For better or worse most of us have childhood memories. Sometimes those memories come into stronger focus as we mature, so that we have a clearer picture of what we really remember. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. After all children can’t always accurately interpret what they experience, and they don’t always have “the big picture” the way adults do. But it’s surprising how often their memories can be trusted. And that’s what makes childhood memories such an interesting topic in crime fiction. How reliable are they? How do they motivate the adult who has those memories? They’re fascinating questions and a quick look at crime fiction shows us how effective they can be as plot tools.
Agatha Christie addresses this topic in more than one of her stories; I’ll just mention one. In Sleeping Murder, newlyweds Gwenda and Giles Reed are looking for a house. Gwenda soon finds one in Dilmouth to which she is oddly drawn. She and Giles take possession and at first all goes well enough. Then Gwenda begins to have an unsettling sense of déjà vu about the house although she doesn’t remember ever living there. What’s worse, she has visions of a dead woman lying in the house’s main hallway. She begins to seriously question her mental health and willingly accepts an invitation from her cousin Raymond West and his family to take a break from her life and visit them. Gwenda is also distantly related to West’s aunt Jane Marple, and tells Miss Marple her story. At first Miss Marple suggests that Gwenda should “let sleeping murders lie.” But after Gwenda has a bizarre reaction to a theatre performance one night, Miss Marple comes to believe that something terrible must have happened in the Reeds’ home. So she and Gwenda investigate. It turns out that Gwenda actually did live in the house when she was a little child and witnessed the murder of the woman she keeps seeing in her visions. Her childhood memories were more accurate than anyone wanted to believe. Miss Marple helps her find out who the woman was and who killed her.
Childhood memories also play a role in Camilla Läckberg’s The Ice Princess. Biographer (later crime writer) Erica Falck returns to her home in Fjällbacka after the death of her parents. She’s settling in and beginning to clear out her parents’ things when a neighbour discovers the body of Falck’s former friend Alexandra “Alex” Wijkner. Falck is saddened and shocked and immediately notifies the police. She and Alex were the closest of friends when they were girls but Alex ended the friendship twenty-five years ago and Falck has never really known why. She decides to write a biography of Alex Wijkner both as a way to memorialise her and deal with the grief and as a way to get to know the woman her friend became. In the course of asking her questions Falck discovers that she really didn’t know her friend as well as she had thought. There were things going on in Alex’s life that she never told anyone and it’s those secrets that led to her death. We learn in this novel that Falck’s childhood memories lack some substance because there were some dark secrets that she only finds out as she investigates her former friend’s murder.
There’s also the case of unreliable childhood memories in Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything. This story is told from the viewpoint of Lizzie Hood, who takes readers back to when she was thirteen. At that time, Lizzie is best friends with her next-door-neighbour Evie Verver. They share everything and tell each other everything. Then one terrible afternoon, Evie doesn’t come home from school. As the evening drags on her family gets more and more concerned and that night they ask for Lizzie’s help. After all, Evie tells Lizzie everything and may have given her some clue. Lizzie doesn’t remember much about the day but she is desperate to find out what happened to her best friend, so she begins to do some of her own searching for answers. As she slowly uncovers bits and pieces of Evie’s life Lizzie realises that her memories and assumptions about Evie may not be accurate at all.
Paddy Richardson‘s Hunting Blind and Traces of Red both include the powerful effect of childhood memories. In Hunting Blind fledgling psychiatrist Stephanie Anderson relives a terrible memory when she begins to work with a client Elizabeth Clark. Clark has serious emotional scars that stem from the abduction years earlier of her little sister Gracie. Seventeen years before meeting Clark, Anderson’s own four-year-old sister Gemma was abducted and never found. The eerie similarities between the two cases prompt Anderson to try to lay her own ghosts to rest and find out who abducted her sister and Gracie Clark. To do that she relies partly on her own memory of the day but her memory isn’t complete. She was only fourteen when Gemma disappeared and there were things about the case that she didn’t understand. As Anderson slowly follows the trail of the person who was responsible, little pieces of the past slowly start making sense and we can see how her memories have played a role in her life – and in the solution of the mystery. In Traces of Red, television journalist Rebecca Thorne decides to pursue what she hopes will be the story that will make her career. Connor Bligh is in prison for the murders of his sister Angela Dickson, her husband Rowan and their son Sam. Only their daughter Katy, then thirteen, survived. Little hints have arisen that suggest that Bligh may not be guilty and Thorne wants to look into the case. The more she investigates, the more personally interested Thorne gets in this story and that means she can’t be as objective as she tells herself she can be. Is Connor Bligh guilty? The real solution to the mystery hinges on the reliability of everyone’s memory including that of Katy Dickson. In fact the accuracy of her memory plays an important role in the novel.
And then there’s Sylvie Granotier’s The Paris Lawyer. Catherine Monsigny is a young Paris attorney who’s just beginning to try to build her reputation. She’s excited to get a case that may very well be a breakthrough for her. Myriam Villetreix has been arrested for the poisoning murder of her much-older husband Gaston. She claims that she is innocent and that her husband’s family has set her up. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence though that suggests that Myriam is the murderer. Monsigny hopes that if she can get an acquittal in the Villetreix case, she’ll burnish her reputation and start to make her name, so she travels to Guéret to begin work on the case. What she doesn’t know at first is that Guéret is not far from where a tragic event happened in her own life. When Monsigny was three years old, her mother Violet was murdered. Catherine was there but she only has a few memories of that awful day. They’ve always haunted her though and she wants to know who killed her mother and why. Little by little, as she works the case of Myriam Villetreix, Monsigny also starts to ask questions about her mother’s death. In the end, the pieces she’s always had in her own memory begin to fit with what she learns as an adult and we discover the truth about Violet Monsigny’s death.
Childhood memories can be striking in their accuracy while at the same time hazy and unreliable. That’s what makes them such fascinating plot points for crime fiction novels. Which are your favourites that use this element?
*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Bruce Springsteen’s The River.
Another great, inventive topic for a blog post. I remember Tokyo by Mo Hayder, in which the main character was haunted and driven by her childhood and one event in particular. Very powerful. Childhood secrets carried through to adulthood are also a strong theme in Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.
Maxine – Thank you for the kind words
– and the suggestions of both Tokyo and Sharp Objects. I’ll confess I’ve not read the former yet but most definitely the latter includes this theme. Thanks for repairing the gap I left. Interestingly enough, Flynn’s Gone Girl is the subject of Mr. COAMN…‘s book discussion club this coming month. It’ll be one of the few authors we both read. 
I love it when childhood memories and the past come back to haunt a character, as long as it’s not been overdone. For me it’s difficult when each cop or detective has something so tragic in their past. Has anyone just become a cop to help people? However, if it is done nicely, it can be an exciting addition to a series.
Clarissa – You make a very well-taken point that the horrible-childhood-memory plot point can be overdone. As you say, there really are cops who get into the business because they want to be cops. But childhood memories can add a layer of suspense to a series too.
Margot: I am skeptical when I read a book that relies on childhood memories being accurate of an alleged crime. In real life I have been involved in cases, especially with “recovered memories”, where the memories were false and there was no crime. I do not know what happens to the adult with a strong, though false, memory when it is proven inaccurate and the adult has been praised and supported by our social services system. It is a raw point with me how quickly government “systems” are to accept accusations as true.
Bill – You bring up one of the real sticking points about childhood memories: how accurate are they? As you’ve found out in your practice they aren’t always true. Or they may have some elements of truth but the events didn’t play out as the person remembers that they did. In those cases there may be as you say people who are wrongly accused of a crime. That doubt, and the very good possibility that a childhood memory could be wrong, can add a solid layer of suspense to a crime novel. But in real life we really can’t assume that all childhood memories are accurate.
It’s funny but this week I had the experience of an inaccurate childhood memory. My Welsh parents when they were visiting relatives in West Wales used to stop at the side of the road and look at a memorial to a coach and horses that plunged down an embankment killing all on board. What I distinctly remember is that a honeymooning couple were killed in the accident and my mum saying how sad that was.
I saw a picture of the memorial this week, known as ‘Coachman’s Cautionary’. No honeymooning couple were killed! No idea where I got that from. And the driver was drunk and I don’t remember that bit of the story either. Here’s a bit about if you’re interested.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMAZBR_Post_Cart_Memorial_A40_Llandovey_Ceredigion_Wales_UK
Sarah – What an interesting story not just about memories but about the memorial. It’s such a fascinating example of how memories can have a core of some accuracy but at the same time be inaccurate. I wonder too about your memory of the honeymooning couple part of that story; it’d be interesting to find out how that fits in. Folks, do check out Sarah’s link, too; it’s worth the read.
I’m not very comfortable with childhood memories being taken seriously unless it involves something so tragic that it can’t be forgotten. My own memories have turned out frequently to be part true but part wishful thinking or something created by stories my mother told me that I don’t even trust them. I think memories often come in short lightning bolts or may be prompted by a photo or a painting. In other words, a book using childhood memories must be extremely well written for me to enjoy it.
Barbara – You’ve put quite well why childhood memories are at the same time both fascinating (and sometimes quite accurate) and unreliable. As you say, that can make them interesting in a story but not always effective as the main source of credible information in a novel unless they’re done very well.
Thank you for talking about The Paris Lawyer, by Sylvie Granotier. I translated the novel into English and found it very moving personally. I lost my mother when I was young, and found that Sylvie very accurately portrayed what goes on in the head of a young woman making her way in the world after having lost her mother, the memories you make up or cherish or hate, and how you really have to go back in order to move on.
Anne – Thanks for your visit. I am truly sorry that you lost your mother – what a blow. I did feel a real sense of authenticity about Catherine’s reaction to the memories she has, and her compulsion to make sense of them. Without giving away spoilers to the novel it really does all make sense. It was a pleasure to mention The Paris Lawyer.
Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River comes to mind, although it’s not so much about the impact of faulty memories on an investigation, but the impact of horrible childhood events on lives and relationships. Either way, it’s a powerful novel.
Pat – Oh, thanks for mentioning Mystic River. As you say, it’s a really powerful look at the way that childhood trauma affects people.