Josa Young's Reviews > The Golden Rule

Another complex modern fairy tale from Amanda Craig - where the ancient sources of human myth inform the present in all kinds of unexpected ways. It's one of those novels that appears to depict gritty realism and kitchen sink drama but many of the characters are more mythic monster or evil spirit than real flesh and blood people - the shimmery veil between modern reality and timeless weirdness is very thin. I love the way in Craig's imagination the fabulous marches alongside reality without it seeming odd at all. The politics that other readers have mentioned simply highlight the reality of inequality - often a source of tension in fiction throughout history. Hannah is a kind of knowing innocent - a pretty clever girl bought up in a constrained circumstances by a single mother, who breaks free and goes to university. Unfortunately like many a fairytale heroine, her path out of her stifling background does not go according to plan and she ends up the victim of types of people she does not understand at all. Inspired by Patricia Highsmith's dark tale Strangers on a Train, the two female protagonists meet in the liminal anonymity of a train to swap angry tales of male let-down. What happens next, you will have to see - but the plot bounces along holding me beguiled all the while. It plays out very differently from the Highsmith original however....