Slash and Burn

“There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory…”

This line, from Bret Easton Ellis's dark, dark '80s satire, American Psycho, could just as easily have been uttered by Miss Winifred Notty, governess, 100 years earlier. Notty, the main character in Virginia Feito's second novel, Victorian Psycho, shares a lot of the sadistic financier Bateman's moral emptiness.

First, a recap. Notty, who tells the story, recounts her arrival at Ensor House, a manor in Grim Wolds, an ambiguously northern bit of moorland in England. Her role is to tutor and care for Andrew and Drusilla, the awful children of awful parents, Mr and Mrs Pound. She does so with barely concealed contempt, a contempt she shares for pretty much everyone in the house.

This governess role is not necessarily her job, as Notty indicates. She tells us from the start that her timetable at Ensor House is fixed:

"It is early fall, the cold is beginning to descend, and in three months everyone in this house will be dead."

Her unique attribute, according to her, isn't her way with children, or a knack for teaching French (which, as it turns out, she actually doesn't), but what she calls "a Darkness," a churning thing inside her that compels her forward toward completion of her...mission? Mary Poppins, she most definitely isn’t. Notty comes from a very, very different place—a period-standard broken home, which she describes throughout the story.

Notty is an unreliable reliable narrator. She tells the reader exactly what's going on in her head, and has a keen eye for the actions and real motivations of those around her, but she herself isn't always certain what her mind is doing. Masking her inner Darkness, she plays the competent governess, and puts up with the awful, preening Mrs Pound and gouty sex-pest Mr Pound—and their two stupid children—as the price of reaching her objective.

Hers is a Darkness on rails, careening this way and that, from a little animal cruelty, to being made to sleep in the kennel, to disappearing a houseguest's baby. All of this builds, in short chapters, toward the feeling of crescendo. A large Christmas gathering at Ensor House provides the set piece for her gory, if creative, final act and a surprise reveal that makes it all make some sense.

Enough of the general arc of the narrative, which is action-packed and episodic, told in scenes and short bursts. I picked the novel up for two reasons: author Virginia Feito is having a moment in the spotlight in the Spanish book world (she is a madrileña, though she wrote this book in English, and featured at this year's BCNegra noir book festival, which I missed due to work travel). Also, rights for Victorian Psycho were acquired by A24, with filming due to start about now, reportedly starring hot property Margaret Qualley (The Substance), and Thomasin Mackenzie (Eileen). Having just finished Olga Tokarczuk's The Empusium, I was happy to roll on to more weirdness for bedtime reading, and was curious, given the fanfare around the book.

I was surprised to find the early build-up felt so YA (which Mrs Smith tells me is pretty common in supposedly adult fiction now); it read more like Lemony Snicket than I was expecting. Having read the comparisons of Feito to Ottessa Moshfegh, underlined by the casting choices above, Victorian Psycho ended up more on the McGlue end of the spectrum than, say, Lapvona. Short chapters and cute typography added to that vibe. It also screamed "many hours spent in the university library sourcing period references," which is required, but here felt a little like a teetering stack of tea cups.

Feito's writing solidifies in the second half, as Notty herself picks up a head of steam. It becomes less descriptive, and a bit more hazy as the Darkness moves in and the body parts start to accumulate in the corners, crawl spaces and dusty sideboards of Ensor House. The ending is somehow more satisfying than the opening, if a little Kill Bill.

One can see how it was optioned quickly by the producers. It's pacy and cinematic, practically a storyboard. Done right, it might bring the wild ride viewers hoped for (but many didn't get) from Nosferatu. It's an obvious Christmas movie for the same crowd.

I don't regret going along for the ride with Winifred Notty. I'm hoping Feito's future work flexes more of her narrative skills.