Harriet Said

"Harriet Said", by Ms. Beryl Bainbridge is an amazing study of two young women and how mischief is just the beginning of a trip that ends with what we would hope was madness. Hope is wishful thinking, for there is nothing in the pasts of these young girls to justify their increasingly bizarre behavior, nor does the balance of what we are exposed to suggest justification.I have not yet read all of this Author's work, however aberrant and shockingly cruel behavior is not unusual. This time is very different for the players involved are only 13 and 14 years of age. The title suggests that one girl leads the other blindly in a sort of singular sort of peer pressure. However this is not case, for there is very little pressure and certainly no coercion. Additionally strange is that the younger of the two is the catalyst if one is chosen.The time period is not long after WWII, and the behavior that is at the root of events is the girl's awareness and willingness to use their very young selves to manipulate men. The youngest mentioned is 19, and the eldest the better part of 60. The other twisted aspect is that while we experience their actions while there are of the ages that I mentioned, they clearly began their adventures at an earlier age.There is nothing in the book that is physically graphic, or gratuitous in a puerile sense. The Author communicates just how frightening these girls are by sharing only their thoughts and those they record together in a shared diary. Their actions, when they take place, have been introduced to a degree by this written document they co-author. This is a very dangerous story of two children that if handled by a lesser Author would have been just a tabloid tale. In Ms. Bainbridge's hands these girls and others like them are so frightening because they could be any child on your street, or worse a child in your house. If not for its realism this could be passed off as a horror story, however this is more like a lengthy article on true events.