Unpunished: A Mystery

It started off pretty interesting but by the end I was happy to toss it to the side and start another book. ( )

Gilman, noted for her early twentieth century feminist story The Yellow Wallpaper, tries her hand at a detective novel here. In the excellent afterward by Catherine Golden and Denise Knight, they state that Gilman wanted to make money and hoped a genre novel might reach a larger audience than her shrinking readership. Unfortunately, she could not get it published in her lifetime nor could her daughter after Gilman's death in 1935. It was finally published by The Feminist Press in 1997. I can understand why the book did not appeal to publishers of pop fiction in the 1930's. Yes, it is a detective story, and not a bad one at that, but there is quite a bit more going on in the novel. Gilman could not leave out her feminist beliefs and readers who enjoyed either cozies or pulps might not respond well to some of the darkner aspects of the novel.

Unpunished starts out almost tongue-in-cheek. Wade Vaughn, a lawyer, has been found murdered. He has been poisoned, stabbed, bludgeoned, garrotted, and shot. That's right. And much fun is had with the question, "Can you murder a dead man?" Enter husband and wife detective team Bessie and Jack Hunt who are retained by the family to..... well, it isn't quite clear. It is a device to introduce two charming and witty young investigators along the lines of Nick and Nora Charles and Mr and Mrs North, with a dash of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. The Hunt's look for clues and there are many; disappearing servants, open windows, planted evidence, secret panels and hidden voice amplifiers. The usual characters and suspects appear. The unhappy family consisting of a crippled and disfigured sister-in-law, a beautiful young step-daughter, and a charming nephew. There is the faithful doctor and the noisy old lady with binoculars, plus a bad private eye to balance the good private eye. There is hardboiled talk of "the chair" and blackmail, as well as escapes to Rio, and banter about muffins.

It seems a dog from every village....an amusing cozy with real pulp elements. If Gilman had kept it as this, I am sure it would have been printed and achieved moderate success. But right in the middle of this not very original novel, she adds a forty page journal which makes it unique and probably unpublishable.

This journal, kept by Vaughn's sister-in-law "Jack", reveals the doings of the household. Wade Vaughn, far from being an upright attorney, is a blackmailer, a sadist, and rapist. Jack lives in a room where she discovers that the speaking tube to the kitchen, dining room and Vaughn's study can be turned into an amplifier. Here she listens as he extorts money from his hapless victims. The good doctor has committed a mercy killing that could sent him '"to the chair." Likewise, many of his former clients could be sent to prison or "to the chair" because he has evidence to prove their guilt. Jack cannot listen to the interviews with his female clients because of what he makes them do.

And most damning, is what Vaughn has done to the little family. Jack and her sister Iris are both widowed in the same car crash that put Jack in a wheelchair. Within two weeks of the accident, Vaughn marries Iris whom he has wanted since she was 17. Concussed and out of her mind with grief, she did not know what she was doing. When Jack comes out of the hospital, she finds her sister no more than a shell who drifts in and out of reality. Vaughn makes Jack the unpaid housekeeper so that she can be with her sister and provide a home for her little son. For two years, Vaughn rapes Iris who finally escapes by killing herself. Any hint of disobedience from Jack or the children and the family would be put out on the streets. When Jack starts the journal it is for a record of what goes on in the house, but also a place she can express the feelings she can never show.

The journal is too realistic for a 1930's detective novel. Audiences who wanted to read about funny corpses and locked room mysteries and witty sleuths, or even mean streets, did not want to read about raped wives and psychologically abused children in their escapist fiction. Unpunished had to wait decades to find its audience.

As a detective novel this is an average book. As a feminist novel about how the lack of education, money, and employment opportunites coupled with an all-powerful patriarch can destroy a woman it is a serious book.

I recommend this book, not for the puzzles solved, but for the problems revealed. ( )