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The Woman in the Window (novel)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Harland1 (talk | contribs) at 03:36, 14 March 2023 (→Plagiarism controversy: given the text is verbatim from Mallory's own page, I'm making the same edits here, too). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Woman in the Window
AuthorAJ Finn
LanguageEnglish
GenreThriller
PublishedJanuary 2, 2018
PublisherWilliam Morrow
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback), audiobook, e-book
Pages448 (hardcover)
ISBN9780062678416

The Woman in the Window is a thriller novel by American author AJ Finn, published by William Morrow on January 2, 2018. The novel has been translated into more than 40 languages, and has sold millions of copies worldwide. It hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.[1]

Plot

Anna Fox suffers from agoraphobia due to a traumatic car accident and lives a reclusive life at her large home in New York City. She recently separated from her husband, Ed, who has custody of their nine-year-old daughter Olivia. However, they frequently talk on the phone.

To pass the time, Anna spends her days drinking too much alcohol, playing online chess, communicating with other recluses through the "Agora online forum," watching old movies, and meeting with her shrink and physical therapist. She also spends time spying on her neighbors, including the Russells, a family that moved in across the street. There is Ethan, the reserved and polite teenage son; Alistair, the controlling father; and Jane, a friendly woman with whom Anna shares many interests. One evening, while looking out the window, Anna witnesses Jane being stabbed and calls the police. The Russells deny that any sort of attack took place. The police, including detectives Little and Norelli, also don't believe Anna's story as another woman who claims to be Jane is alive and uninjured. Anna insists the woman claiming to be Jane is not the same woman she met before.

Anna has a number of encounters with the Russells and becomes convinced that something is suspicious about them. After she receives an anonymous email with a picture of herself sleeping, she calls the police. A detective confronts her with the tragic truth: Her husband and daughter died in the car accident that triggered her agoraphobia, and she has been imagining her conversations with them. Knowing her medications can cause hallucinations, they theorize that Anna could have taken the picture and emailed it to herself. Anna realizes that the murder may have been a hallucination as well.

Anna finds a picture she had taken of the Jane she met and shows it to Ethan. He breaks down and tells her the truth: Jane and Alistair are his adoptive parents, and Katie, the woman Anna assumed was Jane, is his biological mother. Katie tracked down the family in order to see her son again, but her frequent unwanted visits led to an altercation with Jane, which resulted in Katie being stabbed. Alistair and Jane hid the body and lied to the police.

Anna urges Ethan to talk to the police, but he convinces her that he will talk his parents into turning themselves in. Ethan later sends a text confirming he and his parents are going to the police. That night, Anna realizes that Ethan mentioned something that he couldn't have known. She is startled by Ethan in her room, where he confesses that he has psychopathic tendencies, that he has been sneaking into her home at night to watch her, and that he has stalked other women as well. He reveals that he was the one who killed Katie because of his resentment about the abuse and neglect he faced as a child under her care, and that his father knew, but kept it a secret to protect Jane.

Realizing that he intends to kill her too, Anna flees. He pursues her to the roof where she pushes him through an old skylight to his death. Alistair is arrested as an accessory to Katie's murder, and Anna slowly starts her life over again.

Characters

  • Anna Fox, a reclusive, alcoholic 39-year-old woman who suffers from severe agoraphobia and anxiety
  • Ed Fox, Anna's estranged husband who frequently calls her on the phone
  • Olivia Fox, Anna's 9-year-old daughter who lives with Ed
  • Ethan Russell, the shy and polite teenage son who lives across the street and becomes friends with Anna
  • Jane Russell, a mysterious woman who is portrayed as two different people, one maybe imagined by Anna
  • Alistair Russell, an intimidating man who Anna believes stabbed and killed Jane
  • David Winters, Anna's tenant who lives in the basement of her large home and frequently does house work for the neighborhood
  • Dr. Julian Fielding, Anna's therapist who visits her once a week
  • Bina, Anna's physical therapist who works on helping her recover from the car accident

Reception

The novel stayed at number one for two weeks on the New York Times best sellers list.[2] Book Marks reported that 38% of critics gave the book a "rave" review, and another 38% of the critics expressed "positive" impressions, based on a sample of 13 reviews.[3]

In a review in the New Yorker, Joyce Carrol Oates called it "superior" and "highly successful."[4] A review in the New York Times said, "A book that’s as devious as this novel will delight anyone who’s been disappointed too often... For hard-core aficionados of classic logical mysteries, this book includes some special delights." Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Crackling with tension, and the sound of pages turning, as twist after twist sweeps away each hypothesis you come up with about what happened in Anna’s past and what fresh hell is unfolding now."

The book was shortlisted for the 2019 British Book Awards in the "Crime & Thriller" category.[5]

Plagiarism Controversy

A February 2019 article in the New York Times reported on plagiarism rumors due to "striking" similarities between The Woman in the Window and Sarah A. Denzil’s Saving April.[6] The Times reviewed original outlines of The Woman in the Window and concluded that the similar "plot points were all included in outlines for The Woman in the Window that Mr. Mallory sent to a literary agent at ICM in the fall of 2015, before Ms. Denzil began writing Saving April." The Times noted that the Woman in the Window plot outlines it reviewed were dated September 20, 2015 and October 4, 2015, and that Denzil had not started writing Saving April until October 2015.[6] The Times also reported that Mallory had started writing The Woman in the Window in the summer of 2015.

An article earlier that month in The New Yorker alleged that Mallory was a habitual liar who feigned fatal illnesses and fabricated a tragic family history.[7] Mallory, the article revealed, had falsely claimed to hold a doctorate from Oxford University, that his mother had died of breast cancer, and that his brother had committed suicide (after impersonating his brother over email to multiple people).[7] Mallory had also falsely claimed to be suffering from cancer himself.[7] Mallory’s psychiatrist told the New Yorker that Mallory sometimes suffered from "somatic complaints, fears, and preoccupations" due to his bipolar depression, while a forensic psychiatrist at King’s College London explained that bipolar episodes “cannot account for sustained arrogant and deceptive interpersonal behaviors.”[7] In a statement through a public relations firm, Mallory said, "It is the case that on numerous occasions in the past, I have stated, implied, or allowed others to believe that I was afflicted with a physical malady instead of a psychological one: cancer, specifically." He continued, "I felt intensely ashamed of my psychological struggles – they were my scariest, most sensitive secret."[7]

Karin Slaughter, an author who worked with Mallory in his role as an editor at William Morrow, criticized the New Yorker article for its “extraordinary amount of animus” toward Mallory.[8]

The Washington Post found that "there’s no real suggestion of plagiarism" in the case of The Woman in the Window and noted that if "bland, mushy sameness were an artistic offense worth ending careers over, bookshelves would be bare and theaters would be bereft of movies to project."[9] "Mallory’s stuff sells," the Post wrote, "because consumers aren’t really all that interested in being challenged by difference."

In an interview with the trade publication Publishers Lunch, Denzil explained that she previewed a brief excerpt from Saving April in Kindle Scout in mid-December 2015 and that "March 2016 would have been the earliest point that anyone, aside from me, the Kindle Press team and the copy editor at Kindle Press, would have read the book in its entirety."[10]

In a follow-up about The Woman in the Window, the New York Times quoted Harvard copyright law expert Rebecca Tushnet who explained that there are many "well-worn tropes in thrillers," as well as Stuart Karle of the Columbia Journalism School who explained that "great fiction builds on prior works in terms of both language and sense of place."[11]

Mallory has cited genre classics such as Rear Window, Gas Light, and Gone Girl as inspirations for The Woman in the Window.

The popular Netflix series The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, released in 2022, spoofed many common plot elements of the thriller genre and paid homage to The Woman in the Window in its title and plot.[12]

Film adaptation

Main article: The Woman in the Window (2021 film)

A Netflix film based on the novel directed by Joe Wright, with a screenplay by Tracy Letts and starring Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Fred Hechinger, Wyatt Russell, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Julianne Moore was released on May 14, 2021.[13][14][15]

References

  1. ^ Flood, Alison (January 30, 2018). "Thriller reviews: The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn; The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld; The Feed by Nick Clark Windo". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  2. ^ "Combined Print & E-Book Fiction- January 28, 2018". New York Times. January 28, 2018.
  3. ^ "The Woman in the Window". Book Marks. Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  4. ^ "The Domestic Thriller Is Having a Moment". The New Yorker. February 19, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  5. ^ Anderson, Porter (March 22, 2019). "The British Book Awards: 2019 Books of the Year Shortlists". Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
  6. ^ a b Alter, Alexandra (February 14, 2019). "Similarities in 2 Novels Raise Questions About the Limits of Literary Influence". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c d e Parker, Ian (February 11, 2019). "A Suspense Novelist's Trail of Deceptions". New Yorker. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on February 4, 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  8. ^ "Karin Slaughter | 'I get gendered questions about the violence in my books'". The Bookseller. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
  9. ^ "Opinion | Should readers care if novelist Dan Mallory lied about his life story?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
  10. ^ Somers, Erin (February 21, 2019). "NYT Updates Dan Mallory Story With Details From Author's Outlines". Publishers Lunch. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
  11. ^ Alter, Alexandra (February 14, 2019). "Similarities in 2 Novels Raise Questions About the Limits of Literary Influence". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
  12. ^ Shunpike, Stan. "11 Movies Parodied By "The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window"". BuzzFeed. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
  13. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (January 12, 2021). "Netflix Unveils A 2021 Film Slate With Bigger Volume & Star Wattage; Scott Stuber On The Escalating Film Ambition". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on January 12, 2021. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  14. ^ @NetflixFilm (March 4, 2021). "Amy Adams THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW On Netflix May 14" (Tweet). Retrieved March 4, 2021 – via Twitter.
  15. ^ Ivie, Devon (March 4, 2021). "The Woman in the Window Movie Really, Finally Has a Release Date". Vulture. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
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