Mrs. Balfame: A Novel — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Deliberate Opening

The novel begins not with a crime but with a decision. Mrs. Balfame, while performing her duties as club president, realizes she has resolved to kill her husband. The narrator notes that she is "not an impetuous woman" and that the idea may have been growing for half her married life. This measured, almost clinical self-awareness sets the tone: the protagonist is neither a hysteric nor a villainess but a woman who has reached a cold conclusion. The excerpt shows her observing the rapt faces of club members, applauding at the right moments, and thinking of her husband as a "heavy mass of flesh." Atherton uses the setting of a women's club—a progressive space discussing "the Woman's Law"—to frame Mrs. Balfame's act as a personal rebellion, not a crime of passion.

The Aftermath and a Witness

Later excerpts shift to the immediate aftermath of the murder. Mrs. Balfame is packing a suitcase while her friend Alys Crumley watches. The narration reveals that Mrs. Balfame empties a medicine bottle into the drain, and Alys, seeing this in a mirror, becomes convinced of her guilt. The scene is notable for its focus on practical details: the protagonist is "one of those highly efficient women of the home that rise automatically to every emergency." She instructs her daughter to wear black and a veil to avoid photographers. Atherton builds tension through small actions—rinsing a bottle, pinning a veil—rather than dramatic confessions. The reader, like Alys, must infer guilt from gestures, not words.

Public Composure Under Scrutiny

In a later chapter, Mrs. Balfame is transported to jail, pursued by reporters and photographers. She walks past them "holding her clenched hands under her veil, but to all appearance composed and indifferent." The narrator notes that "the sob-sisters were enthusiastic, and the men admired and disliked her more than ever." This passage highlights the public performance of innocence: Mrs. Balfame's composure is itself a statement. The warden and his wife move out of their quarters for her, treating her as a celebrity. Atherton uses the press and legal system as a backdrop, but the focus remains on the protagonist's controlled exterior. The reader is left to wonder whether her calm is the mark of a guilty woman or a strong one.

Voice and Narrative Distance

Atherton employs a third-person narrator who moves between Mrs. Balfame's thoughts and external observation. The opening chapter uses free indirect discourse: "she permitted herself to wonder if the idea had not burrowed in her subconscious mind." This technique gives access to the protagonist's reasoning while maintaining a critical distance. Later, the narrator describes Alys's suspicion without endorsing it, leaving the question of guilt open. The prose is precise and unadorned, favoring concrete details over emotional excess. The novel's structure—beginning with intention, then showing the aftermath—suggests that the story is less about solving a crime than about inhabiting a mind that has already crossed a line.

Readers approaching Mrs. Balfame should attend to the gap between what the protagonist says and what she does, and to the narrator's refusal to judge her outright. The excerpts offer a portrait of a woman who is both ordinary and extraordinary in her resolve. The novel rewards attention to small gestures—a glance in a mirror, the rinsing of a bottle—that carry more weight than any confession.

That rainy afternoon, Mrs. Balfame stayed with me—her quiet composure under suspicion felt eerily familiar. Later, browsing aimlessly, I stumbled upon A Case in Camera — Story, Setting & Ideas. It had the same unhurried dread, the same sense that someone’s polite exterior hides a decisive, cold interior. I didn’t plan the connection; the books simply found each other on my shelf, like old acquaintances nodding in passing.