Somewhat experimental mystery, where the author appears to have tried to fill in the blanks on a real-world murder, where a clergyman killed his wife in 1871. Bainbridge goes all the way back to the murderer's young adulthood, and courting of the wife-victim, and goes on from there. It's a story of almost unrelenting misery, and not terribly edifying or satisfying. ( )

In 1844 a middle-aged Irish spinster by the name of Anne Armstrong, gets the unexpected chance to escape her life of genteel poverty. An English schoolmaster, the Reverend John Selby Watson, a man whom she met briefly more than seven years before, and whom Anne has long since forgotten, appears suddenly with a proposal. While the Reverend Watson is certainly no Prince Charming, and his home is in no way a castle, life with him is seemingly so much more preferable to Anne's current living situation - that she accepts John's proposal. Thus begins a marriage that should never have been - where frustrations pile upon disillusionments until everything collapses in hatred and bloody violence.

For, after nearly thirty years of marriage, the quiet, staid, rather ordinary Reverend Watson bludgeons his wife to death one Sunday after church. The seemingly customary history of the Watsons' unhappy marriage unfolds until it culminates in a sudden brutal act and a headline-grabbing trial. Staying as true to the documented facts of this historical case as she does to the workings of her singular imagination, Ms. Bainbridge artfully reveals what history withholds: the motives, the feelings, and the insanity that drive the Watsons to their domestic tragedy.

I did enjoy reading this book; although it seemed to me to be a little disjointed in places. Perhaps this was the impression that the author wanted to give the reader, I'm not really sure. However, I found this story to be incredibly sad - and although I usually enjoy reading tear-jerking stories - I think that the knowledge that this book was based on an actual murder case, was something that made this story almost too sad for me to read. I just felt incredibly sorry for all the characters involved, and the grinding hopelessness of the Watsons situation, as well as the historical period itself, really came through to me. I give Watson's Apology: A Novel by Beryl Bainbridge a definite A! ( )

In repressive mid-Victorian London, a pedantic English schoolteacher is yoked in marriage to an unsympathetic Irish wife. They torment each other ceaselessly until. . .

"Watson's Apology" is notable not for its plot, but for the absolute mastery of tone which the author demonstrates on nearly every page. IMHO, the cumulative impact is all the much greater because of, not in spite of, Bainbridge's "dryness" and "detachment" from her doomed characters.

If you've never read a Beryl Bainbridge before, you might want to try one of her later works first. BB is an acquired taste. . . ( )

A real murder case is the focus of this novel by one of my favorite authors, Beryl Bainbridge. She notes that although the facts of the case are true, she has endeavored to take "the historical facts of this mundane murder case" and add certain "motives of the characters, their conversations and their feelings," so that the reader might understand how a respectable schoolmaster could go berserk and kill his wife.

- don't worry, no spoilers:

Mr. John Selby Watson remembered a girl he had met once at the home of a mutual acquaintance, a Miss Anne Armstrong. Miss Armstrong and her sister Olive were of the upper classes until during the Irish troubles, the bank that their father's money was in closed. At that point, the family fortune went into decline; now the only family the two sisters had was each other, and their situation was pretty much hopeless. We know from the start that Anne has some problems; Olive was always holding up some past crime of Anne's that got her fired from a position as governess. Anyway, Watson, who is getting on in years and who, if he marries, will get a larger salary & bigger home, decides to write Anne and offer her marriage. In her desperate situation, Anne agrees, and becomes the wife of the schoolmaster. Although Watson had been in his position for some 25 years or so, the board of the school voted him out; he had no prospects, Anne had turned out to be somewhat of a nag, driven by her tempestuous nature & he couldn't take it any more. So one day she ends up dead.

Bainbridge combines real documents from the trial with a fictional narrative to try to explain why this meek, mild schoolmaster may have done away with his wife. It is truly somewhat of a nonstory overall, when you consider that there were murderers making headlines at the time who were much more newsworthy. But it is a really intriguing look into the psyches of two very different & desperate people that makes this book. I can definitely recommend this one; don't expect things to flow; the narrative is different from the usual but Bainbridge's writing, as always, is exquisite. ( )