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In THE WHEEL SPINS (1936), a young woman’s train journey takes a sinister turn when a fellow passenger mysteriously disappears. This suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat novel by Ethel Lina White served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film The Lady Vanishes. The book is a stunner.

Special guest Alex Csurko joins us to discuss this classic novel. Check out the conversation starters below. Weigh in, and you might just get an on-air shoutout and a fab sticker!

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Hitchcock

Even reading the book by Ethel Lina White, it felt like it could be a Hitchcock film with the psychological tension and the way the scenes are painted. The New York Times ranked it the best picture of the year (1938).

Premonition/Foreboding (Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign)

The first paragraph introduces us to Iris. Every chapter, starting with chapter one, ends with a sense of foreboding.

• Safety vs. danger – Iris’ square on her palm
• Miss Froy is homesick, which she sees as a warning.
• The dangerous hike (being lost) was a warning.
• Rose’s dream of a railway smash.
• Iris passes out from sunstroke and barely makes the train.
• Miss Froy’s story about an Englishwoman locked in an asylum (friendless foreigner who didn’t speak the language)
• Mr. and Mrs. Froy feel apprehensive about their daughter’s safety.

Premonition plays a role throughout the book by Ethel Lina White. Is it just a psychological variable here? Is premonition real? Is it inescapable?

Stranger in a Strange Land

In The Wheel Turns by Ethel Lina White, Iris and her friends are staying in a village of “picturesque squalor in a remote corner of Europe,” filled with barbarous scenery, magnificent ruggedness, and desolate hollows. She doesn’t speak the language or understand the culture. She’s also an outsider amongst the British “decent, well-bred” guests. And when she passes out at the station from sunstroke, she awakes to foreign people and foreign voices.

Keep your eye on Crippen & Landru to see when the new Ethel Lina White collection drops!

A Legal Criticism

• As Iris waits at the train station, she overhears a disagreement between Hare and the professor. Hare says trial by jury is poor justice, people have inherent biases, people can’t control themselves from erroneous snap judgements, and even evidence isn’t reliable. He says everyone’s a “bag of his special prejudices” (50) and an unreliable witness.
• Iris rather takes Hare’s side, but then agrees with the professor’s side when she thinks about trusting the solid, dependable British woman over a foreign s

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