‘The Yorkshire Ripper haunted our childhood,’ says Jennie Godfrey, who was 10 years old and living in West Yorkshire when Peter Sutcliffe was finally captured, after murdering 13 women in the north of England between 1975 and 1980. ‘Kids even played “Ripper chase” in my school playground, which was a take on "kiss chase".'
In a further twist, it turned out that Godfrey’s father knew and worked with Sutcliffe. In The List of Suspicious Things, Godfrey’s brilliant debut novel, she revisits this time through the eyes of 12-year-old Miv, a whip-smart tween who loves Enid Blyton.
Set in 1970s Yorkshire at the time of the Ripper murders, Miv and her best friend Sharon decide to set about finding out who he is after the police announce that the killer must be “somebody’s husband, somebody’s son.”
‘The women in my community must have felt those words as they looked around at their husbands, their fathers, their neighbours, and their brothers,’ Godfrey tells Grazia. ‘The impact on communities and families was immense. Women became fearful of men as a consequence of themurders, and we lost our trust in the world and its safety.’
As the character of Miv begins to take a closer look at the men in her community, she doesn’t find the Ripper, but she does find domestic abuse, at the time often dismissed by police as ‘just a domestic’, and men who make the young girls around them uncomfortable with their sinister gazes, or ‘friendly’ tickling.
‘In the case of the Ripper, all eyes were trained on this scary monster who was “other” and outside of us,’ says Godfrey. ‘But one of the points of thebook is that there are scary things going on in our towns and communities every day that don't get the attention they deserve; domestic violence, paedophilia, and racism. The town I grew up in, like all towns, contained the good and the bad of humanity.’
The subject of racism and immigration, which is a powerful theme in thebook, takes on a new meaning when you read the book in the light of this summer’s Southport riots, making you question how far we’ve actually come as a society since the 1970s. ‘I wrote the book in 2020, before theriots, and some of the earliest readers of the book commented on how awful racism was back then, and how great it is that things have improved,’ says Godfrey. ‘But I’m not sure we’ve come quite as far as we think. Hate is born in communities.’
At its heart however, the book is a coming-of-age story about the friendship between Miv and her more sophisticated friend Sharon, and that awkward and at times painful time in your life when you’re on the cusp of adulthood and all the uncertainty it entails.
On the day the Ripper finally was caught, Godfrey – like her main character Miv – remembers watching the news with her father, who quietly told his family he knew him. ‘It was one of the most clear memories of my childhood,’ she says. ‘My dad kept saying, over and over, “But he’s so quiet, he’s so shy. Why didn’t we spot the signs?” We were all looking for this monster, and it was this unassuming man my father had worked with for some time. He was hiding in plain sight all along.’
In later life, Godfrey’s father became a chaplain in high security prisons, working with murderers like Fred and Rose West, and Ian Huntley, something Godfrey thinks was his way of dealing with the appalling crimes that happened in his hometown. 'Perhaps he was trying to make sense of something that doesn’t, or shouldn’t, make sense.’
By Jennie Godfrey
A coming-of-age tale in a time of fear.
Grazia Book Club gives its verdict...
‘This beautifully portrays the quest of Miv who is intent on tracking down the identity of the Yorkshire Ripper by drawing up lists of people and situations. A coming-of-age story with racial divide and misogyny powerfully fed into the story.’ Tina
‘One of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. The plot is intricate, with a heartfelt story about childhood innocence and friendship, set amid a backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Thoroughly engaging, vivid and poignant.’ Michaela
‘A gorgeous coming-of-age story set during an unsettling time in English history. It's raw and it's beautifully written – an absolute must-read.’ Chloe