Page 63 - Sonoma County Gazette MARCH 2020

By Diane McCurdy
The Woman in the Window by A.J Finn
It is always interesting to read a book that is being adapted into a film.
The Woman in the Window is now in post-production. Some readers chafe when a novel is made into a movie if it is not a page for page rendition. Literature and cinema are two different art forms and should be appreciated as such. A too literal transposition of the one to the other can be deadly. Film is capable of enhancing situations with its power of visualization, color and condensation. Pages and pages of writing can be conveyed in one scene.
The Woman in the Window is mostly interior monologue so that we know what the protagonist is feeling and thinking, we are privy to her emotions and her innermost struggles. The book is a psychological thriller.
Anna Fox is a child psychologist and when
we meet her, she has been traumatized by some event. She is paranoid about
leaving her house, a victim
of agoraphobia, but we don’t know why. Her husband
and her daughter don’t live with her. Why is this the arrangement? The author,
A. J. Finn, lets us in on what has occurred to Anna only little by little. She is similar to the James Stewart character
in Rear Window but despite similarities to that piece, this is not a replica. There are more twists and turns here.
Anna is a window watcher.
She is lonely. She indulges in
old movies, gives counseling to
groups of fellow sufferers on
her computer, talks to her cat
and sips her Merlot. She lives
life vicariously and of course, she witnesses a woman being murdered. She meets the wife of her new neighbor who comes to visit and later on observes her being bludgeoned to death. But no one believes Anna because she is not only an alcoholic, she is full of prescription drugs. But mostly her account is discredited because another woman shows up who says she is the neighbor’s wife.
Anna is taunted by the murderer on line, and each time she calls
the police, they just deduce that she is getting ever more psychotic and delusional. Very much in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window is crackling with suspense. It very much gives homage to the master, Alfred Hitchcock. The movie will be released in May and stars Julianne Moore, Any Adams and Gary Oldman.
A Slide Show Presentation: WW II Women Photographers
Behind Enemy Lines!
In celebration of Women’s History Month! 2020 commemorates 100 years of voting rights for women. This event honors 127 WW II women war correspondents who also achieved equal rights
INFO: jeaneslone.com
Women war correspondents:
• Hit by Junker planes in a B-17 Flying Fortress
• Almost hit by Japanese snipers photographing on the top of Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima Documenting the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp
• Immediately following the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, photographing “Disease X” Documenting the refugees for the Quakers after the war
March 5, Thursday at 6:30 PM
St. Helena Public Library 1492 Library Lane, St. Helena 707-963-5244
March 7, Saturday at 2:00 PM
Cloverdale Library
401 N. Cloverdale Blvd., Cloverdale 707-894-5271
March 22, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Central Library, 211 E Street, Santa Rosa 707-545-0831
March 25, Wednesday at 6 PM
Healdsburg Library, 139 Piper St. Healdsburg 707-433-3722
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