BelEdit Book Reviews
Victorian Psycho follows Winifred Notty, employed as a governess to take care of two horrible children in a horrible household of horrible people, as she descends further and further into a murderous psychotic rage. From the opening pages, I knew I would love this. And I did. Every word of it. It is weird, wild, deliciously macabre, funny and constantly surprising.
From the start, as she approaches and arrives at Ensor House, we realise that Winifred is not your typical Victorian governess.
“Mrs Able opens a short, solitary door. She gestures to it. As I walk inside, the skirt of my dress brushes her limp hand, which she withdraws instantly. Mrs Able, I muse, is a woman who has never held a penis.”
Feito takes inspiration from Victorian (and earlier) fiction and non-fiction. There are echoes of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë in the dinner-table conversation, Ann Radcliffe gothic overtones and the bloody violence of sensationalist novels and contemporary newspaper accounts.
The writing is wonderful, from the measured tones that build a vivid picture of the stiflingly decorous Victorian upper class household that one might expect, building gradually to a frenzy as Winifred descends into feral, gory murder.
Victorian Psycho is wild, exhilarating and bloody delicious. I cannot recommend it highly enough, if you’ve the stomach for it.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher, Fourth Estate, for providing an ARC. All my reviews are 100% honest no matter how I acquire the book.
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