The Sleeper by
Eileen Dewhurst Finally an excursion to Barbara Vineland, that extensive tract of fictional territory where everyone plays Unhappy Families. In Gillian White’s The Sleeper, the story revolves around Violet Moon, an elderly medium spending Christmas at her son’s farm. Violet and her daughter-in-law Clover have never seen eye to eye. Soon Clover begins to wonder if Violet trying to kill her. Simultaneously, an old woman with no known antecedents vanishes from the nearby Happy Haven residential hotel for the elderly. And then there’s the little matter of Violet’s childhood which, as is customary in Vineland, is well stocked with sinister family secrets. Meanwhile, in the present, Nature plays its part with storms and extensive flooding.
The result of this imbroglio is a modern Cold Comfort Farm - no jokes, of course, but plenty of rural Gothic detail laid on with a shovel. Nevertheless, Gillian White handles her gruesome ingredients with control and intelligence. A note for the squeamish: there’s nothing nasty in the woodshed but you would be well advised to avoid the slurry pit. This review was first published in the Independent, February 1998
