Julie G's Reviews > The Night Guest

By the time I was 14, I had so many babysitting jobs, I was practically like a drug dealer, with an 80s style pager at my hip.

I had a solid reputation, several regular jobs, and I was constantly being farmed out to work all-day events on the weekend, like weddings, for strangers who had gotten my number from people who already knew me.

As long as I was navigating the women and children, everything was fine, but almost as soon as I turned 14, I learned quickly that I was going to need to be very careful with any of the fathers, uncles, and male friends of any of these families.

I was a young 14, street smart, but innocent, and my introduction to the world of men with unchecked behavior and high levels of testosterone was a 30-year-old man who was the brother to a woman I was babysitting for, for the first time.

It's amazing how many details of this evening I still remember. . . it was a rented townhouse, dark and cramped inside, and there were two kids, already asleep, upstairs, and three young adults in the equation: the woman who had called me to babysit, her husband, and her adult brother. They were all in their early 30s.

I was on the couch, waiting for them all to leave, reading a book (of course), and as the husband and wife were still upstairs, getting ready, the adult brother popped open a bottle of beer and planted himself on the couch next to me, his leg touching mine. He was wearing hospital scrubs and a stethoscope. It was Halloween and he was dressed as a doctor for a costume party.

I smiled politely, and moved farther to the left on the couch, away from his leg, but he moved in on me and reinserted his leg against mine, and started rubbing my leg with his leg. He was chit-chatting with me, who knows what in the hell he was saying; all I could see was that leg continuing to rub against mine. I remember looking up the half-flight of stairs and staring at the carpeted landing, willing the damned couple to come down and free me from this mess. Just when I thought the rubbing leg was bad enough, he leaned in close to me and said something like, "I sure am glad I've got these baggy scrubs on, because you should see how hard I am, looking at your legs in that skirt. How about I stay behind from this party, and you and I have a little party of our own??"

I think I must have stopped breathing in sheer terror at this point. I don't know how many minutes passed before this couple came down the freaking stairs. I'm going to calculate that it was an eternity, but they finally did, and lo and behold, he announced to them both that he wasn't feeling great and he was going to stay behind with the sitter. My God, what was I going to do, if he stayed??

I saw the woman glance over quickly at me and then she looked at her brother and said, "If you stay home, we don't need a sitter, so tell me if you really want to stay and I'll take her home." I don't remember all of the details after that, I only remember that THANK GOD he went to the party with them and the woman took me home, promptly, when they returned later that evening.

I want to be clear: this was one of the more innocent things (of the bad things, involving men) that happened to me, while babysitting, but it was my introduction to the possibility of what could go wrong, particularly if the woman involved wasn't paying attention or refused any role in my personal safety. The patriarchy speaks with my mother's voice.

You may be wondering why I'm blathering on about this, here in my review of an Icelandic horror novel, but there is a reason, and the protagonist of this short novel, Iðunn, explains it here:

Centuries of socialization have conditioned us into believing that it's our responsibility to create a cozy atmosphere and ensure that no one is embarrassed about anything. That's why we laugh at jokes that offend us. That's why we smile at people who pat us on the butt. That's why we pretend that it's just a coincidence when the boss repeatedly brushes against our breasts at work. Because anything else would be just so embarrassing. For everybody.
I have been trained to smooth out all the imperfections, the same way other women have.

We women, especially women my age or older, were taught not to say anything about the oral surgeon who would massage our thighs as he worked on our teeth or the employer's husbands who always insist on driving us home at night and ask for "goodnight kisses," or the male family members who would comment on our "cheerleader's legs" or "playfully" spank our butts as we walked out of the room. Naughty girls!

And. . . resentment grows. Has grown. Turns into a seething anger, an anger that too many men like to overlook, or make fun of. We are sometimes labeled "Femi-Nazis," if we speak openly about our rights, as human beings, or the old standby: crazy bitches.

Some women, like Iðunn, in Reykjavik, have clenched their jaws for so many years, after being beaten by ex-boyfriends, invalidated by their own parents, overlooked and underappreciated by employers, living on their own, doing it all. . .

They start doing weird shit in their sleep. . .

And they wake up with blood on their hands.

In my opinion, this little novel didn't quite, quite maximize its full potential, but it still left me wondering. . . what if. . . what if. . . what if?

And Hildur Knútsdóttir's style (which, to me, felt a lot like American writer, Paula Fox's, style, but was also uniquely her own) is certainly effective in giving the reader the serious creeps.

3.5, rounded up