A word cloud for Celia, heroine of Unfinished Portrait: queer, mummy, darling, cruel, lovely, simply, poppet, horrid, husband, languished, posies, croquet, co-respondent, sigh, adenoid, terribly, golden syrup, jewellery, cutlet, cook, awfully.

After Woozy Worswee’s hymning of the “six romantic novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott” as her publisher’s blurb used to uninvitingly describe them, I thought I’d give Agatha Christie’s roman à clef a go. Just as I don’t buy the “because she’s a writer of bestselling crime fiction she must be a hack” analysis that proliferated among (mainly male) literary critics in the later part of the 20th century, I’m not subscribing to the “hitherto unsuspected literary masterpieces” thesis Woozy was energetically promoting in her recent Christie media Blitzkrieg. Unfinished Portrait is moderately readable, workmanlike and apparently interesting to Christie nuts who think it offers some insight into her character. Given she’s an author who specialises in legerdemain, I’d be wary of that if I were you.

Christie’s misfortune is in trying to do what others have done so much better. The craft of genre fiction - at which she is masterful - benefits from techniques such as minimal description, characterisation so far as it pushes forward the plot, repetition, and distraction of the reader. Deployed in a literary work, these only serve to highlight the author’s deficiencies of style and substance. Jean Rhys does woman on the verge of a breakdown with more depth and clarity, and Evelyn Waugh describes the coldness and absurdity of upper middle class mariages blancs more convincingly. And if you want someone being driven to destruction by a sociopathic monster, Daphne Du Maurier offers them in entertaining spades.

What we get is tepid middle class emotions expressed in the most etiolated terms. People may talk like this in real life, as one critic wrote of Christie, but that doesn’t mean one wants to read about it. The cover art is quite nice though.

My first novel by Agatha Christie that's written under her Westmacott pen name. And what a novel it is!

It takes place in First WW era England and tells the life story of a woman, from childhood to adulthood. The characters the author creates and describes are astoundingly complex and sophisticated, original yet somehow familiar. I've had my gripes about her character writing before - the shallow, throwaway characters that occupy many of her other novels - but this is next level. You can feel Christie's mastery in this, her raw talent for capturing scenes and people, and effortlessly making them come to life. If I didn't know any better, I'd think this novel almost autobiographical.

While this type of fiction is definitely not my usual fare, I thoroughly enjoyed this. The Queen of Crime is full of surprises after all.

I knew going in that this book was a biographical sketch of Agatha Christie’s life, just as it says in a quote by Agatha’s second husband Max on the back of my book: “In Celia we have more nearly than anywhere else a portrait of Agatha.” And having read both Agatha’s autobiography and the Worsley biography, and knowing what happened in her life, I was prepared to have my heart broken, because let’s face it, Agatha’s first husband did her dirty. And this book did tug on my emotions because I knew that I was getting a glimpse into her most private feelings.

In her autobiography, Agatha glossed over her breakdown and disappearance in 1926, but in this book, written under a pen name, she poured her heart and soul into telling what we assume is her side of the story. At times it is brutally raw, so if you want to know how she truly felt about her life and what happened to her, I recommend reading this book. I thought it was fascinating!

Saw a different side of Agatha Christie today.
It is clear from this book that Agatha sketched out her characters in depth and gave life to them.
I missed the Mysterious Agatha, but have no regrets reading this book.
A must read!

I saw a totally different side of Agatha Christie and I am glad I did. Very beautifully written.