Felicia's Journey [Audio Cassette]

This is an intriguing book of psychological suspense for which its author was the recipient of the 1994 Whitbread Award. Written by a master storyteller, it tells the story of two people whose lives interconnect, only to have repercussions for both in the most unexpected ways.

Felicia is a seventeen year old motherless and naive Irish girl, who has become intimate with an Irish boy named Johnny. Of course, the expected ensues, and after Johnny has left Ireland and returned to England where he ostensibly works, Felicia is left holding the bag. Her disapproving father suspects Johnny of actually being in the British Army and, thus, a traitor to his own. He also has a few choice words for his daughter, now that she is in the family way, and none of it is flattering. So, Felicia leaves her rural village and her family and goes off in search of Johnny, having nothing more than the vaguest of ideas where he might be.

She crosses the Irish Sea and arrives in the English Midlands in the industrial city of Birmingham, as she believes Johnny to be working in a lawn mower factory there. In her search for Johnny, she runs into the portly catering manager for one of the local factories. His name is Joseph Ambrose Hilditch, and he is outwardly a jovial and agreeable man, well-liked by his co-workers and meticulous about his culinary repasts. He lives in solitary splendor in the large house in which he grew up. The house is cluttered with collectibles but well- kept, although decorated in the style of a bygone era. Mr. Hilditch is, indeed, a collector, but his collection is initially far beyond Felicia's imaginings. In fact, Mr. Hilditch has a darker side to him, which is not immediately discernible by the unwary.

When Felicia first meets Mr. Hilditch, it is to ask for information, but something about her catches Mr. Hilditch's fancy, and he finds himself keeping Felicia in his crosshairs. When Felicia seemingly unexpectedly runs into Mr. Hilditch again, he directs her to lodgings, and so it begins. As Mr. Hilditch insinuates himself ever so slowly into her life, weaving a fantasy about his own life that is sure to put her mind at ease about him. Felicia begins finding herself ensnared by this ostensibly kind and ever so helpful, avuncular man, and she initially fails to see the darkness that lies at the core of his being.

The author begins the book with Felicia's journey to England in search of her lover. Using flashbacks throughout the story, the author fills in Felicia's background and describes the events that have brought her to the point of making this journey. When Mr. Hilditch is introduced to the reader, the author begins to take the reader into the recesses of his mind, allowing the reader to see what Felicia initially fails to see, the duplicity and cunning that is masked by his overt geniality. Like a spider to the fly, Mr. Hilditch begins laying his trap, and so Felicia's journey thrusts her into the belly of the beast.

With his carefully cadenced prose, the author explores the darker corners of the human psyche, and in the mind of Mr. Hilditch, it is dark, indeed. As his carefully constructed psychological house of cards begins to fall, there are unspeakable revelations as to what lies at the heart of Mr. Hilditch's predilection, and it is not pretty. The author, in taking the reader into the recesses of the mind of each of the two protagonists, tries to explain how it is that each of these two flawed human beings were able initially to achieve a connection with another, only to find ostensible betrayal. What is decidedly different is the way that they each cope with that betrayal.

There is no happily-ever-after ending to this story, which culminates with a conclusion that is quite bleak, robbing the reader of some satisfaction. Fans of Ruth Rendell, however, will very much appreciate the psychological cat and mouse game that is played throughout and will enjoy the author's foray into this genre. As always, the author pens a novel that provides much food for thought on many levels, and the use of the word journey in the title of the book has a much broader meaning within the context of the story. In reading this book, fans will enjoy the elegant, spare prose that they have come to expect from this enormously talented author.

Felicia's journey is an excellent novel. The background to both characters is well developed. Mr. Hilditch in particular becomes more sinister due to his overwhelmingly ordinary appearance. The intimations of his unusual childhood merely suggest that he may be more disturbed than his manner presumes. Mr. Hilditch's interactions with strangers in the presence of Felicia provide the most chilling insight into the purpose of his friendship with her. It is for this reason alone that the film fails so miserably. No reference is made at all to these brief conversations. As for Felicia herself, it must be said that her character is a little limp. There are few convent girls left in Ireland who show such naivety. However she does grow more likeable, but not enough to demonstrate why she should affect Mr. Hilditch so much.

" Felicia's Journey" is a departure for the Irish author in that the plot is driven by suspense more than character.

Felicia's character is pretty much unformed. A small town motherless Irish girl, just out of school and newly unemployed, she's trapped in a round of housekeeping and caring for her hundred-year-old great-grandmother. The old lady is famous as the widow of a hero, killed in the "Troubles" a month after their wedding.

An ordinary girl, with no particular talents or ambitions, Felicia's keenest awareness is of her lack of prospects. Not that she plans to do anything about it. But then a young man, older than herself and back on a visit from his job in England, flatters her with his ardent attentions. And leaves her pregnant, having "forgotten" to give her his address in the muddle of leavetaking.

After several months without a word (but he doesn't have her address either), Felicia takes her great-grandmother's savings and runs off to England, looking for the factory where he told her he worked.

The first night, she wakes, and thinks of returning. "If she goes back now she'll wake up again in that bedroom. There'll be another dawn breaking on the same despair, the weariness of getting up when the bell chimes six, another day beginning. The cramped stairs will again be cleaned on Tuesdays, the old woman's sheets cleaned at the weekend. If she goes back now her father's eyes will still accuse, her brothers will threaten revenge. There will be Connie Jo's regret that she married into a family anticipating a shameful birth. There will be interested glances, or hard looks, on the street....Only being together, only their love, can bring redemption: she knows that perfectly."

Mr. Hilditch, a fat catering manager, is among those she asks for directions. He discerns her predicament immediately and is attracted to her friendless, anonymous condition. Surreptitiously he follows her, awaiting his chance to befriend her and add her to his "Memory Lane."

The narrative moves between them. Hilditch plots, remembers happy times with previous girls he "helped," and finds Felicia's Johnny with ease, keeping the information to himself. He steals Felicia's money to hasten the day she will be utterly dependent upon his largesse.

Felicia, innocent but wary, angers Hilditch by escaping him. She falls in with a religious cult but, when it's time to move on, discovers the disappearance of her money. Trevor underscores the terror of homelessness with subtle portraits of the people she meets, their offhand kindness a contrast to the circus of grubbiness, insanity and drug addiction. Sights and sounds loom larger than life. Hilditch becomes a reasonable alternative.

Felicia is not a heroic character. Hilditch, pathetic, self-satisfied and crafty, with flashes of viciousness, is the more interesting. His greatest pleasure is sitting with Felicia in one fast-food restaurant after another, eating and imagining the other patrons noticing them, taking him for her lover. The tension builds, however, with a truly repellant scene at an abortion clinic and Felicia's subsequent disintegration.

As always, Trevor's prose is both subtle and sharp, with a distinct eye for detail. And the tone is both compassionate and pathological; tension heightens as the characters' shared world grows smaller and darker.

If there's any criticism it's the stereotypical psychological root of Hilditch's obsession, a monstrous mother added, it seems, as an afterthought. Nevertheless, a fine, dark novel from a thoughtful, eloquent writer.