{"id":5207,"date":"2016-01-21T07:18:16","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T12:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5207"},"modified":"2016-01-21T07:18:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T12:18:16","slug":"go-home-girl-well-maybe-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5207","title":{"rendered":"Go Home, Girl\u2014Well, Maybe Not"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ingrid

Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight”<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s come to the point that Twitter pundits have suggested a moratorium on books with the word \u201cGirl\u201d in the title. They might have extended the ban to dark covers with open type and a mysterious photograph suggesting rapid movement. The Stieg Larsson books started \u201cThe Girl\u201d craze, and Vulture.com<\/a> compiled a list of some 91 \u201cThe Girl Who\/With . . .\u201d copykitties, 2010-2014. That list doesn\u2019t even include Gone Girl, The Girl on The Train<\/em> (not to be confused with Girl on a Train<\/em>), and Luckiest Girl Alive<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Those last books have become so popular a new literary subgenre has been created for them, variously titled: \u201cchick noir\u201d (ick<\/em>) and \u201cdomestic thriller.\u201d The \u201cchick noir\u201d label is justly reviled for implying \u201ca lesser sort of noir, marginalized away from the \u2018real\u2019 noir,\u201d and might have the unfortunate effect of turning away readers, says Kelly Anderson<\/a> in BookRiot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably not a coincidence that there\u2019s also a resurgent use of the term \u201cgaslighting.\u201d (Gaslighting, of course, refers to the 1944 film Gaslight<\/em>, in which husband Charles Boyer tries to rid himself of wife Ingrid Bergman by convincing her she\u2019s insane. Once again proving there\u2019s no accounting for taste.)<\/p>\n

Domestic thrillers\u2014and Gaslight<\/em> was definitely a leading example\u2014focus on everyday domestic life and relations with intimate partners. Through this ordinariness, they produce \u201ctheir own brand of suspense\u2014the disturbing feeling that it could happen to me<\/em>,\u201d says Dawn Ius<\/a> in The Big Thrill<\/em> magazine. Knowing whom to trust is a fundamental dilemma in people\u2019s lives\u2014especially women\u2019s lives. Domestic thrillers play to that uncertainty, building an atmosphere in which \u201csomething\u2019s-a-little-bit-off,\u201d Anderson says.<\/p>\n

Like other thrillers, domestic thrillers are about The End of the World as We Know It, but written in small letters, and one person in the \u201cwe\u201d is usually the female narrator. Those narrators are deeply engaging and honest\u2014at least readers must think so\u2014and, Anderson says, they \u201cdo and say things that women know are against the code to say out loud.\u201d As a result, many of these books are not just mysteries but also interesting character studies.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s notable is that many domestic thrillers are written by women. In New York Magazine<\/em>, in a review of a great new boxed set of classic crime, writer Megan Abbott<\/a> says crime fiction by women \u201chas always been about more than solving a mystery.\u201d By exploring the most compelling fears and pervasive anxieties of the times, domestic thrillers can show that \u201cthe darkest and most resonant tales are the ones that hit closest to home.\u201d
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