Featured Reading Guide
Ruth Rendell
Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined. The Keys to the Street creates an atmospherically charged universe, where a young woman’s life is in danger from both the middle-class world she knows and another world of the dispossessed and deranged.
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Ruth Rendell has won many awards for her writing, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for 1976’s best crime novel with A Demon in My View , a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986, the 1990 Sunday Times Literary award, and the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded a CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
topAbout the Book
Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined. The Keys to the Street creates an atmospherically charged universe, where a young woman’s life is in danger from both the middle-class world she knows and another world of the dispossessed and deranged.
topRuth Rendell interview/review
- The criminals in your novels tend to be relatively ordinary people whose circumstances conspire to push them over the edge in some way. Is this what you find so fascinating about the genre?
I believe writing about the crime is never as important as writing about the character. Crime is a function of the character, if you get the character right the crime will follow. A great deal of crime writing isn’t about crime, it’s about people leading ordinary lives. Criminals are just like the rest of us and probably wash their cars on Sundays. You’ve got to live your character. Trying to get inside that person’s skin, how they act, why they do these things, what interests they have and their manner of speech. I want to try to work out why they did what they did and how they felt.
- But how do you get inside the skin of your characters?
I can’t answer that, because it’s just something you do as a writer. I think, I am this person and what would I do if I were in this situation. How, for example, I would feel if I was someone going into a dark, empty house and going to spend the night there and the lights had failed. I imagine what it would be like walking around in the dark. Because I’m in that character. The character is not me. I am not personally afraid of the dark and don’t believe in ghosts, but my character is afraid and does believe in ghosts. It colours my perceptions in that way.
- Do you ever scare yourself?
No. Never. I’m detached. I’m not affected by what I write. I can move myself by scenes which depress me. But they don’t frighten me. I was moved when the family was shot in A Judgement of Stone. I’d taken great pains with these people, and I was very fond of them. I didnít want to kill them, but I had to, I’d already done it in the first line. I was affected by that, but that’s an isolated incident. It doesnít happen very often.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Do you feel Rendell is more interested in exploring the psychological states of her characters than in unravelling a elaborate plot or solving a complex crime? How does this affect your enjoyment of the book?
- There is relatively little violence in The Keys to the Street and what there is, is not particularly graphic. Consider the methods the author uses to generate the book’s atmosphere of tension and menace.
- How does Rendell’s prose style contribute to the novel’s feeling of near-reality?
- Discuss the ways in which the author links together the different worlds of her characters. What devices does she use? How successful are they?
- Are the issues around themes such as homelessness, drug addiction and bone marrow transplants explored convincingly? Should The Keys to the Street be regarded as more than just a crime novel?
- At the end of a traditional murder-mystery, social order is restored by the identification and punishment of the criminal. How is the world of The Keys to the Street not only different, but more disturbing?
Other Books by Ruth Rendell
A Demon In My View
Her white face, beautiful, unmarked by any flaw of skin or feature, stared …
A Guilty Thing Surprised
A Judgement In Stone
A New Lease Of Death
It s impossible to forget the violent bludgeoning to death of an elderly lady…
A Sight For Sore Eyes
In traditional fairytales the handsome prince rescues the beautiful princess…
Suggested Further Reading
- Cover Her Face ~ PD James
- The Dark Room ~ Minette Walters
- Point of Origin ~ Patricia Cornwall
- Déja Dead ~ Kathy Reichs
- Judas Child ~ Carol O’Connell
- The Talented Mr Ripley ~ Patricia Highsmith
- The Mermaid’s Singing ~ Val McDermi
- The Franchise Affair ~ Josephine Tey