BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE

A gothic novelist becomes the heroine of the most harrowing romance: her own.

Filmmaker Biller’s debut novel is a feminist update of a classic gothic novel. The protagonist, Judith Moore, is a 26-year-old English virgin, a successful author, and a deeply religious and romantic woman. When she meets Gavin Garnet, the son of a baron, she literally swoons. Almost instantly, she finds herself under his spell and submitting to him in ways she never has to a man before. During their whirlwind affair, she tells him about her childhood, which was full of money but not love, and how she has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful sister. Judith shares her entire life with him—her secrets, desires, values—but Gavin doesn't reciprocate: “[A] wall went up in his eyes when she asked him certain questions, like a drawbridge rising up over the moat of a stone castle, barricading it beyond reach.” When the two marry and move into a remote castle, Judith begins to see cracks in the facade of her husband and their marriage—and she struggles to trust him, but more importantly she struggles to trust herself. Though she's a gothic novelist, Judith writes off (deliberately or not) all the red flags she sees: the insults, anger, gaslighting, secrecy, and lies. Biller makes good use of narrative tropes and comparisons to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and the French fairytale "Bluebeard," about a wealthy man who murders his wives. Though the story is set in the present day, Biller paints a beautifully creepy atmosphere full of billowy dresses, darkened woods, burning candles, and castle corridors full of ghosts and secrets. The novel's timeless quality helps drive home the unending nature of male violence against women. Judith's endless gaslighting and torture make the novel feel oppressive and exhausting at times, but Biller’s use of dark humor, melodrama, and exaggerated archetypes help temper the tone.

A campy, gothic debut that shines a light on all the ways men can hurt women.