Mystery Authors You May Have Missed
Celia Fremlin
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Celia Fremlin at 91 |
Biography
Celia Fremlin was born in Kent, England in 1914. She received degrees in
classics and philosophy from Somerville College in Oxford. Celia married
Elia Sidney Goller, a schoolteacher, in 1942 and they had three children.
After the death of her husband, she married again in 1984 to Leslie Thomas
Minchin, a musician. Her first novel, The Hours Before Dawn, an Edgar
winner, was written when she was forty-four years old. She has spent most of
her life in London.
What she writes: Her stories can be described as psychological thrillers in which suspense builds slowly and steadily to the ultimate horror. The protagonist is often a female who encounters disturbing circumstances in a domestic setting or in the mundane activities of everyday life. The adversary usually appears outwardly normal and ordinary. In her award winning novel, The Hours Before Dawn, a mother's days are full of domestic drudgery, her nights made sleepless with her incessantly crying baby. When the family takes in a lodger, the seemingly respectable elementary school teacher, Miss Vera Brandon, Louise experiences a sense of foreboding and gradually discovers the devious motives of her renter. Fremlin's goal to provide "a view of ordinary life from a non-ordinary angle" is accomplished through convincing characters who confront frightening, often life-threatening situations in the course of their day-to-day existence. An online bibliography is available at http://david.fremlin.de/celia/celiasbooks.htm.
List of works |
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| Gallows View (1959) | Blood at the Root (1974) |
| The Hours before Dawn (1959) | The Long Shadow (1976) |
| Uncle Paul (1960) | The Spider-Orchid (1978) |
| Wait for the Wedding (1961) UK title: Seven Lean Years | With No Crying (1980) |
| The Trouble Makers (1963) | The Parasite Person (1982) |
| The Jealous One (1965) | A Lovely Day to Die and Other Stories (1984) |
| Prisoner's Base (1967) | Listening in the Dusk (1990) |
| Possession (1969) | Dangerous Thoughts (1991) |
| Don't Go to Sleep in the Dark (1970) | The Echoing Stones (1993) |
| Appointment with Yesterday (1972) | King of the World (1994) |
Awards
Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, for best mystery novel of the year, The Hours Before Dawn.
| What the critics say |
| ".a brilliant depiction of a woman's mind being slowly broken by sleeplessness and the malice of her tormenter." - London Times (English), 4/18/1998 |
| "Fremlin's understanding of the small tyrannies and unfairness of women's lives place her firmly as a precursor of modern recent feminist thriller writers." - St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, 1996 |
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