1. Guest v. Finbow: Day One GUEST V. FINBOW: DAY ONE
Watch her, Anna Finbow, as she approaches the Royal Courts of Justice in a glossy Land Cruiser. The windows are dark, so it’s not immediately clear who is inside yet, but the photographers sense that, finally, this must be her. Abruptly, they break out of their conversations, turn, and point their lenses, jostling for the right position to take her picture. The car door opens to the sound of cheers and some heckling. A woman in her fifties gazes out.

Pivoting on the leather seat, she raises her chin and slips carefully out of the car, pausing only when an assistant, someone new, passes her phone and a box-shaped handbag. She’s wearing her favorite square sunglasses, and her dark hair is blow-dried firmly in place like a helmet. When her lawyer approaches, Anna greets her with a kiss on each cheek. Together, they link arms.

You must know my old boss, Anna Finbow. Her smile will be familiar from Anna’s Advent, the festive cookery show—now in its tenth season—that runs throughout December. She will have smirked at you in print from the masthead of the lifestyle column that she pens in the weekend newspaper. Chances are, you’ll own one of Anna’s collectible ceramics somewhere, too. An eggcup, or perhaps even a cereal bowl, in one of her famous designs. Finbow Flora—a cottage-kitsch, filigree pattern of intersecting willow leaves and little daisies—which she glazed onto almost everything she made. Nauseatingly chintz, I always thought, but that’s what Anna’s brand represented. Her name was synonymous with a lost vision of Britain: rosebuds over the door, cricket on the village green, a huge kitchen filled with happy children. A myth, basically. A fiction that Anna’s bitter courtroom feud will soon expose.

There was a time when Anna wasn’t so sweet. She had hellcat years, back in the early nineties, when she was still with Albion. That was her band, which she joined as a singer when she was twenty-four years old and completely off her head. I would feel uneasy as a little girl when I saw her on my parents’ television—an impish, punky muse in flamboyant outfits and penciled-on beauty spots. Witty and outrageous; our nation’s cause for concern.

As I watch her approach the courthouse, I realize that has never changed. There never was a moment, during my brief employment, where I didn’t feel uneasy around Anna. That’s the effect of famous people on those like us. You’re not meant to feel at ease. In their enlightened view, there is always a “them” and always an “us.” Anna’s universe was binary: those who were with her and those who were against. It made her paranoid and suspicious of those whom she surrounded herself with.

Almost everyone. For a short while, she was willing—far too willing—to trust me.

Anna stops to interact with the well-wishers who have gathered along the Strand in the late-September sunlight. I am still awed to see her squeezing hands and signing old photographs, her smile dazzling and mendacious. In the months we worked together, Anna often complained about how this whole legal nightmare had aged her. During the long conference calls with her legal team, she’d drag a jade roller over her face in a panic, as if trying to seal some essence of youthful vitality back into herself. She needn’t have worried. Her beauty is resilient, baked into her heart-shaped face and the perfectly symmetrical features which often made me want to sculpt her.

Before long, Anna is bustled away from her fans. Leaving them without a backward glance, she ascends the small flight of steps leading up to the entrance of the courthouse. There, by the great doorway, Anna is joined by her husband, Bonamy. As he bounds up to her, my body stiffens with shame. He’s dressed smartly in a gray linen suit, and yet there’s always something elegantly scrappy about Bon’s appearance, like he’s been sketched with a pencil. He and his wife turn back around for one last photo. For a moment, it’s big waves and cautious, toothless smiles. Everything about their bearing suggests gratitude, then, beneath that: grim defiance. Above the sound of camera lenses closing, their fans call out, pledging love and wishing them luck. It is a surprise to catch myself saying it, too.

The couple turn, now encircled by police officers. Behind the railings, the crowd loosens; mobile phones are lowered, but I manage to keep sight of them. This is when I notice their hands. Bonamy and Anna are holding each other in the secret way I know they sometimes do. Not the usual palm-to-palm clasp; instead, they are linked by their fingertips, which curl around each other.

Abruptly, the scene ahead of me blurs with tears. I cling tightly to the railing in order to stay upright. This was the special way that Mary used to hold their hands, Anna once confessed, referring to their only daughter. When she was very little, it was the way Mary grasped them, how they all led each other through her early years. It was the family’s secret handshake. When Mary first disappeared, Bonamy and Anna regressed into this childish hand-holding all over again. Just one of many strangely comforting habits the couple fell into almost two years ago, when their dark ordeal first began.

When I first got a job in Anna’s household, she’d talk about Mary as if she were still just an infant asleep in the next room. She went on about how adorable her little girl was. How loved. She spoke of the embroidered Bonpoint dresses Mary wore, and the croquembouche they had delivered from Stohrer each year for her birthday. How Mary had delivered their wedding rings on roller skates, gliding down the church aisle to “Love Me Do,” before reciting a Yeats poem from memory. “Tread softly,” Mary had lisped, aged seven. “Because you tread on my dreams.” Every year at Anna and Bonamy’s wedding anniversary party, Mary would recite it again and bring the house down. I would smile patiently as Anna made me watch the old grainy videos on her phone, and say how much I wish I’d seen the real thing. I’d pretend I hadn’t noticed the strange language that my celebrity boss lapsed into—that instinctive way she talked about her daughter’s childhood, in the present tense.

I’m ashamed now, of how I indulged those nostalgic fantasies. When in reality, Mary is an adult and bitterly estranged from her mother. Their last interaction was almost two years ago and coincided with the same time Mary began seeing Jean Guest, a maverick new therapist. Welsh, mid-fifties, and unlicensed, this is the same woman who dares to sue Anna Finbow in court this week.

When Mary first vanished at the age of twenty-two, devastating letters were penned to those who loved her most. She explained how she would be cutting herself off, dedicating her life to Jean, and that the girl they once knew should be forgotten. But Anna would not forget. She went straight to the internet to tell the world what had happened, warning everyone about the wicked witch who carried her daughter away. Jean Guest quickly retaliated with a lawsuit claiming defamation. Anna countered that she was simply telling the truth. Mary had abandoned her mother and instead taken up her therapist’s cause.

I am dedicating my life to my healing now, Mary had written to her parents, in the brutally cold email she’d sent as she cut herself off. Do not try to find me.

The worst bit of that message, Anna later reflected, wasn’t their daughter’s tone—haunted and angry though it was. Nor was it the way Mary accused her parents of destroying her life and every chance of happiness. It was the fact that she addressed her parents by their Christian names. Anna claimed she was never Anna to Mary. She insisted on Mummy.

By the way, I no longer think of, or refer to, you as my mother and father, Mary wrote in her bitter postscript to the email. Because those are names you earn.

With the couple now inside, the crowds disperse. I pause for a sensible amount of time, then head for the law court steps, passing a group of protesters wielding placards and signs.

A thin man with bright blue eyes pushes a petition toward me, calling for regulation in the therapy industry. Another pamphlet calls out the reckless use of psychedelic drugs by unlicensed practitioners posing as healers. The Finbows have paid these attendants, but still I take a leaflet, burying it deep into my rucksack, which is then taken from me and scanned for chemicals or explosives.

The atrium of the Royal Courts of Justice is vast and splendidly gothic, like some great hall of a fairy-tale castle. My voice shakes as I give my name at the reception, and then I receive directions to Courtroom Six. When I reach the upper gallery, it is chaos: Court reporters are vying for the best seats, and ushers patrol about, reminding us to sit down so that spaces can be filled. I manage to find one at the back so that my presence won’t be too obvious, but close enough to get a clear view over the dark wooden benches below.

There are only fifteen minutes to go before proceedings will begin, and the atmosphere is turning nervy and airless. An older woman next to me sighs and asks if I think the air-conditioning is malfunctioning. I shrug, but as our arms touch, I notice how cold and damp her skin is. Fanning the air, she admits she’s feeling faint. I rummage in my rucksack for my water bottle and offer it to her. I find it touching when she accepts.

“What’s your connection to all this?” I ask, quietly tucking the bottle away. I glance downward at the woman’s loafers and her expensive handbag, then back up at her lined face. Her brown eyes brim with pain.

“My daughter got involved with this woman, too. Five sessions a week at one point. She ruined her life.”

My voice catches in my throat. “I’m so sorry—”

She thanks me solemnly. “I used to fantasize so often about her facing justice. But the police never got enough evidence to criminalize her.”

My pulse rises. “What is your daughter’s name?”

The woman’s lips tighten. “Oriel.”

For a moment, we fall quiet, watching the remaining spectators take their seats.

“And you?” The woman’s gaze returns and flits over my cropped hair and the antique men’s watch I like to wear. I can feel her trying to get the measure of me. “What brings you to the show?”

There is a pause. I glance around me. “My name’s Augusta,” I say quietly, using my full name, in case any journalists overhear.

“Lucy Ayres.” She extends a small hand. “I take it you know the Finbows?”

“Just a friend of the family,” I say.

Somewhere in the court papers, I am referred to as Anna’s “aide,” but the truth is that I am much closer to her than that. For now, though, I don’t go there.

The woman smiles a faint approval, then straightens in her seat. In the courtroom beneath us, two groups of lawyers bustle in, wheeling suitcases of paperwork. The clock hands skip toward ten. The clerks ready their bundles of evidence. Any moment now, Justice Larkin will appear. Our sensational trial will soon unfold.

This reading group guide for IN HER DEFENSE includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

In Her Defense is a psychological suspense novel that follows the trial of television star and beloved celebrity Anna Finbow versus therapist Jean Guest, who Anna is accusing of brainwashing her daughter Mary into isolating herself from her family. Augusta “Gus” Bird, formerly hired by the Finbows as their dogsitter, appears to be an innocent bystander caught in the crosshairs of the trial. But as the trial unfolds, we discover just how far back Gus’s connection goes to both Mary and Jean Guest, and how her involvement is at the center of it all, taking us on a journey to Rome and the world of art school. And when Gus is finally called to the stand, she must decide whether or not to tell the true story.

Discussion Questions:

Introducing the reader to Anna Finbow, the narrator, Gus, says “there is always a ‘them’ and always an ‘us’” (p. 4). What does this tell us about how Gus sees herself in comparison to Anna? How do you, the reader, see yourself in comparison to Gus and Anna?

A big theme in the book is how we perceive people. How do you perceive Jean and how do you interpret her motives? Do you see her as “a modern-day cult leader”? Do you think she is just doing what she does for money, or do you think there’s a part of her that does want to help people?

Much of Gus’s pull towards Jean has to do with aesthetics; when she first meets Jean, she describes her “orange velvet house slippers” (p. 121) and her “beautiful living room” (p. 122) and how “in her immaculate presence, I felt instantly grubby” (p. 121). Why do you think Gus is so drawn in by these things? How does Jean use this to her advantage?

The author cleverly structures this story to hide Gus’s past with Mary and Jean in Rome in part 1. Why do you think she structures the novel in this way? How would the novel be different if we knew this information from the beginning?

Another big theme in this book is the idea of “owing debt.” Gus feels indebted to Jean because Jean is giving her therapy even though Gus can’t afford to pay for it. She also feels indebted to the Finbows for giving her a job and letting her into their home. How does class play into that? How does this impact Gus’s decisions?

On page 267, Anna calls Gus a “leech,” which seems to really stick with Gus. Discuss what it means to be a leech and why you think this had such an impact on Gus.

Art plays a big role in this novel; Mary, Gus, and Anna are all artists. What did you think is the importance of this?

On page 227, when Gus sees the portrait Mary painted of her, she hates the way she is depicted, saying “the shock of how wrong it was brought tears to my eyes.” But then, on page 325, when she sees it again, she sees it in a whole new way. Why do you think she sees it differently the second time?

At the end of part 4, when Gus is wondering how the sketch artist depicted her, she envisions herself as “[a] somebody. Whatever may be said of me, however I will be sketched, not a nobody” (p. 318). How do you think this captures Gus’s preoccupation with how she’s perceived? How is this different or the same as how she wants to be perceived in Mary’s portrait?

At the end of the trial, Gus is faced with the difficult decision of upholding her lie or telling the truth. Do you think she made the right decision? Do you think there was a right decision?

The truth behind the trial is complicated. Who do you think should have won the trial based on the evidence that is given? Who do you think should have won the trial based on everything you know?

What do you think of Lawrence’s ending? Do you think he got what he deserved? Why do you think the author decided to give his character this ending?

Consider the title of the novel In Her Defense. Who do you think this book is a case in defense of? Is it multiple people?

Trust is a central theme of the novel. In a novel story full of lies and half-truths, which characters do you trust, if any? How can you determine who can be trusted? Do you believe Gus’s version of events by the end?

Enhance Your Book Club:

Our culture is known to be obsessed with celebrity trials, like the one at the center of this novel. Choose a famous celebrity trial and look back at the articles or media made about it. How were they skewing your perception of the story? How do you think the trial in this book would have been portrayed in the media if it were happening in real life?

Watch a documentary or docuseries about a cult leader or con artist. What similarities do you see between this person and Jean Guest? How were people manipulated by this person? How is that similar to what was happening with Gus and Mary? Refer to the New Yorker article “What Makes a Cult a Cult” as a helpful resource to deepen your understanding of the definition of cult. Visit: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/12/what-makes-a-cult-a-cult

Choose someone in the book club to paint a portrait of. Don’t worry about artistic talent! What are the specific things you notice about the other person? Afterward, everyone can discuss the experience of drawing someone and of being drawn.

There seems to be a growing fear of children cutting off their parents, as evident from a recent New Yorker article “Why So Many People Are Going ‘No Contact’ With Their Parents”. Discuss what you make of this “phenomenon” and how it connects to the novel.

Visit: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/why-so-many-people-are-going-no-contact-with-their-parent