
The Girl on the Stairs
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
-
Narrated by:
-
Jane Wymark
-
By:
-
Louise Welsh
About this listen
A haunting, atmospheric novel from the acclaimed author of The Cutting Room.©2012 Louise Welsh (P)2012 John Murray
OK but well short of her best work
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It felt real to me and bound me to poor, pregnant, Scottish Jane, living with here urbane partner, Petra, in a flat in Berlin that she did not choose, populated by people she does not know, and in which she is too often alone.
I absorbed her anxiety. I shared her suspicions of her what her neighbour was doing to his daughter, the girl on the stairs, behind closed doors. I admired Jane's bravery as she decided to act rather than to hide in her apartment and pretend everything was O.K.
Then, bit by bit, I started to doubt. Walsh gave me just enough information to suspect that Jane was not a reliable narrator, that her perception might be skewed, that not everything she described might be true.
Of course, I did not know which parts of Jane's narration could not be trusted and the foreign location and alien society made it harder for me to make a judgement. Which, of course, meant I was in exactly the same situation as Jane herself.
Walsh then ratcheted up the tension, drawing on the shadows of Berlin's dark past (the invading Russian Army used rape as a weapon of retribution on a scale that ranks second only to the Japanese in Nanking) and its unpleasant present (prostitution, violent punks, drunks and drug users in the streets and wraps it all in the chill dreariness of a Berlin winter.
The plot is clever, plausible and disclosed with a perfect control of pace.
But it is not the plot that haunts me, it is the perfectly evoked sense of threat that remains my strongest memory of this book. This is threat that many women experience, that their vulnerability will be translated into punishment at the hands of violent men. This threat, which is not just an absence of safety but an expectation of pain, drives Jane. It taints everything that she sees. It looms over her, cornering her, leaving her with the option of passive surrender or violent rage. This threat is amplified by Jane's history, by her pregnancy, and by her isolation. But what takes this book beyond the ordinary is that, in many ways, the most threatening thing is the book is Jane herself. I was left feeling that she cast the shadows she lived in. That she evoked, perhaps even provoked, the violence around her. That the girl on the stairs that we should worry about is not the neighbour's daughter, but Jane herself. That she is damaged and that the damage is contagious.
That notion is paranoid and not entirely rational but it is what the book led me to believe and feel. Which is, perhaps, what the whole book is about.
Tense, multi-layered thriller
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
Different plotWhat was most disappointing about Louise Welsh’s story?
Chapter after chapter saying the same thingWhat three words best describe Jane Wymark’s voice?
Can't do a Glasgow accent to save herself.Any additional comments?
You killed your wife! no I didn't. You are abusing your daughter! no I'm not. and so on, and so forth.gave up eventually
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Meh
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.