The Stillest Day Book

The titles of Josephine Hart's previous novels reveal that her view of love is a dark one indeed. In Damage, she detailed the destructive love affair between a middle-aged man and his son's fiancé. In Sin she took sibling rivalry to murderous lengths, while in Oblivion she detailed the aftermath of a young woman's sudden death and the resulting madness it visits upon her grieving mother and husband. Any one of this British author's books might just as easily been named Obsession, since this seems to be the condition her characters eventually arrive at as a consequence of loving not wisely but too well.

Such is the case in Hart's fourth novel, The Stillest Day, in which she introduces us to Bethesda Barnet, a young woman living with her invalid mother in a small English village at the turn of the century. Into this quiet life comes Matthew Pearson who, along with his pregnant wife, has moved in next door. Soon Betheseda is obsessed with Matthew--the kind of obsession that can only lead to tragedy--and does. As usual, the author delineates this very Gothic tale in a cool prose that heightens the tension while supressing the melodrama. At one point, Matthew asks Bethseda, "How many Cleopatras do we need to prove we can die for love? How many Othellos to prove we can kill for love?" In Josephine Hart's bleak universe, it only takes one. --Margaret Prior