A Review of Stephen Giles’ “The Boy at the Keyhole”
Mama’s Boy
If you’ll allow me the indulgence, I have a story from my childhood to share. I must have been five or six years old, living in a small central Ontario hamlet, and my mother was off to a party at someone’s house who was close to family on a Saturday night. I wanted to go, too, because there were children to play with at this house. Well, off my mother went, but not without a promise that she’d be back for me. I waited. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock all passed and still no sign of mother. It got past midnight and it must have been close to one o’clock in the morning when I realized she wasn’t coming back for me, and off I went to bed. Naturally, she was there doing adult things such as talk and drink. When I awoke the next morning, she told me that all the children went to bed early and it wouldn’t have been fun for me. Harumph. I still habour a grudge some nearly 40 years later at being left in the dark, if not left behind.
This personal story is actually sort of the framework for Stephen Giles’ The Boy at the Keyhole. It’s the tale of a nine-year-old boy named Samuel who lives in a house in Surrey in England with the housekeeper. It’s the early 1960s, and Samuel’s mother isn’t doing too well financially. So she decides in the middle of the night to set sail for America in the hopes that she can raise some capital for her business interests. (It should be noted that the boy’s father is dead.) While Samuel’s mother dutifully writes postcards to him, she’s been away for an awfully long time — more than 100 days. All Samuel can think about is his mother and when she’ll be coming back home. This is much to the chagrin of Ruth, said housekeeper, who is presented as being one part sugar and spice and one part dragon — a person who will smile at you one minute and slap you upside the head the next. Naturally, Samuel — with the help of his chum, Joseph — begins to wonder if Ruth has a darker ambition to leading the household and actually murdered his mom. And thus the plot thickens.
This is an interesting novel because it’s really all about class divisions and the erosion of them at the end of the Second World War. Ruth is on a bit of an upwards trajectory — seemingly wanting to take over the household entirely despite the fact that she doesn’t have a pot to piss in as the saying goes. Samuel’s mother — I think she is never actually named in the course of the book — is on the downward slide into financial oblivion and has to beg for cash from foreign bankers to keep the family business running. Hired hands either go without pay or are fired outright. Since the novel is seen through Samuel’s eyes, it’s also a bit of a coming-of-age story as well. Samuel begins to find out what it’s like to be an adult with all of its attendant responsibilities and serious regrets. As he gets deeper and deeper into a psychological showdown with Ruth, he begins to see the darker side of human nature.
But, man, does Samuel whine for his mother a lot in this novel! He practically does it from the get-go of the book and his moans are so unrelenting you have to wonder if he’s been weaned from the breast. This constant pleading for mama to come home might be a turn-off to some. The other thing that might turn off readers is the cryptic ending. I think I know where author Stephen Giles was going with things. However, the ending is too abrupt and doesn’t answer all of the questions raised in the climax. Still, if you overlook those things, The Boy at the Keyhole is regardless a four-star book. There is some serious attention being ratcheted here. And, yes, there’s a turn directly pulled from Fatal Attraction to boot.
What makes the novel work so well is the character of Ruth. You’ll wind up hating her, but there are glimpses of real humanity that shine through in the character. In the end, while you’ll be rooting for Samuel to make his mother’s acquaintance again, you’ll also hope that Ruth finds some redemption or isn’t quite the monster that Samuel seems to think she is. She is flawed, but three-dimensional — unlike Samuel, who strikes the same piano note over and over again: “Mom, mom, mom.”
Overall, The Boy at the Keyhole is a recommendable book. It’s not perfect, but there’s generally enough meat on the bone — make that rabbit meat on the bone — to really dig into things and get lost in the psychological underpinnings. I’m sure there’s a bit of Freud somewhere in this book. The Boy at the Keyhole is a splendid and entertaining yarn about searching for maternal love and trying to keep someone close to you even when they are distant, either literally or emotionally. For thriller lovers, this is the perfect book for, well, Mother’s Day as a gift. (And we all know that holiday will be upon us sooner rather than later.) It may not end well — either for the characters or the readers — but the journey to the unsatisfying conclusion is quite the ride. If anything, this book is the sort of novel that explains my own mother’s behaviour all those years ago: sometimes you just want to get away from your children who are constantly nipping at your heels. Is abandonment excusable behaviour? Shrug, maybe. After all, I turned out OK despite not getting the party invite discussed in the first paragraph. May we pray that somewhere out in the world of literature, Samuel turns out to be just OK, too. The end.
Stephen Giles’ The Boy at the Keyhole was published by Hanover Square Press on September 4, 2018.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
