Domestic Thrillers

Transcript

Speaker: Welcome to the Clued in Mystery podcast. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. So Brooke, we've got another great episode to record today. I'm super excited to be talking about domestic thrillers with you.

Speaker: Yes, it's going to be great. I'll start us off with our regular overview. Domestic thrillers are a subgenre of crime fiction, which reside under the larger umbrella of psychological thrillers. Their beginnings can be traced back to the narrative themes that the ancient Greeks and even Shakespeare utilized, such as marriage gone wrong and family murder plots.

Speaker: Later, the Victorian era sensation stories fused Gothic fiction with romance and realism. Think secret babies, abductions, and adultery. The contemporary version was first coined domestic noir in 2013 by Elizabeth Haynes when she was describing fellow novelist Julia Crouch as the queen of domestic noir.

Speaker: On her blog, Crouch explains what she sees as the main tenets of this subset of crime fiction. She says it primarily takes place in homes and workplaces. It focuses mainly on the female perspective. It draws heavily on interpersonal relationships and problems such as infertility, missing children, infidelity. And it posits that the domestic sphere is a challenging and possibly dangerous place.

Speaker: While we generally refer to this type of story as a domestic thriller now, Crouch disagrees with this. She says that the engine driving this type of story is more an unraveling than the high octane roller coaster suggested by the word thriller. Whether you think of it as noir or thriller, this brand of fiction can be disturbing for some readers

Speaker: because of references to domestic violence and other types of abuse. Plus, it typically paints a rather dark and pessimistic view of home and family. Disturbing to some, other people enjoy domestic thrillers precisely because of the familiar setting. They're relatable. We may not be able to picture ourselves as detectives or spies, but we're all somebody's family member, best friend, or coworker.

Speaker: Unsurprisingly, female authors dominate this subgenre. They include Erin Kelly, Paula Hawkins, Gillian Flynn, Elizabeth Haynes, Leigh Ann Moriarty, and Lisa Jewell, just to name a few. There are also male writers in this space like S .J. Watson and Tom Valor.

Speaker: So up to this point on the show, most of the fiction we've discussed has included crimes set outside of normal everyday life. Even if a murder takes place in a small village or a serene manor house, it's always thought of as otherworldly. And then the heroic sleuth sets out to set the world right once again by solving the crime. By the end, all is well.

Speaker: However, in domestic thrillers, the problems, the secrets, and the danger take place right within the tight circles that are supposed to be safe. It's not a rare occurrence that has interrupted life. The story problem is everyday life, and the characters are challenged

Speaker: to wake up and acknowledge it in order to survive. Many times as the term noir suggests, circumstances are worse at the end of the story than they seemed at the beginning. And that, Sarah, is my overview of domestic thrillers.

Speaker: Thank you, Brooke. That was a really great overview. And I think there are a lot of themes in there that you talked about that we can jump off for the rest of our conversation. I really like that description of it for the stories and the genre being about unraveling. And I think one of the appeals as a reader is you see these

Speaker: often really difficult situations that the characters are in and you can close the book and say, well, my life's not that bad, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker: That's true. I felt like that word was great too and I hadn't ever heard of this being referred to as domestic noir until I was doing this research. But in light of our recent episode with Chronicles of Crime talking about the noir in general, I can see that it really does describe it.

Speaker: very well. Oh, absolutely. You can see a pretty clear line between some of the themes that we were talking about in that conversation and kind of what people are reading in modern domestic thriller, domestic noir. Now, I think that's a really great label for the genre.

Speaker: The other thing that I really liked about what you were talking about is the fact that a lot of the stories are from the female perspective. And when I look at the kind of list of books that I've read in the last little while that kind of fit in this space, the vast majority have female narrators or have multiple narrators, but most of those narrators are female.

Speaker: And I wonder why that is. Is that because it's not that we're more dramatic. I don't know what that is because we talked about in the spy fiction episode, we talked about how a lot of those stories are from the male perspective. So I don't know where that comes from, but that certainly does seem to be the case.

Speaker: Yeah, I wonder if, and this might not be super popular to our feminist selves, but maybe it's because it is sort of our, our being women's world, you know, I mean, like it or not.

Speaker: We're moms, we're wives, we kind of identify with that world. And certainly there's going to be women who are not drawn to this genre at all because it's not their world. Maybe they're spies or politicians and so they want to read that brand. But for those of us who are

Speaker: living a fairly, you know, quote unquote, traditional lifestyle, it's kind of the world we live in. And so it appeals, I think, to us on that level. And it makes that really relatable world that we live in, like this potentially creepy place that we can really get into the story.

Speaker: No, I think you're right. And I think what these stories tend to do is really play on our fears and our anxieties, right? And so, you know, the idea that everybody isn't who they say they are or that, you know, there's secrets that are being kept from you. And you can, I think because it's in this setting that is so relatable, right? Like you can almost see yourself being in those situations

Speaker: were it not for, you know, obviously you're going to make a better decision than these characters are making. But, you know, you can just see that happening where, like you said, you know, I don't live in a manor house, I don't think I've ever been in a manor house. So, you know, that setting is further away from me than, you know, so many of these

Speaker: seem to be, it's this perfect family on the outside and then there's some real big secrets on the inside. So you read one of these books and close it and then kind of look at your neighbors and be like, okay, what's going on over there? 100%. They definitely play on the fears and anxieties

Speaker: that are so natural, so natural. And it comes back, again, we're finding that here we are in a genre fiction, popular fiction, but it's coming back and talking about human condition. These are things we all share as, and in this case, maybe, you know, as females or people who are in committed relationships, you know, you, it plays on those fears and those anxieties and

Speaker: and parents too, right? Because a lot of these stories have to do with harm to children or missing children, which by the way makes it a genre that's sometimes hard for me to want to read because those are stories that I don't really like to think about. Yeah, you know, that's a really good point because I don't think I've read very many

Speaker: in this genre that relate to children either being harmed or going missing. The ones that I have read are more the ones that are the married couple, new mother, friends going away on holiday, and there's either some

Speaker: secret that's buried deep in the past that for whatever reason comes out at this trip that everybody's gone on. Those are the ones that I tend to, uh, tend to choose to read. I don't, I actually don't think I can think of one there. There was, I guess the new mother trope deals with children. Um, but it's not so much harm from the children, but, um, the children causing the harm.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. So I'm the same way. I definitely shy away from that. I probably always have to a certain extent, but once becoming a mom, I just really can't go there, which I think a lot of us share that. But I stepped out of my comfort zone this week and chose to read a book by Lisa Jewell called Girls in the Garden. And it does include harm to a child and

Speaker: harm to the child by another child. And I was reminded why I don't like to go there. But it's a credit to, I think, it's a credit to the writer and to the genre because it's what you said at the top of this, which is it really plays on our fears and our anxieties. And it just kind of cuts me to the quick to think about kids hurting one another. And so

Speaker: She definitely set out and she played on those emotions and wrote a fantastic story, but I don't think it's converting me to be able to read more of it.

Speaker: Yeah, I don't think I've read anything by by Lisa Jewell. And, you know, the list of authors that you that you shared, I had only I think I've only read from one or one or two of them. The stories that I've read more of are Lucy Foley. So she's got a couple of books out and I've read those and they're the, you know, friends going on holiday that kind of

Speaker: storyline where everybody has a secret and multiple narrators in those books and you have to figure out who is revealing all of their secrets and is someone

Speaker: with holding something because there's inevitably a death and you have to figure out, okay, well, why did this character die, right? A while ago, I would have read Gone Girl and there seemed to be a series of books with either Woman or Girl in the title, right? That seemed to be a very clear signal that this was going to be a book that fits in the domestic thriller genre.

Speaker: gone girl, woman in the window, girl on the train. I'm sure there's others. Yes. All the titles had girl or woman in them for several years there. And you've mentioned before, Sarah, that their covers, and even now, the covers are very iconic. You can recognize what a domestic thriller is going to be, just simply by the cover. That's a great point, right? There's often a, the title is in big, often yellow lettering.

Speaker: And if not yellow, then something bright to definitely catch your eye because the rest of the scene is pretty dark. There might be a silhouette of a figure or a couple of figures or maybe even a house, right, to let you know that this is the setting. That's not a bad thing, that those covers all kind of look very similar because as a reader, it signals to me very clearly what kind of story is in those pages.

Speaker: Exactly. Yeah, I don't think it's a bad thing either. And the old adage not to judge a book by its cover, I mean, clearly we all do. And that could be a very fun future episode, Sarah, to talk about the way covers look in different subgenres. That would be fun.

Speaker: Oh, I think that would be great. Yes, we'll add that to our list of things to talk about. Well, that's kind of the trophy and themes idea that I wanted to talk with you about. You already mentioned the unreliable narrator, which we definitely see a lot of in domestic thrillers. Multiple narrators, we talked about that as well.

Speaker: One thing I see a lot is that we'll have this very resourceful and smart woman, and this plays again off the unreliable narrator, that all along she's creating this plan that we don't know until that twist ending and we see, oh, I see what she was creating this entire time. And that's something that I really do enjoy about these stories.

Speaker: Yeah, there's a bit of a challenge as a reader to try and figure out, okay, where is this leading? And it's rare that I can anticipate that or figure it out. And when I do figure it out before the reveal, I find that unsatisfying, right? If I think of the ones that I've enjoyed the least, it's the ones that I've managed to figure out before the author tells me what the big reveal is.

Speaker: Yeah, I remember feeling that way definitely with Gone Girl. Like everything gets turned on its head at the end, you know? And I really think that the film did a great job of playing it out too. You know, sometimes with psychological thrillers, I think it's hard to translate them to film.

Speaker: because so much of them are kind of in an internal monologue the way the stories told you're really in people's heads and hearing their thoughts and everything and and I thought I wonder how they're gonna pull this off on the screen but I actually think they did a great job and I enjoyed the film.

Speaker: a lot too. So I've seen Gone Girl and it's one of the only stories in this genre that I've managed to watch. I find it very difficult to watch them and I don't know why. I don't know if it's, so I have no problem reading in this genre, but I think particularly if I were to watch something that I hadn't read, I just really feel that anxiety

Speaker: So profoundly that it's, it's really, yeah, I can't, I can't watch them. That's so interesting, isn't it? Yeah. And that's totally fine too. I mean, we, we get to have our preferences just like I said, you know, I don't think that I'll turn to anymore that involve kids having bad things happen to them. And, and you just don't need to watch them. You can just read them.

Speaker: I try and finish most of the books that I start to read, but there have been a few in this genre in particular that I've put down because I have just found it really difficult to watch the character continuing to make bad choice after bad choice after bad choice.

Speaker: I think maybe I find that unbelievable that like you just wouldn't, maybe I've just never been in a situation where I've felt so trapped that all I can make are bad choices. I don't know. But there's, I can think of a couple of books in this genre where I've just been like, I can't finish this because I, like you said in the introduction, I know the ending is going to be worse than the start and I just don't want to get there.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, very likely will be. And one thing I maybe a pet peeve in this genre for me is I find myself saying, well, just talk about it. Just ask them, you know, but so much is going on

Speaker: in their heads and they mull it over and they mull it over. And granted, I know this is creating the story, right? But it tends to get old for me. I'm with you on that. There does seem to be a lot that could be resolved by just having a conversation. And I guess that, you know, brings me back to what I said at the beginning about, you know, I can close the book and say, okay, my problems aren't that bad.

Speaker: Exactly. Yeah. Thank goodness. We've referenced Gone Girl in our episode that we recently did for Agatha Christie's Disappearance. And it's Marie Benedict's fiction that sort of gives the facts of Agatha's disappearance a sort of Gone Girl spin.

Speaker: Um, and so that got me thinking, you know, cause we just talked about the disappearance and now we're talking about domestic thrillers. And I was thinking.

Speaker: that it really truly is a real life domestic thriller tale. Although I think Marie Benedict did a great job, I think it would be fascinating to have Gillian Flynn or one of these people who really have their pulse on this sub -genre to take that story and write it. I think it could be pretty fantastic.

Speaker: It brought to mind a quote that I had from Agatha that I thought I might share in the Disappearance episode, but it's actually pretty perfect. It gives that feeling of domestic noir, so I wanted to share what Agatha said. This is after she met Max Malloine and she was considering getting back into a relationship.

Speaker: And she says, I was scared of marriage. I realized, as I suppose many women realize sooner or later, that the only person who can really hurt you in life is a husband. Nobody else is close enough. On nobody else are you so dependent for everyday companionship, affection, and all that makes up marriage. Never again I decided would I put myself at anyone's mercy.

Speaker: Wow. Isn't that great? Yeah. Well, and I guess that, yeah, that just really speaks to the fears and anxieties and the universal appeal of these stories, right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Speaker: So, Brooke, thinking about a couple of other authors in this space, when I reread and then there were none before our Agatha Christie episodes, I was really struck by how much of a thriller it is. Like, I would say that it is a domestic thriller for sure, because there's so much suspense in that story as you go along.

Speaker: And I don't know, there must be some other examples of Christy's work that would fit into that. I think maybe some of her short stories. Yeah, definitely psychological thriller. And I remember that we talked about in the Christy episode how it was a departure. Some of those later stories that she wrote were a departure from her straight puzzle mysteries.

Speaker: I'm not sure if I put it in domestic and here's why. I feel like it doesn't get inside the heads. It's not quite as intimate as some of the domestic thrillers. We're still sort of outside looking in, but what I think she did was set the stage because it's so similar like what we were saying earlier about, you know, everybody's in one location, they're cut off from the rest of the world and

Speaker: this suspenseful event start. So I definitely think that it's the seed, but that's just me playing devil's advocate. For me, when I think about kind of the boxes that I would want to tick to categorize something as fitting in domestic thriller,

Speaker: Everybody has a secret. There's a bunch of suspenseful events, as you say. They're in this secluded location and it's a tight -knit group of characters. But you're right, it is missing that intimacy of really

Speaker: you're still on the outside looking in, right? Like I don't think for any of the characters are, they're all in third person. None of them are in first person. And that's maybe the real difference because in a lot of domestic thrillers, so a lot of the ones that I've read, at least part of the narration is from the first person perspective.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. You're really in somebody's thoughts. Um, and also if I remember remembering correctly, they, none of those characters knew each other before. Is that right? Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. Um, they were all strangers. Definitely a great set up to create these. And you just have to know that these authors that were, that we've mentioned today are heavily influenced by her work, right?

Speaker: Absolutely. The other author that I wondered about putting in this category or putting some of his works in this category was Stephen King. My husband actually said the same thing when I was telling him about what we were going to be recording.

Speaker: And I'm not sure, certainly of his work that I've read, I'm not sure I would put it in there because his stuff often has a supernatural element, which I'm not sure fits really in as a domestic thriller, right?

Speaker: definitely ticks a lot of those other boxes, right? There's absolutely their suspense. And you're right there with the character. There's more of that intimacy. The suspense is because things are happening to them, not necessarily because they've made any of the things happen.

Speaker: Good point. Mm -hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, I'm with you I think that a lot of the categories are or the prerequisites are checked But I wonder if we can create a new category Sarah because I'm thinking of like his stuff like the shining Christine 1922 maybe it's domestic horror. Yeah, that's probably a better fit

Speaker: Because then we can incorporate, like you said, the supernatural and some of the other elements that he plays off of. Well, Brooke, I think that was a really great conversation. And I know we're going to talk about some other books in the thriller space in some future episodes. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your feedback. You can reach us at hello at cluedinmystery .com or on Instagram at cluedinmystery.

Speaker: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or a review, or telling a friend to help spread the word. Thanks for listening today to Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.

Speaker: Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound .com. Visit us online at cluedinmystery .com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.