Book Review Robert Wiersema THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW by A.J. Finn With their twisting plots, shifting (and shifty) characters and their often difficult morality, the domestic suspense genre – including books such as The Girl on the TrainandThe Couple Next Door– has always owed something of a debt to film noir and the work of director Alfred Hitchcock. A.J. Finn’s new novel, TheWoman in theWindow, draws a direct line to these influences, in the process creating one of the most compelling and original books in the genre since Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. The Woman in the Window– which is on the New York Times’ bestseller list – introduces readers to Anna Fox, an early-middle-aged woman who is unable to leave her impressive, four-storey home in a gentrifying area of Harlem. Suffering from acute agoraphobia – rooted in a trauma which is only gradually revealed – Anna gets her groceries, her prescriptions and, most important, her wine delivered. Her psychiatrist and physical therapist visit her on a regular basis and she keeps in touch with her estranged husband and her daughter by phone. Her closest acquaintance is her basement tenant, whom she barely knows. Anna drinks her way through her days, spending most of her time on agoraphobia message boards, watching noir classics and, crucially, watching the comings and goings of her neighbours through the zoom lens of her camera. If you’re reminded of Jimmy Stewart inRear Window, trapped in his apartment with a broken leg and his binoculars…watching his neighbours…that’s definitely by design. The arrival of new neighbours in late October piques Anna’s interest. The Russells seem a picture-perfect family but, as she watches, that facade begins to waver. Ethan (the teenage son) seems to live in fear of his father. Following a visit from Jane (the wife and mother), Alistair Russell himself arrives, demanding to know if Anna has had any visitors. He seems, at best, controlling. But perhaps he’s much worse. Anna hears a mysterious scream from the Russell home, which no one else seems to have heard. Later, she witnesses the murder of Jane Russell in her living room. Anna calls the police before running into the street for help, collapsing and losing consciousness fromher condition a short distance from her home. When she awakes, she’s in police custody and no one will believe her story. And that’s just the first twist in a plot that virtually loops around on itself by the novel’s stunning close. (There’s another twist that’s not in the book: A.J. Finn is actually a pseudonym for a New York City editor who wrote the novel in secret and left town on holiday when the agent was trying to find a publisher for the book. The eventual winner of a bidding war was the publisher where “Finn” worked – one can imagine the surprise when the identity of their hot new writer was revealed.) The Woman in the Window captures the rhythms and techniques of classic noir without losing its unique approach and voice. The sentences and chapters are short…almost clipped…resulting in a novel that flies by with the ease of a movie. Readers almost feel as if they are being drawn into a Hitchcock film as they are reading. The novel works well as an homage to Hitchcock; dedicated fans will delight in references both overt (such as the overall Rear Windowapproach to the story and Finn’s use of agoraphobia as a limitation in much the same way as Hitchcock used vertigo) and subtle (including nods toPsychoandShadow of a Doubt). You don’t have to know anything about Hitchcock or film noir, however, to find yourself captivated byThe Woman in the Window; the story is tight, the twists realistic and rooted in well-developed characters. It’s a powerful reading experience, chilling and rewarding. 46 | www.snowbirds.org
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