Having read Beryl Bainbridge's "The Bottle Factory Outing," which had a dry ironic tone but was otherwise a fairly straightforward and exceedingly British narrative, I figured I knew that "Harriet Said" would be a pretty straightforward take on the Parker-Hulme murder case. What I got was something much stranger: a sensitive portrait of a girl on the tender, awkward cusp of womanhood, a portrait of severe, sadistic psychological attachment, and a perverse view of English family life in which the adults seem more helplessly childlike than their children and innocence either a memory or a joke. By turns erotic, shockingly cruel, and curiously dreamlike, "Harriet Said" does a wonderful job of mapping out both the psychological terrain and the physical environs of its main character, a girl under the spell of Harriet, the electrifyingly malicious and thoroughly manipulative title character. We see them wander the back roads of a quiet, beautiful seaside village, befriending its outcasts and dreaming of better things, self-consciously tracking their progress to adulthood. They store up experiences and opinions, one of them falls for the Tsar, a dreamy, unhappy man in middle age who wanders the dunes alongside them, and things end badly.

What's really remarkable about this book, though, is how perfectly Bainbridge seems to have captured that period in adolescence where even the smallest events or excursions seem breathtakingly important and even the most minor of interactions seem freighted with the potential for sex or danger. The book has few characters and takes place almost entirely within the narrow confines of an economically depressed rural backwater, but what happens its two main characters is made to seem so meaningful that it often feels absolutely enormous. I suppose we've already got "Heavenly Creatures," but considering how thoroughly soaked this novel is in sensuality and malice, the complexity of the author's portraits of her young characters, and how completely the volatile, diabolical Harriet looms over everything in it, I'm rather surprised that noone's yet thought to make a film version of it yet. In fact, I'm surprised that less than two-hundred users seem to have it in their libraries. This one is hardly light reading, but might rank as some sort of near-forgotten classic, a startlingly precise portrait of precocious evil. Highly recommended. ( )

"When I say scream, you scream"
By sally tarbox on 30 May 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
A really intense, atmospheric and disturbing novel, set in a seaside town around 1950. The hefty 13 year old narrator is dominated by her adored chum Harriet. A knowing teen, able to charm those around her while secretly mocking them, Harriet determines what the pair will get up to one long, hot summer. On the cusp of adulthood, they are keen to try out their attractions on the men around them, and the narrator imagines she is falling for 'The Tsar', an unhappily married older man and friend of her father. But when the Tsar dares tell Harriet a few home truths, she involves her friend in a plot to humiliate him and his wife...
Beryl Bainbridge vividly conjures up the post-War era, and the adolescent mind. The general theme of the story is based around the true-life teenage killers featured in the movie 'Heavenly Creatures'. ( )

Hipnótica, repulsiva,
Lo que dijo Harriet está calculada con una milimétrica pulcritud capaz de enrarecer una atmósfera que se tupe hasta la asfixia. En el grito del desenlace se superponen los matices del campo semántico del mal: mentira, manipulación, humillación, abuso, crueldad, asesinato… Un catálogo de violencias que lleva a los lectores a preguntarse si las terminaciones nerviosas de nuestra maldad pertenecen al territorio de lo congénito o si, por el contrario, las malas acciones brotan como síntoma: sobre si de verdad los fantasmas existen o no son más que proyecciones de una mente enferma a causa de la represión sexual, el clasismo... (Babelia, El País) ( )

basado en crimen real que conmocionó a la sociedad británica de la época, relata la historia de dos amigas que se reencuentran durante unas vacaciones de verano. Un thriller sobre la crueldad de la infancia y sobre la capacidad del ser humano para manipular y seducir a los demás.: Un coctel fatal sobre la inocencia y la maldad. ( )

Spin-off reading, from "Anne Perry, Murder of the Century". 1972 book - first book by Beryl Bainbridge, based on the 1954 matricide by Perry and her friend - bashed friend's mother to death with a brick at ages 14,15.
Bainbridge writes a complex psychological horror story of 13 & 14 yr old and their cruel 'experiences' of a summer holiday. Narrator(nameless)is somewhat dominated and lead by Harriet, yet strong enough to manage hew own manipulations at times.
However, obvious Moral of the Story: ooops - Don't listen to Harriet! ( )