{"id":150582,"date":"2021-01-28T14:38:13","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T19:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=150582"},"modified":"2021-01-28T17:41:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T22:41:36","slug":"the-most-appalling-appealing-psychopaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/01\/28\/the-most-appalling-appealing-psychopaths\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Appalling, Appealing Psychopaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her column, Re-Covered, Lucy Scholes exhumes the out-of-print and forgotten books that shouldn\u2019t be.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a question: Can you name the debut novel, originally published in Britain in September 1965, that became a more or less immediate best seller, and the fans of which included No\u00ebl Coward, Daphne du Maurier, John Gielgud, Fay Weldon, David Storey, Margaret Drabble, and Doris Lessing? \u201cA rare pleasure!\u201d said Lessing. \u201cI can\u2019t remember another novel like it, it is so good and so original.\u201d Coward, meanwhile, described it as \u201cfascinating and remarkable,\u201d admiring the author\u2019s \u201cstrongly developed streak of genius.\u201d Du Maurier\u2014a writer whose own work is famously mesmerizing\u2014declared it \u201ccompulsive reading \u2026 Endearing, exasperating, wildly funny, touching and superbly amoral.\u201d Gielgud thought it \u201cfull of fascinating characterisation and atmosphere.\u201d Never not in tune with the times, Weldon deemed it \u201ca magical mystery tour of the mind,\u201d Storey \u201ca superb piece of confectionery,\u201d while Drabble described it as \u201cstrange and unforgettable \u2026 Highly original and oddly haunting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet despite such heaped adulation, I\u2019m willing to bet that hardly anyone reading this will have heard of the novel in question, though some might be familiar with its author. It\u2019s called The Sioux<\/em>, and was the work of sixty-six-year-old Irene Handl, a famous British actress beloved for her roles on both stage and screen, rock \u2019n\u2019 roll superfan (and member of the Elvis Presley fan club), fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, not to mention a devoted Chihuahua owner and for many years president of the British Chihuahua Club.<\/p>\n

The blurb on the British first edition describes the book as \u201ca sustained tour-de-force, one of the most unusual and remarkable novels of recent years.\u201d Unusual and remarkable is spot-on. \u201cThe Sioux\u201d is the nickname the Benoir family call themselves, on account of their fierce tribalism. They\u2019re French\u2014their ancestors escaped Paris during the Revolution, fleeing first to Martinique then, during a slave insurrection, from there to Louisiana\u2014feudal, and astronomically rich. Both The Sioux<\/em>, and its sequel, The Gold Tip Pfitzer <\/em>(1973)\u2014which is dedicated to No\u00ebl Coward\u2014are two of the maddest novels I\u2019ve ever encountered. The Benoirs themselves are among the most appalling and repugnant, monstrously overprivileged, egomaniacal psychopaths ever created.\u00a0 To be absolutely honest, I\u2019m not sure these books should actually be republished\u2014the misplaced cultural appropriation of their chosen soubriquet is, if you can believe it, one of the Benoir family\u2019s least egregious crimes\u2014but, just like Drabble before me, now that I\u2019ve read them, I simply haven\u2019t been able to stop thinking about them. <\/p>\n

Even the very existence of these novels is something to be marveled at. Handl apparently first put pen to paper when she was nineteen, while in Paris in the twenties, but abandoned the project after only writing a few pages. It wasn\u2019t until the early sixties, while taking a much-needed break from her stage career due to exhaustion, that she found the time to return to her notebooks and finish working on the story she\u2019d begun all those years earlier. (It was another enforced rest that then afforded her the opportunity to write The Gold Tip Pfitzer<\/em>.) And what<\/em> she wrote also defied expectation. Who would have thought that a middle-aged British actress famous for playing working-class stereotypes, from meddling landladies to browbeaten wives, would write a sui generis chef-d\u2019oeuvre of high-camp Southern Gothic? Readers today will recognize an ambiance akin to that found in Patrick deWitt\u2019s \u201ctragedy <\/em>of manners,\u201d French Exit <\/em>(2018), or the idiosyncratic style of Wes Anderson\u2019s feature films, though compared to the vicious maneuvering of the Benoirs, the dysfunctional Tenenbaums look as picture-perfect as the Waltons.<\/p>\n

These novels aren\u2019t just the feat of an impressive imagination. Handl proves herself an original and flamboyant stylist, oscillating between vaudevillian slapstick, demented dark horror, and passages of sheer\u2014if extravagantly baroque\u2014poetry. Perhaps unsurprisingly for an actor who excelled at character parts, The Sioux<\/em> is driven by dialogue. And what dialogue it is! A Franglais like no other, sprinkled with private endearments and bon mots, the meaning of which are usually known only to the family, with a dash of \u201cOl\u2019 Kintuck,\u201d \u201cCreole,\u201d and \u201cMiss\u2019ippa\u201d thrown in for good measure. This is more a novel in speech than anything else, not least because if you strip away all the melodrama and the gaudiness, plot is actually pretty thin on the ground. It takes a while for this lack of story to sink in for a reader though, as the showy voluptuousness of the prose enfolds one in a cloying, claustrophobic embrace. Handl writes in the present tense, sharply shifting back and forth between the interior monologues of her various characters, adding to the muggy intensity of the reading experience.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Where to begin ? Well, first things first, with the Benoirs themselves, I suppose, which isn\u2019t at all as easy a task as you might imagine, since each and every one of them goes by a befuddling number of different names (coupled with the fact that, as appears to be an unfortunate side effect of a family that\u2019s as inbred as this one, everyone\u2019s pretty much called some form of the same name to begin with). The novel opens with a transatlantic telephone conversation between the head of the family, Armand-Marie Xavier Benoir (also known as Benoir, Herman, Hermie, and Nap)\u2014who\u2019s at his home in Paris\u2014and his sister, Marguerite (also known as Mimi, Mim, Mi, The Governor of Alcatraz, and Breadcrumb)\u2014who\u2019s at hers in New Orleans, having just arrived back from her honeymoon. Marguerite is only twenty-six but she\u2019s already on her third marriage. Her latest husband is an English banker named Vincent Castleton (most often referred to as Vince, or \u201cPoilu,\u201d on account of his body hair, which apparently distinguishes him from the Benoir men, whose skin is \u201cas smooth as silk\u201d), a likable if often bemused gent who\u2019s clearly bitten off more than he can chew when it comes to the machinations of his dreadful in-laws.<\/p>\n

The topic of the siblings\u2019 conversation is Marguerite\u2019s son, nine-year-old Georges-Marie Benoir\u2014also known as Georges, Marie, Little Benoir, Petit-Monsieur, The Dauphin, Puss, Moumou, Old Duck, Little Ducky, Old Dear, Old Man, Old Daddy, Old Darling, Mim\u2019s Chap, His Nibs, King Nutty, Woozy, The Wizard, Mimi\u2019s Flirt, Little Rubbish, Waxy Willie, and Thingo. His father was Marguerite\u2019s first husband, her cousin Georges Benoir, whom she married when she was only sixteen and who perished shortly thereafter in a racing car accident. Armand, incidentally, is also married to his cousin; another Marie Benoir, just to make things even more confusing\u2014here I can\u2019t help but think of Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss\u2019s description of incest as \u201cbad grammar\u201d in the \u201clanguage of kinship.\u201d The Benoirs\u2019 linguistic acrobatics certainly defy all manner of rules and traditions. That said, a marriage to a first cousin is this family\u2019s idea of expanding their gene pool, especially since there\u2019s more than a whiff of something unnatural about Marguerite and her son\u2019s relationship (in the same way that there was between Armand and his and Marguerite\u2019s mother, while she was still alive). By the time we get to The Gold Tip Pfitzer<\/em>, the fact that Armand and Marguerite often share a bed is just one of the many shocking discoveries that leaves Castleton reeling.<\/p>\n

So, Moumou\u2014who, while his mother and his new stepfather were on their honeymoon, was left in his uncle\u2019s care in Paris\u2014is the heir to the Benoir fortune, but he\u2019s also desperately ill, suffering from acute monocytic leukemia. Not that this is immediately made clear. At first, it\u2019s hard to work out whether we\u2019re dealing with a case of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, staggering maternal neglect, or just the wild whims of so much wealth and privilege. Marguerite\u2019s beauty is matched only by her cruelty. One minute she\u2019s ordering around servants and relatives alike in the service of the darling Dauphin, instructing them to serve him champagne and oysters in bed or feed him nothing but Vichy water, biscottes<\/em>, and cognac; the next she\u2019s telling people not to fuss over him. \u201cI don\u2019t spoil him,\u201d she protests. \u201cI love him far too much to let him make a nuisance of himself.\u201d What on earth, wonders poor Castleton\u2014who\u2019s as yet barely met his stepson\u2014has he let himself in for?<\/p>\n

Yet, when Marguerite\u2019s son finally arrives in New Orleans in the flesh\u2014deathly pale and very small for his age, the very picture of innocence in his impeccably tailored snow-white sailor suit\u2014Castleton is surprised to find that the boy is a delight. Sure, he\u2019s a little highly strung, but who wouldn\u2019t be with a family like his? What he absolutely isn\u2019t is the precocious brat that Castleton\u2014and the reader\u2014had been expecting. Incidentally, the boy\u2019s arrival is truly majestic. He and his entourage\u2014his valet, his nurse, his beloved foster sister, D\u00e9d\u00e9 (conceived by George\u2019s wet nurse so there would be a ready supply of milk for the little princeling), his personal detective (don\u2019t even ask!), Marguerite\u2019s two French chauffeurs, and Armand, who\u2019s brought with him his two valets as well as his pet capuchin monkey, Ouistiti (who has a penchant for furiously masturbating while perched on his master\u2019s shoulders)\u2014tumble out of two tricolor-flying white Rolls Royces (the second of which is referred to as \u201cThe Ambulance\u201d because it\u2019s been fitted out with a bed for the miniature invalid).<\/p>\n

Initially, everything looks peachy. How delighted Marguerite must be to have her beloved son by her side once again, even if he does look \u201cspooky as hell and deliciously ready for the mortician.\u201d But at the same time, her mandate for complete obedience doesn\u2019t exactly scream doting mother. Unmoved by the genuine and loving bond forged between her two best boys, she demands that Georges call Castleton \u201cPapa.\u201d The poor little chap is in agony, he can\u2019t bear to disappoint her, nor can he bring himself to call his new friend the name that belongs to his dear dead father only. Given Handl\u2019s confusing emphasis on her characters\u2019 many pet names, it\u2019s weirdly fitting that one character\u2019s refusal to use a particular moniker should be the fulcrum on which the novel\u2019s plot turns. Castleton himself doesn\u2019t mind what Georges does or doesn\u2019t call him\u2014nor does he understand the fuss his new wife is making\u2014but Marguerite is resolute, so she whips little Moumou into submission, an act of astonishing violence that leaves his tiny, delicate hands a bloody pulp.<\/p>\n

The sustained ferocity of the scene is truly shocking\u2014rivaled only by the episode depicting Georges\u2019s death in The Gold Tip Pfitzer<\/em>, a gruesome, screwball caper as the dying child is chased around a bathroom in the middle of the night, hemorrhaging from a nosebleed of horror-movie proportions and eventually dying in Marguerite\u2019s arms, mother and child soaked in blood and mucus. Here, there\u2019s little evidence of maternal love, even twisted. The little boy collapses in pain and despair, while Marguerite\u2019s awful fury escalates with each blow:<\/p>\n

He falls to his knees.<\/p>\n

She says in a terrible voice: \u201cGet up or I will surely kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She hauls him to his feet, still crying: \u201cJamais, jamais de ma vie,\u201d and beats him till she can beat him no more.<\/p>\n

He shrieks out in a high sweet voice like a terrified bird. \u201cDon\u2019t whip me, mama! O, you will kill me with that thing! Pas plus, pas plus, maman-ch\u00e9rie!\u201c<\/p>\n

He has slipped down on to the floor, but she has still got hold of his hand. She beats it till she is satisfied. \u201cWill you dare to disobey like that again? Will you dare?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/p>\n

Although the scene is undoubtably appalling, it\u2019s not, I\u2019m afraid to say, entirely unexpected. The whip\u2014grimly known as a \u201csoupir d\u2019amour<\/em>\u201d because the noise it makes \u201cis supposed to resemble the sighs of a young girl in love\u201d\u2014appears, like Chekhov\u2019s gun, in the novel\u2019s second chapter. Small enough to lie \u201ccoiled in [a] drawer like a baby snake,\u201d it\u2019s a horrific relic of the family\u2019s ugly past, originally used to \u201cdiscipline\u201d the slaves on their plantations on the Mississippi Delta. This, then, is the original sin to which all the amorality, cruelty, and vice exhibited by the current Benoirs can be traced back to. It\u2019s sobering enough to understand that the family\u2019s immense wealth is awash with the blood of those they enslaved; but the fact that this remains such a blind spot for everyone involved is especially hard to stomach. The Benoirs aren\u2019t just incapable of self-reflection, it\u2019s much worse than that: they\u2019re all laboring \u201cunder the impression they are still living in pre-secession and are happy to spend the rest of their lives up to the eyebrows in Spanish moss.\u201d Georges\u2019s nurse, Madeleine\u2014whom Marguerite insists on calling \u201cMammy\u201d\u2014is, like many of the family\u2019s servants, directly descended from slaves on their plantations, and she\u2019s not treated much better than her ancestors were. And Marguerite\u2019s vileness when it comes to Madeleine\u2019s daughter, D\u00e9d\u00e9\u2014whom Georges loves like a sister and likes to sleep beside at night\u2014is quite physically painful to read.<\/p>\n

This is an illustration of how the legacies of slavery reverberate through the generations; not simply how long-ingrained systemic inequality is near impossible to escape, even if we like to claim times have changed, but of how the cruelty and violence that white slave owners enacted on their Black slaves with such impunity was then replicated and continued for years to come. But at the same time, if ever there was a book that needed some serious trigger warnings, this is it. Handl certainly deserves recognition as a writer of uncommon talents. These were the only two books she published, though I sorely wish she\u2019d had the time and energies to have produced more, if only to have seen whether she could dream up anything to rival the Benoirs. And yet, no amount admiration can detract from the disturbing horror she portrays.<\/p>\n

Castleton\u2019s marriage to Marguerite only lasts fourteen months, but his entanglements with the Benoirs leave him feeling \u201clike the sole survivor of a mine disaster.\u201d That is more or less what I felt like myself after turning the final page and resurfacing, shell-shocked and decidedly worse for wear, back into the real world (which is saying something given the absolute state of things right now). Reading these books is a visceral experience, an assault on the senses. From her indulgent descriptions of dinner tables overloaded with delicious gourmet delights, to the fragrant enchantments of a courtyard garden in the early evening\u2014\u201cwhere all the brilliant flowers have been freshly sprayed for the night, the callas and the cannas and the belles de nuit, and the begonias and the bignonias and the Cherokee roses, and where the fountain is splashing away like fun among the palmetto fans\u201d\u2014it all builds to a near-suffocating crescendo, one that ultimately left me slightly nauseated and gasping for breath. \u201cI dislike people that think a terrible lot of money,\u201d Handl said, when asked about the origins of her grotesque fictional creations. \u201cExcept they\u2019re very funny, and I write about them nastily.\u201d No one could try and claim that Handl expresses any sympathy with her characters; the only problem here is that sometimes their nastiness outweighs hers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read earlier installments of Re-Covered here<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Lucy Scholes is a critic who lives in London. She writes for the\u00a0<\/em>NYR Daily,<\/em>\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0Financial Times,<\/em> The New York Times Book Review,\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>LitHub, among other publications.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British actress Irene Handl\u2019s novels contain some of the most appalling, monstrously overprivileged, egomaniacal characters ever created.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46439],"tags":[67827],"class_list":["post-150582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-re-covered","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Most Appalling, Appealing Psychopaths by Lucy Scholes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The British actress Irene Handl\u2019s novels contain some of the most appalling, monstrously overprivileged, egomaniacal characters ever created.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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