I've read two of Amanda Craig's books before - both a long time ago, and both still on my bookshelves. I liked them very much, but for some reason have never read any others till now. (There are so many books in the world.)
I didn't know anything about The Golden Rule when I started, and that's probably the best way. Many reviewers - and Amanda herself, in her afterword - have noted how the story draws on both Strangers on a Train and Beauty and the Beast. It really does have the feel of a modern fairytale… and if you have to suspend disbelief at times, that's fine in a fairytale.
At its core is the harm people can do to each other - often, though not always, men to women. Hannah at the beginning, having married young and become a mother to Maisy, is the definition of trapped. The love her husband Jake once felt for her has turned to open loathing and contempt - he verbally and physically assaults her and after leaving to be with his lover, uses money (of which he has plenty and she none) as a weapon. He's about as hateful, and as hate-full, as it's possible to imagine, and I wanted nothing more than to see him get his comeuppance. Craig writes brilliantly about the reality of poverty and the inability of those who've never experienced it to see or conceive of it. (One character - a relative of the privileged Jake - when asked what the minimum wage is, thinks it's £80,000 a year.)
Nevertheless, as trapped as Hannah is and as little reason as she has to think well of men (her previous experience as a graduate trainee in an advertising agency is a catalogue of vile sexism, alarmingly based on the author's own experiences), it's hard to swallow that she accepts the "strangers on a train" pact to kill each other's husbands. But you just have to go with it. Hannah's travelling home to Cornwall by train to see her dying mother when she meets Jinni, and the two women share their experiences of abusive marriages. But of course, not all is as it seems, and Hannah's experiences in Cornwall - and a house called Endpoint - will turn many things around. (The writing about Cornwall, where I've never been, is marvellous.)
Reading and the love of books is another major theme, recognised here as the addiction it is for some of us. "When she found a book she liked, she sank into it as if into another world. Voices, music, pneumatic drills all became inaudible; she was the kind of child who would go off in break times not to play or talk but to read." (Relatable.) I also loved: "In her imagination she was a sister to Elizabeth Bennet, Dorothea Brooke and Jane Eyre, and this is only a small step to falling in love with the most arrogant man who happens to be around."
There's also, however, some interesting and thought-provoking stuff about video gaming as an art form.
There are some great lines here. Jake and his friends are described as being born with silver spoons "not so much in their mouths as up their noses." Hannah's life is described thus: "Ever since Maisy had been born, Hannah had felt herself become two people: the good mother who organised everything, and the woman silently screaming and raking her nails down the walls." And the line: "'You can do this,' she said, and kissed him, because she thought he was about to die" is pure fairytale.
A sweeping, satisfying read with a powerful message.
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