Paris is making us experience something of what Grace is going through. One never gets lost in these time shifts, thanks to the chapter labelling, but one is often confused. Sometimes an event occurs in the “present” which leaves us puzzled, but it is explained in one of the next “Past” chapters. The chapters alternate between Present and Past. When Esther, one of the guests, seems aloof and suspicious – perhaps of her hosts’ perfection – Grace thinks, “If I were Esther I’d be wary of me too.” The discordant notes make us wonder if Grace is a “madwoman in the attic” trying hard to prove her normality by hosting the party. Doesn’t she go out in the garden? Then, while preparing a dish in the kitchen, Grace feels nervous that she won’t be able to “pull everything off”, but reminds herself that “fear is my enemy.” Later we learn that the house has a complicated alarm system and steel shutters that “are often kept shut during the day.”

Of the lily she received as a hostess gift, Grace hopes that Jack will plant it in the garden where she can see it from her bedroom window. Throughout the first chapter, however, there are hints that all is not well. This information is presented smoothly as dinner party conversation with the guests, who are convinced that the couple’s life together is perfect: “There were so many ‘perfects’ ringing round the hall as Jack close the door behind them that I know I’ve triumphed,” says Grace to herself. A lawyer who specializes in defending battered wives, Jack promised Grace her dream home to share with Millie, and convinced her to give up her job with Harrods to be a full-time homemaker. Delighted at his kindness, Grace was soon swept off her feet by the future Jack offered her. When Millie got up and started to dance, a “perfect gentleman” rose, held out his hand to her, and waltzed with her.

Grace was there with her seventeen year old sister, Millie, who has Down’s Syndrome. In their thirties, recently married, Jack and Grace met at a band concert in London’s Regent’s Park. Paris’s novel opens with a dinner party hosted by Grace and Jack Angel for two other couples. Behind Closed Doors is a psychological thriller in the tradition of Emma Donoghue’s Room and John Fowles’ The Collector, though the plot is quite different.

Behind closed doors by ba paris