This is both the perfect and worst possible book to read when you have young children. First published in 1959, this is Celia Fremlin's debut novel and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1960. With the arresting opening line, 'I'd give anything - anything - for a night's sleep', we are plunged into the high-pressure world of Louise Henderson. Her girls are running riot, her husband Mark is constantly cross and annoyed over the state of the house and the baby just will not stop crying. Into the chaos steps Miss Brandon, the new lodger. She is tidy and appears well-to-do and shares Mark's interest in the classics. Is there something strange about her or is it the sleep-deprivation playing tricks with Louise's mind? Perhaps unwisely, I galloped through this book on my Kindle during the long stretches of time I spend on a rocking chair trying to persuade my own baby to go to sleep so I accidentally had a highly immersive reading experience. A lost classic and a vintage pieces of domestic noir, The Hours Before Dawn is an electrifying read and as relevant today as it was on publication.

Nothing prepares new parents for the shock of broken nights. I remember the early months with my first child, wondering was I seriously expected to just function when I was being woken up five or six times a night? Was there really nobody to step in and help? Clusters of first-time mothers used to gather at baby groups and compare notes, all of us hoping obsessively for some sign of improvement. I remember the collective relief when someone dared to search engine whether you really can die from lack of sleep and the answer was you will not. The world is a different place when you have not slept. The light feels different. Your body feels heavier. You live on a knife edge, the plates ready to tumble at the slightest nudge. Fremlin's prose captures perfectly the panicked claustrophobia of the sleep deprived mother in a way that I have never before encountered in fiction.

As a piece of social history, I found The Hours Before Dawn utterly fascinating. The book opens with Louise at the Baby clinic, taking Michael to be checked and weighed. Nurse Fordham is 'patient' in a professional capacity with Louise finding 'the patience in that bright smile like the sting of an April wind'. She cannot possibly explain to her what Michael's sleep is doing to the family. The only advice on offer is not to worry. It may have been written sixty-odd years ago, but it could be a scene straight out of the health visitor clinics from my own son's first year. Louise's ghastly 'friend' Mrs Hooper was another highly recognisable 'type' from mother's groups, the 'rebel' who makes a great show of just how little care they take of their children. She's not a regular mum, she's a 'cool mum'. It's all well and good but the judgments they leave in their wake can be a trifle tedious.

But then there were other aspects which really made me feel like the past was a different country and they do things differently there. Louise is speaking to another mother who mentions that she and her husband go for a walk every evening once the baby is settled. As in, they go for a walk outside and leave the baby at home. I read that sentence and had to pause and think for a moment. I have spent hours and more likely days of my life marooned at home with errands that need to be done outside the house because one or other of my children are sleeping and I would never leave them alone. Louise boards a rollercoaster with her daughters and leaves her son in his pushchair, not entirely happy about it but counting on the glimpse she will be able to catch of him as the ride whizzes past. This is an entirely different era of child supervision.

Even more alarming though is the detachment of Louise's husband. There is rising tension between husband and wife over Michael's sleeping patterns. Mark demands that Louise must improve the situation, to do better. Living in cramped quarters, Louise's best solution is to take Michael downstairs in the small hours of the night and sit with him in the scullery until dawn. It was striking how useless Mark was around the house. Having discovered that Louise is sleeping - or rather not sleeping - downstairs, his idea of helpfulness was to let her sleep an extra hour in the morning and graciously fix his own breakfast. But of course, he left their daughters to read comics in bed so Louise has a nightmarish morning with two hungry girls who resent being rushed into their school clothes. Another evening he decides that a particularly shattered Louise would benefit from going out for the evening. Again, Louise is left to work out how on earth she can rearrange her domestic tasks, source childcare and throw together a speedy tea. In and among it all, Mark sighs loudly and speaks wistfully of back before they were married when Louise used to whip up delicious snacks when he visited her flat. People may argue against feminism and certainly there are men who still behave in this manner but they are at least roundly mocked by those who know better. I find it hard to comprehend the idea of a partner who so thoroughly abdicates all domestic responsibilities.

Amidst this disharmony on the homestead enters Miss Brandon. The family need the revenue from a lodger but the situation fails to gel from the beginning. I found it quite ingenious how Fremlin played on the suspicion of whether there really was something amiss or if it was simply Louise's insecurities. Miss Brandon is a professional woman, an experienced teacher. Where Louise is fraying round the edges and her life is consumed by her children, Miss Brandon is tidily put together and has seen the world. Is this the classic conflict between the spinster and the housewife or is something more sinister at work? There are some beautiful moments caught, such as when Miss Brandon walks in on Louise breastfeeding and the latter becomes instantly embarrassed, 'Louise stopped, uneasily conscious that she was beginning to run on about her children in just the kind of way that up-to-date mothers must be so careful to avoid. To talk shop if you are a mother is not socially permissible as it is if you are a typist or a bus conductor'. I have known that same flicker of embarrassment when I catch myself talking about my children to child-free colleagues. You never want to see like the woman whose life revolves around one's offspring. It was fascinating to see that reflex at work even sixty years ago.

The characterisation in this novel is pitch perfect. Louise's children are incredibly well drawn - demanding and loving all at once. During their late morning dash to school, a stressed Louise grows angry with her slow coach child who then clings to her at the school gate 'as if not realising that her mother is the author of her distress'. Then there is Louise's mother-in-law, ever quick to beat a hasty retreat when there is the possibility that she might be asked to help with the children. And the chorus of neighbours all of whom are ready to watch and comment on Louise's

Through the gloomy hours of the night, Louise frets and worries and tries to hide from the world that she is unravelling. The whole world can see that Mrs Henderson is not coping. There are moments of high terror when the baby is mislaid - I had to set down the book. I had become thoroughly bored of psychological thrillers which all turn out to be different versions of Gone Girl but this vintage piece shines in the darkness and shook me to my core. It is startling how Fremlin captures the sleep-deprived mother in a way that I have never encountered in contemporary fiction. Of course, Fremlin is writing from bitter personal experience; her own second child was not a sleeper and according to the introduction, it dawned on her that this was a 'major human experience' which nobody had written about and she felt that a 'serious novel should be written with this experience at its centre' and so she decided to do it herself.

New mothers are constantly reminded that we are not alone in feeling tired, that we have all been through it, all babies sleep through the night eventually. But it is a lonely experience. And somehow the hours before dawn do always seem to fall to the women. In and among the rising creepiness, Fremlin grants a voice to some very important maternal musings. Realising that she has forgotten various of her own preferences in favour of those of Mark and the children, Louise wonders, 'If you went on neglecting your own tastes like this, did you, in the end, cease to have any tastes? Cease, in fact, to be a person at all, and become merely a labour-saving gadget around the house?' The Hours Before Dawn is about far more than the conundrum of the lady upstairs but rather about how to maintain one's sanity in the maelstrom of motherhood. Some might see the finale as rather 'neat' but to my mind, Louise's situation has become no less complicated.

The Hours Before Dawn is a masterpiece, compact and compelling. My own phase of parental sleep deprivation drove me to the limits of my personal endurance and I feel strangely grateful to Fremlin for chronicling the experience so eloquently. Whether you read it as domestic noir or indirect maternal memoir, Fremlin's prose is precise and pithy and packed with dry wit. I am crossing fingers that I can unearth more of her back catalogue; with her quietly radical descriptions of suburban suspense dramas, she seems like an author ripe for rediscovery. Highly recommended.

This book was an unexpected delight. I’d never heard of the book or the author, but I gave it a go, and I’m glad I did. It was claustrophobic and stifling and tense, while also being quite slow-paced and immersive. Not much happens plot-wise, but it does examine new motherhood and the weight of domesticity really well. Also the prose is beautiful. I’d love to read more Celia Fremlin novels.

Also, is it just me or (SPOILER) does the ending suggest that the narrator believes that her baby actually isn’t hers at all? This is a much darker and more interesting ending to me, so I hope I’m not just imagining it.

This is a great read. I enjoyed the suspense and rising horror and suspicion. It is expertly plotted and the ending satisfyingly believable. It is of its time but this does not detract but adds to its merits. A brilliant story. Recommended

You don't have to live in the 1950'is to experience a lot of the things this young mother is going through. I was forever thinking "Why, you too?". Other mothers with "opinions", lack of sleep, and sometimes you are so tired you don't know what's what, boy could I relate to that. Thankfully the creepy crime creeping in was all in the book.
Wonderful read, sometimes depressing, sometimes funny, and sometimes chilling.

Originally published in 1958 this book has recently been reprinted by Faber & Faber. It is an unsettling, creepy and sinister story told by a narrator who is physically and emotionally exhausted trying to look after her young family and (incredibly useless) husband, and who meanwhile suspects that their new lodger is not all she appears to be.

Parts of this novel are very 'of its time' - husband goes out to work, expects wife to cook, clean, mend and iron clothes, take care of the children - he really is totally useless! But aside from this, I found the whole thing quite gripping and enjoyable.

Astounding psychological insight, and. creepiness: I could hardly hold back looking at the end: having experienced motherhood, much (too much) rang true. What a treasure to have found!

I couldn't put this down. I got lost in it! I wish books today could be more like this!

Originally written in 1958, this was Celia Fremlin's debut novel, winning the Edgar award for Best novel in 1960. She then went on to have a successful and interesting career and indeed life. This is the first book I have read by her. Indeed, to my shame, I had never heard of her prior to this book. This is something however, I am quite eager to remedy in the future.
This book follows main character Louise who is trying to juggle domesticity with three small children. Sleep deprived and getting little help from anyone, she struggles with the day to day chores and her grasp on reality is slowly slipping away from her. When the family takes in a lodger, at the same time as things start to spiral out of control for Louise, she can't help but speculate whether the lodger is playing a bigger roll in her downfall. Several things happen to make her query her own sanity and, with others dismissive of her fears, takes it upon herself to find out what is really going on.
I have read quite a few crime novels set in this era and I have found the majority to be timeless in their readability. This novel was no different and it was refreshingly easy to slip back in time and follow events from that era.
I found the relationship between husband and wife to be well presented. In those days, the wife's job was homemaker and mother and the husband didn't contribute to the household apart from as provider. Louise's descriptions of her daily life, in the days without time-saving gadgets was an eye opener for me. Scrubbing floors to a weekly timetable, preparing meals to the second the husband requires, especially when he pops home to see her at mid day because he thinks she need some support when all the while he is just causing her more grief having to cater for another!
The book is quite creepy in nature too. But subtly rather than the more in-your-face way that books seem to be written these days. Its a slow burner that chips away at Louise's sanity every so often having her question the next strange thing. It's also refreshing and quite eye-opening to see the aftermath of what happened. How the British stiff upper lip shone through and the way that people simply just got on with things in those days, mostly over a nice cup of tea.

A housewife with several children, a useless husband, and a mysterious lodger tries to see if her fear have any foundation of if she's just going insane due to a lack of sleep.

The basic plot beats of this have been re-used time and time again in films and novels after its publication, but the plot is still engaging and fresh because it just feels original, not watered down. But for me this is all negated by the cumbersome, plodding pace of the novel. The writing really easily evokes the ungodly repetivite hellish routine that was a housewife's life in the old days. Every character except for the main one seems like an annoying obstacle in her way, designed by fate to demolish every shred of dignity. Her husband is a doofus, her kids are just vessels, carrying loud sounds, dirt, and sheer unbearable stupidity. It's no wonder that she's afraid of going mad, I know I did.
From the very first chapter, the barrage of awfulness that this poor woman is subjected to made me feel just straight up uncomfortable. And yes, that's the point, that's what it was written for. But it worked just way too well and I found myself trying to finish each chapter as fast as possible not to find out the ending but to get away from this despicable atmosphere.

In short, if you aren't averse to reading about unbearable assholes, this is a fine book in all other regards. It's just really, really full of assholes. Good god.

Here is a review by Jennifer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2008805400

Stunning. The original of the species, I absolutely loved it and will seek out more of the author's work

My favourite book of the year so far. I loved it. The plot is simple, there are no real twists to distract you (at least not in the way we've become accustomed to) and the quality of the writing is outstanding.

Louise Henderson is a young mother. She has two daughters of six and four and a baby of a few months old. This baby, Michael, will not sleep and Louise is suffering from intense sleep deprivation. Her life is a monotony of chores left undone, fending off neighbours who complain about the noise her children make and dealing with the ghastly Mrs Hooper who seems to think that Louise is there to be condescended to. The family take in a lodger, Miss Brandon who Louise doesn't like. She catches her lying and soon becomes suspicious of her. But what is she up to? Is she after Louise's husband or is it something more sinister. As Louise gets less and less sleep her tension rises and unfortunately she has no one to turn to.

A simple plot and yet this book is unforgettable because of the characterisation and the attention to detail. Mrs Hooper is the embodiment of every young mother's nemesis. A know it all who makes grand pronouncements about child rearing while allowing her children to run wild and off loading them at every opportunity. The nurse at the mother and baby clinic who doesn't listen to Louise's concerns properly but deals with them in a peremptory manner. The next door neighbour who instead of offering to help a woman who is clearly struggling instead spends all her time complaining. Mark, Louise' s husband who is a product of his time, sees childcare as a woman's job and blames Louise for this unwanted (by him) third child. And Louise herself who stumbles around trying to cope, fearful and downtrodden. They are all memorable.

But it is the writing that really drew me in. It reminded me both of Katherine Mansfield in the way it moved seamlessly from what was happening externally to Louise's internal monologue and of Irene Nemirovsky in the attention to detail. The observations of motherhood at that time (late fifties) are astute and acerbic.

Highly recommended.

Excellent book. Great main characters and plot. I would recommend this book.

Oh, has there ever been another book more appropriate to my life? Louise is a mother whose baby does not sleep. He has her up at all hours of the night and she is exhausted and delirious. The descriptions of how she felt were like reading about my own life. Rushing to get the crying baby at 2 a.m. and feeding, rocking, bouncing for ages only to have him wake as soon as she put him back in the crib. I have to say it somehow made me feel a little less hopeless knowing that a fictional woman 60 years ago went through the same thing as I am going through now. Unfortunately for Louise, she also had an unsupportive husband, 2 other children, and a new lodger who makes Louise nervous and uneasy. The story really revolves around Louise's lack of sleep and disconnection on top of some mystery surrounding the woman boarding with them. The story itself wasn't anything spectacular, but I did enjoy it both for its relevance to my own life as well as seeing how different things were in other ways in the 1950s. Louise would leave the baby home alone while she ran her daughters to school or leave him sitting in the pram in the garden while she did housework. The husband was awful, always yelling at Louise, "Can't you make the baby stop crying?" "We never should have had the brat!" "Can't you make them stop banging the door?" It was her responsibility to control the children, I guess, while also making sure to have his food prepared on time, have the house cleaned, and not let the baby's crying disturb him. While I felt a sort of bond with Louise over the sleep issues and I was interested in some of the cultural differences of the time period, the story itself was just okay.

The Hours Before Dawn is a gripping psychological mystery originally published in 1958. This new edition of the book termed a “lost classic” is a fantastic chance to read a simple yet tense story about a woman who just wishes her baby would stop crying in the night so she could sleep. Louise is exhausted and this does not help her growing suspicions about their new lodger—suspicions that her husband does not share—or her ability to perform the role of a perfect Fifties housewife.

The mystery element of the novel follows the trope of a woman battling her own issues (in this case sleep deprivation and the pressures of being a woman, wife, and mother) whilst trying to prove that she is not becoming paranoid as a result of them. Though it was written fifty years ago, the book has a timeless kind of feel, without many time-specific details and with a general sense of the universality of a woman not being believed and struggling to deal with societal and familial pressures. In some ways, however, the novel says a lot about a woman’s position in the 1950s in particular, with comments about how different mothers view advice on raising their children for example, but it also shows that many elements do not change. Louise’s struggle to keep her house and children in order to stop the neighbours asking questions could have been written in the modern day.

This new edition has a preface talking about the reissue and a useful biographical note about Celia Fremlin that give context to the book. However, it does not need context, as it is a sharp-witted and timeless psychological story about crime, paranoia, and sleeplessness, which deserves to be discovered by new generations of readers.