I finished the book, Believe the Lie, by Elizabeth George, late last night. I knew I should go to sleep as I had to teach in the morning, but with so few pages (100 or so), I also knew I wanted to finish and find out how it ended. At 2:00 am, I closed the book, turned off the light, and put my head back on my pillow, and then I thought. I thought and I thought about this book, and there was something bothering me about it, something not quite right about it. All day today, my mind drifted back to the book and I puzzled over what was not quite right. This afternoon, I realized what it was: there is not a single female character in this book who can be seen in as positive a light as their male counterparts.
Believe the Lie is a sprawling book of some 600 pages, heavy to lift (especially when a cat demands real estate beneath your chin and across your chest). It is George’s latest in her Inspector Lynley series, and it is quite good – compelling and well-written, suspenseful and ably crafted. In it, Lynley travels to the Lake Country at the request of his superior in order to look into the death of the nephew of this superior’s friend. He travels incognito, and he brings with him my favorite character in the series, Simon St. James, and Simon’s wife, Deborah (whom I have never liked and my opinion did not change in this book). I would love to read a book devoted entirely to the story of the two men’s friendship; they have a complicated history involving Lynley’s driving accident and St. James’s subsequent crippling. Oh, and Deborah dated Lynley before she married Simon. And Simon dated Helen Clyde before she married Lynley and later died and made him a widower. These things are mentioned, the characters consider them briefly, but then they move on. They don’t talk about their past; as proper English gentlemen, they refuse to cause pain to one another. Please, Ms. George, let the two men go somewhere together, just the two of them, just Sherlock and his Watson, and let them talk.
Trying not to give too much away to those of you who have not yet read the book or the series, here are my issues with the female characters.
Barbara Havers
Havers is Lynley’s subordinate and partner, loyal to him, dependable, willing to sacrifice her needs in order to fulfill his. Hinted at is the possibility that were he to express interest, she would drop everything to enter into a romantic relationship with him, all the while knowing she was of inferior breeding. That’s lovely. But George makes a point of explaining how ordinary she is, how plain and even homely she is. Do not judge Havers’ looks by the appearance of the actress who plays her on the BBC’s version of these stories, Sharon Small. Small is a dreamboat compared to the way Havers is depicted in print – she can’t dress right, she cuts her own hair, and she is incapable of coordinating colors. She is chastised by her superior and ordered to change her look or be terminated. She is shown to be less than elegant in her speaking and her behavior causes her to stand out in an upper class crowd. Lynley frequently finds himself apologizing for her. In Believe the Lie, her reluctance to speak to a close friend results in a terrible tragedy for him.
Deborah St. James
Conversely, it is Deborah’s decision to speak that leads to a tragedy. George seems to insist that we see Deborah as a free spirited, talented, and artistic soul, someone beloved by Simon (did I mention he’s my favorite character?) and respected by Lynley. Lynley engages the St. Jameses to help in his undercover mission, and Deborah clearly and obstinately ignores the instructions she has been given, and instead allows her female-driven nature to guide her course. Deborah, we know by now, has wanted a baby for several books and is unable to carry one to term. In Believe the Lie, she meets another woman who she believes suffers from the same grief. She allows that belief to determine her actions – something specifically noted by both Lynley and Simon – and ultimately causes a perfectly avoidable tragedy. Somehow, George expects us to witness Deborah’s selfish and self-absorbed acts, and then to forgive her because Simon and Lynley love her so.
Isabelle Ardery
I’m not sure even George likes Isabelle, a caustic, career-driven alcoholic who has become Lynley’s lover. She is also his superior, clearly a no-no. Isabelle knows just how to aim her barbs, particularly toward Barbara Havers – and if we are meant to side with Havers, we must necessarily despise Isabelle Ardery. She seems to exist only to torment Havers and cause Lynley extremes of emotion: pain from the death of his wife, guilt at having moved on (at least sexually), joy at finding someone he can share things with, frustration at having to keep things from her, anger at hearing her drunk over the phone, and sorrow when she makes things other than him her priority. Isabelle is not a character, she’s a role.
Mignon Fairclough
If there’s a villain in this novel, George wants this to be her. Mignon fakes a disability in order to live off her parents, blackmails her father, spies on her family, and wreaks havoc with strangers over the internet. She is not a nice woman, and no one likes her. There is nothing redeeming about her. There is nothing here to allow us to see her as a rounded character; she is simply Nasty Woman.
Alatea Fairclough
I do believe we are meant to feel for this woman, especially once we learn her secret and witness her fate. But she seems cold toward everyone, save her husband, and we know she’s keeping a secret even from him. She’s not trustworthy. She’s shrill. It seems that only her husband likes her; everyone else keeps their distance.
Niamh Cresswell
Before I begin to discuss this bitch, I want to comment on her name. I had never seen it before – it is an old Irish name, pronounced Nee-ev. I’d spent the whole book hearing Neye-am in my head. I think I prefer it my way; it seems to correspond more with the way she is portrayed. Niamh has reason to be bitter, but she takes this bitterness to sorrowful depths when she rejects her children to pay back her ex-husband. She is portrayed as a selfish, money-hungry, sex-hungry, revenge-hungry woman. Absolutely no one in this book likes her – even her children, desperate as they are for her love, learn to turn elsewhere.
Manette Fairclough McGhie
If there is one woman for whom we can feel some pity, some connection, some recognition that we finally have someone with humanity, it is Manette. She is a woman who has been rejected by her parents in favor of her younger brother, yoked to a bitter and nasty twin sister, and disappointed in marriage. She alone reaches out to her cousin’s children, is physically beaten in response, and still returns for another try. She heroically comes to the aid of one of those children, despite contrary instructions from those in authority. She is a rule-breaker, but with good cause. And yet she spends most of the book in a passive, back of the room manner. I think this is the closest I can come to finding a sympathetic character among the women in this book.
Angelina Upman
I saved the worst for last. Look at her name – the implied angelic behavior (and she certainly plays that part well) in her first name, then balanced by a hard and – once we know what she does – understandably male-hating last name. Angelina does what Niamh does, just differently.
These are the women who appear throughout the novel – I do not include the women who pop in for expository interludes – and they’re a bleak group, aren’t they? Contrast them with intelligent, always-doing-the-right-thing-(or-at-least-trying) Lynley; noble, crippled, ever-patient Simon; sadsack Zed, all 6 feet 8 inches of him, with a shock of red hair and the inability to see what’s in front of him but who engages in a romance that surprises even him and Does The Right Thing In The End; and Bernard Fairclough, who, though he has his foibles and peccadilloes, and despite his lower class upbringing, tries to protect his wife from the pains of his past. George is far gentler on her men than she is on her women.
I love these books. I read them as soon as they are published, and I recommend them to friends looking for a new series to fall into. But I do wish George would lighten up on the women. I suspect that the majority of George’s readers are women – and perhaps as women, we are meant to care more for the men than the women – and it would be nice to have at least one woman (short of the one who had that potential but who died a few books back) with whom to identify.
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