent Straightly, St Oswald or Rebecca’s past, and her journey to where she is now.

A Narrow Door is a dark, suspenseful and riviting read. Joanna Harris subtley ramps up the tension by using the unreliability of the memory , the secrets and omissions of both characters which leave you wantimg to fill the gaps in the story, and the slow release of details. Her characterisation is first class and I felt I knew both main characters so well, being part to their private thoughts and feelings, giving blood and flesh to make them alive. Whilst this is the third book in the Malbry of Cycle you can read it as a standalone. Expertly written, with a sinister and thrilling undertone this is breathtaking and stunning read.