When The Gaze Is Subverted And The Rules Of Trauma Are Rewritten

The Crime Writers’ Association’s (CWA) Golden Dragon Award was won this year by Abigail Dean’s The Death of Us. Generally, crime fiction is about detectives investigating difficult cases; it is not often that an in-depth psychological study of the survivor of a rape is presented—nightmarishly disturbing, yet also full of hope—through the experiences of Isabel Nolan and her husband Edward Hennessy.

The South London Invader

The malevolent presence throughout the book is that of the man labelled as the 'South London Invader', who, over several years, leaves a trail of devastation by targeting happy and successful couples—with brutal sexual attacks on the women and humiliation of the husbands. Later, he takes to killing couples in the most horrific manner. He is a careful planner and leaves no traces; still, diligent cops manage to get some DNA, but without a match they cannot do anything. Which leaves a city cowering in terror over who the monster will target next.

Isabel and Edward are a loving couple—their exuberant romance forms part of the book—and have settled into a gorgeous home. He is a successful lawyer; she is a management consultant and aspiring writer. The Invader breaks into their home, forces Edward to tie up Isabel with the laces of his own boots, then forces him into another room with a warning that if he moves, he will kill Isabel. Edward lies in the next room listening to his wife’s cries and unable to do anything. This makes him a coward in his own eyes, because society expects a man to protect his family. He was not restrained; he could have tried to escape and call for help, but he was paralysed by fear. Later, he refuses to tell Isabel what transpired—and opens up only years later, while making a statement in court, when the perpetrator is finally apprehended 25 years later.

Trauma Beyond The Crime

Conventional crime fiction would make this an adrenaline-fuelled chase to nab the criminal, and some would describe the suffering of the victims in sadistic detail. Dean subverts the genre from within by focusing not on the predator but on the wreckage of grief and helpless rage he leaves in his wake. The chief investigator is a female, Etta Eliogue, who makes it a personal crusade to hunt for the rapist-killer when the media that had made the attacks a salacious selling point have lost interest and the police have moved on to other cases.

It is obvious that women and men process the trauma differently, and the scars left on their minds and bodies are also different. In mainstream thriller traditions, there is, quite often, a voyeuristic gaze that reduces women to passive targets of brutality; Dean does not dwell on the incident as much as on the aftermath.

The Death of Us is written from the points of view of Isabel and Edward but structured in a way that hers is a first-person account, addressing the attacker, and Edward’s is written in the third person. It is a compassionate look at gendered trauma, the struggle against victimhood, and the excruciating efforts to hold a shattered life together and pretend that things will improve some day.

Lives Shattered By Trauma

Outwardly, their lives return to normal—as normal as can be; they are unable to return to the home where they were attacked. Edward’s psychological disintegration is caused by his own guilt, and he deals with it by travelling extensively for his work, leaving Isabel alone. If he expects Isabel to soothe his injured masculine ego, he is disappointed.

Isabel keeps returning to that night by lying on the carpet where the attack had taken place; she gets sloppy at work and is fired. She needs to speak, to articulate her horror, but his shame and resultant resentment get in the way. She refuses Edward’s demands of having a baby, and what breaks the marriage completely is the casual infidelity she indulges in to fill the emotional void that Edward turns away from. Ironically, her misery also leads to a successful career as a playwright and screenwriter.

Dean does not write either character as a simple archetype. Instead, she unsheaths layers of relationships that are either undone or strengthened by trauma. Often Isabel, through the words she writes, connects with the attacker more than the society around her. Both she and Edward are afraid that their ordeal will end up defining them, defiling the fragile life they are trying to rebuild and failing.

Justice And The Myth Of Healing

The legal system is conditioned to seek restorative justice, not to aid in the healing of the survivors. The society that ought to offer support starts withdrawing as if being around the suffering of others will taint it too. The ‘victim’ is expected to suffer without causing distress to her loved ones. She must suppress her anger and be the “good victim”.

Popular fiction goes by the linear myth of healing: the perpetrator is caught, a fair trial ensues, the criminal is punished, and the survivors are expected to go through a kind of catharsis. Dean sets the courtroom climax decades after the crime, during which the Invader lived with a family; his children describe him as a good father. What kind of justice would it take to heal the wounds of his victims? Because, regardless of what happens in court (and many times the criminal is set free), for those who suffered, it is a lifelong process of dealing with memory, grief, and bitterness.

Isabel is not a perpetual victim marked by the assault; she is self-aware and flawed. She retains her courage, sense of humour, and desire.

A Different Kind Of Reckoning

Still, whenever there is a sudden knock on the door, there is a surge of panic and fear. This is why legal justice is not the light at the end of the tunnel of agony. Still, Isabel making the perpetrator the object of her scornful gaze restores the balance somewhat. The man who exerted power over so many women, orphaned children, and ruined families comes across as someone she can, after years of coping, finally see clearly—a man incapable of love or happiness.

Deepa Gahlot is a Mumbai-based columnist, critic and author.

Published on: Friday, August 28, 2026, 09:36 PM IST