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The Girl on the Landing

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The Girl on the Landing

By: Paul Torday
Narrated by: David Monteath, Clare Wille
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About this listen

From the best-selling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a ghost story, a psychological thriller and a tale of love rediscovered.

Elizabeth has been married to Michael for ten years. She has adjusted to a fairly monotonous routine with her wealthy, decent but boring husband. Part of this routine involves occasional visits to Beinn Caorrun, the dank and gloomy house in a Scottish glen that Michael inherited. There are memories there that Michael will not share with her.

But then Michael begins to change. It starts when he thinks he sees, in a picture, the figure of a girl on a landing. As he changes, life becomes so much more fun and Elizabeth sees glimpses of a man she can fall in love with at last. But who - or what - is changing Michael....

©2009 Paul Torday (P)2013 Orion Publishing Group Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction Fiction Scary Feel-Good
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Apparitions and mental conditions, inventions and creations of the mind

This story is about letting go, returning to a more wild state, a place before nations and nationalities a place where legends, sensual, sexual passions and the true savage live, a place where you follow your instincts till you howl at the moon. Commune with the goddess and hunt animal all animals, till you disappear into the primordial forest in your mind.

A marriage of convenience between two strangers, and old fashion life where modernity is intruding into the set British ways of doing things, old gentleman's clubs, fishing trips, boring social dinners, a boring boring life, where Michael unbenounced to everyone has began a plan of escape, a transformation into a past where there were only primordial men and forests. The first glimmer is a girl in a painting, followed by her ever growing reality that awakens in him a surprising Michael, that sparks passion in his wife, even love, controversy in social circles and a dislocation of reality, that seeps like blood into every cranny of their lives.

Very well written, full of atmosphere and contradictory feelings for the reader, the characters are well written and the settings feel real and full of life. Avery different thriller that is not about capture but scape and there is where this book will have some detractors, it is not conclusive but open ended and even allegorical in its ending like the feelings it awakens in Michael; that like his namesake is a fallen angel of sorts.

Both readers are very good and make a good story better.

a fallen angel of sorts

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A really unusual story - awful and terrible in the best possible way. Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King. Desperately sad slow revelations are overlaid with a sense of dread and gothic horror. Seems to revel in drawing painfully awkward. Irritating, dull characters thus enhancing contrast with the mysterious Mikey. A rare and unforgettable story.

Gripping and quite terrifying

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Fully expected not to enjoy this book. It is peppered with man-splaining pompous gentlemen's club members and the social circles, wealth and mores described are completely out of my range of experience. Yet the skill of the author is such that all that stuff is unimportant and you find yourself connecting with the human element of the characters. It was mesmerising listening to Michael and Elizabeth's story unfold, with the constant menace of the paranormal (and/or insanity). I found myself identifying with many of their struggles and caring deeply about the outcome of increasingly menacing influences in their lives. What was particularly powerful for me was the complete absence of heavy handed tricks usually present in stories like this. The constant low-key sense of threat and turbulence beneath polite socially acceptable behaviour had a far bigger impact and I found myself quite tense and nervy as I listened to the story develop.

Menacing

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This was so good. A description of schizophrenia and its destruction of a personality plus a thriller which led to my listening in 2 days despite having to go to work. Strongly recommended

Gripping

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I read this as a print book first and couldn't put it down. The people I was on holiday with thought I was very rude. This audiobook is excellent too. The story is gripping and the narration very good. It's quite spooky and disturbing.

How sad that Paul Torday died recently and not very old - I would have hoped for more books from him.

Simply excellent

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