Reading The Hollow

When Hecule Poirot is invited to lunch with his new neighbors, he envisions a lovely meal in a traditional English Manor house. What he gets is a dying man on the edge of a swimming pool.

The Story In The Hollow

John Cristow is a gifted and compassionate doctor with his community’s respect and a bright future. He is also serially unfaithful to his loving and devoted wife and an emotionally unavailable father to his two young children.

When John and his wife, Gerda, are invited to the home of Lucy Angkatell for the weekend, he sees it as a chance to hook up with his current illicit lover, Henrietta, right under his wife’s nose. But when yet another former girlfriend, Veronica, shows up unexpectedly, John as some explaining to do.

But he doesn’t get a chance to explain himself, because early that morning John is apparently shot to death by his long-suffering wife. And the scene plays out just as Hercule Poirot, staying in a cottage nearby, arrives for lunch.

The case should be open-and-shut but conflicting witness statements, evidence that doesn’t make sense, and Poirot’s own nagging suspicion that the scene was staged for his benefit muddle the case.

My Thoughts On The Hollow

There’s a lot going on in The Hollow and nearly all of it quickly became a tedious bore of a read. There’s the love triangle of Henrietta, Midge and Edward. And we have the various eccentricities of the family’s matriarch, Lucy, who I suspect is far less dotty than she pretends too be. Then there’s the ridiculous Veronica, who somehow knowing John is going to be at the party, simply throws open the French door and bursts in, unannounced and uninvited. Don’t forget Henrietta, who is apparently Gerda’s only friend in the family but who isn’t a good enough friend to end her affair with John.

Finally, Gerda. Poor, dumb, slow, clumsy Gerda. She spends the entire story lamenting to herself her lack of intelligence, her paralyzing indecisiveness and physical awkwardness. I wanted to feel sorry for her but she was just so unlikeable.

No, the only person of interest to me was Gerda’s son. I kept waiting–and half-wishing–he actually would get his hands on some of the nitroglycerin he finds so fascinating.

If Christie intended The Hollow as a satire of upper-class, post-war England, she succeeded. But the cast of characters offered me none to whom I could relate and the story’s ending was deeply unsatisfying. The various racial slurs felt especially gratuitous and, if I’m being candid, even more offensive than in previous stories.

My copy of The Hollow was the 1946 edition with the racial slurs included. My audiobook of The Hollow was performed by Hugh Fraser, who did an especially good job voicing the various female characters.