Birthday Party by C.H.B. Kitchin

Kitchin

Birthday Party

C.H.B. Kitchin 

1938

5/5 stars

Ronnie Carlice is about to reach his maturity and inherit Carlice Abbey, his family home. Having drank deeply of Marxism while at Oxford, he's decided to give the house to the Communist Party as soon as he possibly can, essentially casting out his step-mother, and depriving his paternal aunt of the place she so deeply loves.  Tension builds and emotions run high as his birthday approaches.

This book is hard to place in a genre; it's literary fiction, a crime novel, and a character study rolled into one.  Kitchin's fantastic style is reminiscent of two of my favorite novelists, Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, in that the story is skillfully told from the first-person thoughts of four different characters in a near stream-of-consciousness flow.  No direct action or conversation is given; it's all told from the point-of-view of memory. 

It's a crime novel in that the reader knows a crime will be perpetuated.  Unlike the usual crime novel, though, as the story progresses, the reader also knows who the victim will be, when it will happen, and who will do it.  Yet, the tension and suspense builds continually toward this event, so that the coming crime is the focal point of the story, despite it's inevitability.

The four characters are intensively scrutinized through their private musings, stripped bare to their deepest feelings and plans. Kitchin is so talented that it seems his characters themselves don't always realize what they are revealing with these inner monologues, and yet the astute reader will understand in advance where all four are heading.

This is not a novel for everyone.  Those looking for a Golden Age crime story (and he did author a few) will most likely be disappointed, but for those who can appreciate the literary style as described above, this remarkable gem is sure to delight.