A Stranger in my Grave

A Stranger in my Grave / Margaret Millar
NY: Soho, 2018, c1960.
354 p.

I have to parcel out Margaret Millar's books so I don't run through them too quickly! I only have a few left unread now. But this one was one I picked up recently, set in California like many of her stories, and focused on the psychological state of Daisy Harker, a young woman convinced that there was something important happening on a date that she sees on a tombstone in a dream, a tombstone with her name on it.

Daisy is a young married woman and her mother lives in a small house on their property, but is always in the house, picking at her as much as her husband does. They don't listen to her, tell her not to be hysterical, and seem to communicate more with each other than either does with Daisy. 

But this time Daisy isn't going to take it. She goes out on her own and finds a private detective to help her figure things out. Stevens Pinata is a mystery in his own right; raised as an orphan, he doesn't know his own real name or even ethnicity. He's a cipher. But he has ethics, and when Daisy asks him to help her find out what happened on Dec 2, 1955, the day that she thinks was the day of her death, he at first demurs - but then decides to help her. They spend time at the library, examining records and newspapers, which is quite a delight. But they also cause gossip, as this young white housewife is seen by older ladies walking down the street with a brown person. 

As always, Millar delves into the psychological elements of a story, the "why" that drives it. Daisy's father is a no-good drunk, who her mother had separated from years before. But Daisy still gets letters from him now and again, and this becomes part of the mystery. 

How all these characters, as well as the occupant of the real tomb, are connected, comes clearer to the reader page by page. The plot is convoluted, full of strange characters and odd behaviours and obsessions. Daisy is the linchpin to all of it, even if she doesn't know it, and her insistence on following the eerie guidance of her dream unravels it all.  

I thought it was fascinating, delving into this one woman's repressed memories as she fights against all social conditioning and the efforts of her husband and her own mother to keep her childish and innocent. Millar openly includes many issues: sexism, racism, alcoholism, even religion, and how they all twist people in different ways. This story depends heavily on the schisms around race and class, and doesn't pretty anything up. 

This was compelling reading, but a bit more complicated plotwise than some of her others I've read. There were a lot of angles going on. And the one false note for me was the unconvincing romance that becomes apparent in the last pages. But Daisy isn't going back to the way things were before, after shaking off her willful blindness through her investigations, that is one certainty that you can close this book with. It's a haunting drama with some powerful moments.