A Book Review of The Keys to the Street, by Ruth Rendell.
Ruth Rendell's archetypal character, "The Demon Lover" is the main character in this novel, as far as I'm concerned. Rendell's version of a 'demon lover' is always a charming fraud, with aspirations of wealth and status, who leverages personal beauty and a slick superficial charm to seduce his targets and get whatever he needs. He is always in his late 20s, generally blue-eyed, personable, desperate, and living on so many lies he's layered like an onion: there's no 'there' there. In The Keys to the Street, you don't even learn his name (or really who he is) until near the end of the novel.
"The Keys to the Street" is a British expression referring to when your family or significant other breaks up with you and sends you away. The novel has five interconnected stories, all of who define someone outside of a safe home near Regent's Park, London: Hob, a drug addict/thug living in a boarded-up apartment with mice; Mary, a woman leaving an abusive relationship and house-sitting for a vacationing elderly couple; Bean, a butler/dogwalker who inherited his flat from a masochist brutally beaten to death by one of his paramours; Roman, a man who lost his family in a horrific accident and is living among the homeless; and Leo, a man suffering from leukemia and his brother Carl, desperate to find a way to keep him alive. None of these people has a home to go to. But there are over a hundred characters in this novel, and intersecting plots and subplots are myriad and compelling.
The complexity and pathos of the book gets me. So many characters, so much intertwining of plot and surprising twists. This is one of my favorite Rendell novels, rich and I find worth visiting again and again.
Ruth Rendell's archetypal character, "The Demon Lover" is the main character in this novel, as far as I'm concerned. Rendell's version of a 'demon lover' is always a charming fraud, with aspirations of wealth and status, who leverages personal beauty and a slick superficial charm to seduce his targets and get whatever he needs. He is always in his late 20s, generally blue-eyed, personable, desperate, and living on so many lies he's layered like an onion: there's no 'there' there. In The Keys to the Street, you don't even learn his name (or really who he is) until near the end of the novel.
"The Keys to the Street" is a British expression referring to when your family or significant other breaks up with you and sends you away. The novel has five interconnected stories, all of who define someone outside of a safe home near Regent's Park, London: Hob, a drug addict/thug living in a boarded-up apartment with mice; Mary, a woman leaving an abusive relationship and house-sitting for a vacationing elderly couple; Bean, a butler/dogwalker who inherited his flat from a masochist brutally beaten to death by one of his paramours; Roman, a man who lost his family in a horrific accident and is living among the homeless; and Leo, a man suffering from leukemia and his brother Carl, desperate to find a way to keep him alive. None of these people has a home to go to. But there are over a hundred characters in this novel, and intersecting plots and subplots are myriad and compelling.
The complexity and pathos of the book gets me. So many characters, so much intertwining of plot and surprising twists. This is one of my favorite Rendell novels, rich and I find worth visiting again and again.