In Virginia Feito’s debut novel Mrs March, a food establishment – the eponymous protagonist’s ‘favorite patisserie – a lovely little place with a red awning and a whitewashed bench in front’ – is the site of a humiliating episode that precipitates a nightmareish journey into paranoia.
Published in 2021, Mrs March is a dark and unsettling thriller of suspicion and paranoia which keeps the reader on tenterhooks throughout and forces them to question what is real and what is imagined.
Mrs March – who is never given a first name – is the second wife of a successful New York novelist, George March, many years her senior (he was her professor when she was at university). The book opens with Mrs March out shopping for provisions for a party to celebrate the publication of her husband’s new novel, one that is ‘already creeping its way onto all the bookseller and book club lists’.
She calls in at her favourite patisserie to buy her usual – ‘”black olive bread”’ – and some additional purchases. Gathering together the items, the shop manager, Patricia, tells Mrs March that she is reading George’s novel and loving it: ‘”I bought it two days ago and I’m almost finished. Can’t put it down. It’s great! Truly great.”’
Mrs March utters some platitudes, but is not prepared for what Patricia says next: ‘”…isn’t this the first time he’s based a character on you?”’
Taken aback – ‘struck by a sliver of pain in her chest’ – Mrs March asks Patricia to explain what she means, and Patricia replies: ‘”I mean… the main character… you’re both so alike, I just thought – well, I picture you when I read it…”’
Mrs March’s horrified reaction is then explained to the reader by her next comment – ‘”But … the main character, it – isn’t she… a whore?… A whore no one wants to sleep with?”’ Patricia’s laughing rejoinder, ‘”Well, sure, but that’s part of her charm”’ does nothing to ease Mrs March’s horror and she walks out of the patisserie, leaving the baked goods she was planning to purchase on the counter and vowing to never return.
Not only is Mrs March offended by Patricia – and potentially other readers’ – assumptions that the novel’s protagonist, who is additionally ‘”ugly and stupid“’ is based on her, but she then begins to suspect that this characterisation was a deliberate move by her husband to insult and belittle her. Her suspicion grows, with Mrs March becoming increasingly insecure and paranoid, culminating in her belief that George is behind the disappearance and murder of a young woman.
With the novel being narrated from Mrs March’s perspective, the reader is caught up in this uncertainty and paranoia, and is repeatedly forced to reappraise what they think and what they believe.
As well as being a novel of twists and turns, Mrs March is self-consciously literary, echoing the works of Virginia Woolf and Daphne du Maurier amongst others. The opening pages in which Mrs March shops for provisions for a party has parallels with Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. And in addition to the general paranoia and suspense of the novel, the influence of du Maurier’s Rebecca is seen in the fact that the second Mrs March – like the second Mrs de Winter – is never given a first name; in the parallels between the two husbands; and in the uneasy relationship Mrs March has with her housekeeper Martha, echoing du Maurier’s Mrs Danvers. And in case the reader has missed the link, Feito has Mrs March read Rebecca, placing a ‘hardcover copy … on the nightstand.’
So back to the patisserie, where the paranoia begins. The black olive bread – which Mrs March buys and then leaves on the counter – is a symbol of familiarity and routine for her, something that she buys every day. Later in the novel, barricaded in the apartment over Christmas as a result of blizzards, Mrs March yearns to return ‘to her reassuring routines – to the street, to the dry cleaner’s, to buy olive bread’. Whilst the routine of going to Patricia’s patisserie is already over, as a result of the humiliation, Mrs March does find an alternative – ‘a pocket-sized place below street level, cramped between a laundromat and a cheap nail salon’ which, whilst ‘nothing like Patricia’s homely, tasteful, downright magical patisserie,’ thankfully still stocks olive bread.
Black olive bread, fragrant with oregano, makes a delicious accompaniment to soup and/ or cheese, or can be eaten on its own dipped into olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
A PARANOID WOMAN’S OLIVE BREAD
Ingredients (makes 1 large loaf):
500g strong white flour
7g instant dried yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 handfuls of black olives, pitted
310ml tepid water
2 tablespoons olive oil
Method:
Place and flour and yeast in a large bowl and stir to combine before adding all the other ingredients (doing it this way means you avoid the yeast and salt coming into direct contact with one another, which could prevent the yeast working). Bring the ingredients together to form a sticky dough, and then allow to stand for about 20 minutes at room temperature (doing this will make the dough less sticky to knead).
Knead the dough for a good 10-15 minutes by hand (or 5-10 minutes if you’re using a food mixer) until it is smooth and elastic.
Place the dough in a large lightly greased bowl, cover with a tea-towel and leave to prove until the dough is doubled in size (this will take between 1 and 1 1/2 hours, depending on how warm the room is.
Knock back the risen dough – by punching it lightly – and then shape it for baking. Leave to prove again until doubled in size; this will probably take another hour.
Towards the end of the hour, preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan / Gas mark 7. Lightly dust the top of the loaf with flour and, using a sharp knife, score three slits in the top. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, and then reduce the temperature to 190C / 170C fan / Gas mark 5 and bake for another 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool before eating.
