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A review by emviolet
Beast In View by Margaret Millar
3.0
I’m torn on this one. There are some major parts of this story that I REALLY don’t like (homophobia, sensationalizing mental illness) and that makes me want to rate it lower. But...it was written in the 50s. That doesn’t make it right by any means, but I understand why it was accepted and published. I don’t really think I can fully get past these issues though. The utter horror that Dougie is met with for being a gay man; the idea that he spent his whole life hiding himself, planning his own suicide, and feeling pressured into marrying a woman...it’s awful and sad and heartbreaking. Especially when combined with the idea that people thought it was LOGICAL for his ex wife to want him dead for daring to be gay.
And then we have the use of multiple personality disorder as a “twist”. I think this illness is still pretty difficult to understand and since it isn’t terribly common, it’s not as well studied as some other illnesses, particularly being that this is in the 50s. At the time, perhaps it did seem like a violent/terrifying/devilish thing. But reading it now, 70 years later, this rings untrue. I’m sure there are people who experience violence due to this illness, but I’m also sure that there are plenty who do not, and who are stigmatized as a result of this trope in crime writing and television.
With all that being said, I think this was probably a really thrilling twist for the time. It probably hadn’t been done before. It definitely has the writing style that I look for in older mysteries that’s very approachable and without too much flowery language or dialogue. It was a little slow to start, but it definitely picked up as it went along. If we could get rid of the homophobic storyline and add in some sympathy for a woman who has a serious mental illness, I would have liked it more.
And then we have the use of multiple personality disorder as a “twist”. I think this illness is still pretty difficult to understand and since it isn’t terribly common, it’s not as well studied as some other illnesses, particularly being that this is in the 50s. At the time, perhaps it did seem like a violent/terrifying/devilish thing. But reading it now, 70 years later, this rings untrue. I’m sure there are people who experience violence due to this illness, but I’m also sure that there are plenty who do not, and who are stigmatized as a result of this trope in crime writing and television.
With all that being said, I think this was probably a really thrilling twist for the time. It probably hadn’t been done before. It definitely has the writing style that I look for in older mysteries that’s very approachable and without too much flowery language or dialogue. It was a little slow to start, but it definitely picked up as it went along. If we could get rid of the homophobic storyline and add in some sympathy for a woman who has a serious mental illness, I would have liked it more.