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    Harriet Said: A Novel
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    Harriet Said: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Harriet Said: A Novel
    Ebook195 pages3 hours

    Harriet Said: A Novel

    By Beryl Bainbridge

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The infamous Parker–Hulme murder case inspired this frightening tale of adolescent transgression in an English seaside town.

    When a thirteen-year-old girl returns from boarding school to her small hometown in Merseyside for summer break, her best friend, Harriet, is not back yet, and she’s restless, anxious for something—anything—to happen. In this state of troubled anticipation, she visits the beach and encounters Peter Biggs, an elegant yet disheveled man in the throes of middle age and an unhappy marriage. A stirring inside of the budding woman makes her feel irresistibly attracted to this man . . . and simultaneously repulsed. But she doesn’t dare do anything about it until Harriet arrives.
     
    One year older and much more mischievous, Harriet returns to find her friend in a state of confused obsession. The two girls hatch a plan to “humble” Biggs. At Harriet’s command they proceed to methodically spy on him and his wife, manipulate his desires, and ensnare him in an act of incriminating humiliation, all on the premise that this will be their most daring summer yet. But the power these young women possess is perhaps more sinister and unwieldy than anyone realizes.
     
    Award-winning British author Beryl Bainbridge’s first novel, Harriet Said is loosely based on the Parker–Hulme teenage murder case in New Zealand dramatized in the Kate Winslet film Heavenly Creatures. It was originally completed in 1958; however, editors were so scandalized by its gruesome and amoral content that the book was not published until 1972. It has since become a horror classic.
     
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateNov 1, 2016
    ISBN9781504039901
    Unavailable
    Harriet Said: A Novel
    Author

    Beryl Bainbridge

    Dame Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) is acknowledged as one of the greatest British novelists of her time. She was the author of two travel books, five plays, and seventeen novels, five of which were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, including Master Georgie, which went on to win the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award. She was also awarded the Whitbread Literary Award twice, for Injury Time and Every Man for Himself. In 2011, a special Man Booker “Best of Beryl” Prize was awarded in her honor, voted for by members of the public.   Born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, leaving the theater to have her first child. Her first novel, Harriet Said . . ., was written around this time, although it was rejected by several publishers who found it “indecent.” Her first published works were Another Part of the Wood and An Awfully Big Adventure, and many of her early novels retell her Liverpudlian childhood. A number of her books have been adapted for the screen, most notably An Awfully Big Adventure, which is set in provincial theater and was made into a film by Mike Newell, starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. She later turned to more historical themes, such as the Scott Expedition in The Birthday Boys, a retelling of the Titanic story in Every Man for Himself, and Master Georgie, which follows Liverpudlians during the Crimean War. Her no-word-wasted style and tight plotting have won her critical acclaim and a committed following. Bainbridge regularly contributed articles and reviews to the Guardian, Observer, and Spectator, among others, and she was the Oldie’s longstanding theater critic. In 2008, she appeared at number twenty-six in a list of the fifty most important novelists since 1945 compiled by the Times (London). At the time of her death, Bainbridge was working on a new novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which was published posthumously.  

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    Reviews for Harriet Said

    3.5/5

    45 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Spin-off reading, from "Anne Perry, Murder of the Century". 1972 book - first book by Beryl Bainbridge, based on the 1954 matricide by Perry and her friend - bashed friend's mother to death with a brick at ages 14,15.
      Bainbridge writes a complex psychological horror story of 13 & 14 yr old and their cruel 'experiences' of a summer holiday. Narrator(nameless)is somewhat dominated and lead by Harriet, yet strong enough to manage hew own manipulations at times.
      However, obvious Moral of the Story: ooops - Don't listen to Harriet!
    • 3/5
      Beryl Bainbridge's first novel, unpublished till later in her career. It's rather odd, about two precocious girls who prey on an older man. The narrator is in thrall to Harriet, her friend directs their schemes and the diary entries where they write about their adventures. For me it had a lot of personal resonance, so I liked it. There is a convincing aura of menace over the whole thing that I enjoyed too.
    • 5/5
      Having read Beryl Bainbridge's "The Bottle Factory Outing," which had a dry ironic tone but was otherwise a fairly straightforward and exceedingly British narrative, I figured I knew that "Harriet Said" would be a pretty straightforward take on the Parker-Hulme murder case. What I got was something much stranger: a sensitive portrait of a girl on the tender, awkward cusp of womanhood, a portrait of severe, sadistic psychological attachment, and a perverse view of English family life in which the adults seem more helplessly childlike than their children and innocence either a memory or a joke. By turns erotic, shockingly cruel, and curiously dreamlike, "Harriet Said" does a wonderful job of mapping out both the psychological terrain and the physical environs of its main character, a girl under the spell of Harriet, the electrifyingly malicious and thoroughly manipulative title character. We see them wander the back roads of a quiet, beautiful seaside village, befriending its outcasts and dreaming of better things, self-consciously tracking their progress to adulthood. They store up experiences and opinions, one of them falls for the Tsar, a dreamy, unhappy man in middle age who wanders the dunes alongside them, and things end badly. What's really remarkable about this book, though, is how perfectly Bainbridge seems to have captured that period in adolescence where even the smallest events or excursions seem breathtakingly important and even the most minor of interactions seem freighted with the potential for sex or danger. The book has few characters and takes place almost entirely within the narrow confines of an economically depressed rural backwater, but what happens its two main characters is made to seem so meaningful that it often feels absolutely enormous. I suppose we've already got "Heavenly Creatures," but considering how thoroughly soaked this novel is in sensuality and malice, the complexity of the author's portraits of her young characters, and how completely the volatile, diabolical Harriet looms over everything in it, I'm rather surprised that noone's yet thought to make a film version of it yet. In fact, I'm surprised that less than two-hundred users seem to have it in their libraries. This one is hardly light reading, but might rank as some sort of near-forgotten classic, a startlingly precise portrait of precocious evil. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Harriet Said was Beryl’s first work written in the late 1950s. However it ended up as her third published novel, as its darkness struggled to find a publisher initially. It is the story of two teenaged schoolgirls and what they got up to one summer holiday…The two girls are an odd pairing. Our narrator, who remains unnamed, is the thirteen year old ‘stout’ follower of Harriet. A boarder, she longs for the school holidays and being able to see her friend again back on the Lancashire coast. She looks up to Harriet who is slightly older than her; indeed she loves her in a schoolgirl way, and will do anything for her. Harriet, you sense right from the beginning, is a wicked girl – always scheming, endlessly nosey about their neighbours. You know that something has happened, right from the first pages of the book…"Harriet said: ‘No you don’t, you keep walking.’ I wanted to turn round and look back at the dark house but she tugged at my arm fiercely. We walked over the field hand in hand as if we were little girls."After the short opening chapter, the story flashes back to the start of the summer. The girls latch onto a man, Mr Biggs, that they see out and about, getting some time alone from his wife. He seems flattered by the girls’ attention, and the narrator begins to have rather a crush on him. Together, they dream up a scheme to humiliate him and his wife, but like all ill-conceived plans, it goes dreadfully wrong.Bainbridge’s style of dropping the reader straight into the action, without much scene-setting is evident right from the off. This always gives an initial challenge in getting to grips with the characters, but pays off dividends in getting into the story quickly, and the lack of padding gives space for some lovely detail.It is hinted that the girls, while still under-age, are no strangers to being a tease, one reason why the narrator was shipped off to boarding school. Their parents though, appear to have no idea what they are getting up to. The narrator’s mother is more concerned with her younger sister; Harriet’s folks are nowhere to be seen. The freedom the girls have to be out and about is shocking to us these days, but they didn’t have TV of course.Adolescent fantasies take on an air of horror, as the girls’ grooming in reverse takes its course. This is a dark debut indeed and doesn’t exhibit the black sense of humour that Bainbridge’s novels later developed, but it is a powerful story that absolutely hints of greatness to come.
    • 4/5
      "When I say scream, you scream"By sally tarbox on 30 May 2017Format: Kindle EditionA really intense, atmospheric and disturbing novel, set in a seaside town around 1950. The hefty 13 year old narrator is dominated by her adored chum Harriet. A knowing teen, able to charm those around her while secretly mocking them, Harriet determines what the pair will get up to one long, hot summer. On the cusp of adulthood, they are keen to try out their attractions on the men around them, and the narrator imagines she is falling for 'The Tsar', an unhappily married older man and friend of her father. But when the Tsar dares tell Harriet a few home truths, she involves her friend in a plot to humiliate him and his wife...Beryl Bainbridge vividly conjures up the post-War era, and the adolescent mind. The general theme of the story is based around the true-life teenage killers featured in the movie 'Heavenly Creatures'.