'The Sinner'

Downloaded and rushed through Petra Hammesfahr's 'The Sinner' (first published in German in 1999, and translated by John Brown in 2017) before I binge-watched the adaptation on Netflix (only eight episodes lah). Yeah, I checked out its playlist on Spotify too. Big Black Delta's 2014 'Huggin & Kissin' is such a surprise hit as that trigger song.

This is the story of Cora Tannetti (in the book, she is Cora Bender), a seemingly normal housewife who uses her fruit knife to stab an apparent stranger to death at the beach in full view of everyone else. She doesn't deny it, but doesn't know why she did it. An unreliable narrator, lies upon lies upon truths upon false memories. There we go, a deeper story within. A song seems to set her off into a downward emotional spiral. Google will tell you all there is to know.

I enjoyed both the book and the miniseries, equally. Although I feel that the book contains a lot more details, naturally, and it's a lot darker, including what we know about Cora's mean parents and how they treated Cora and her sickly sister Phoebe. There's youthful explorations of the forbidden, fanatical religious asceticism, and the hint of incest, drugs, a kidnap and abuse. It isn't the type of fiction one would read for fun. It's painful and horrifying. Cora's son isn't named in the book, for a very good reason, he's just 'the boy'. But in the miniseries, he has a name, Laine. Cora's wimpy husband of three years is named Gereon in the book. The Netflix miniseries gave Cora's husband, named Mason Tannetti, and Detective Harry Ambrose (in the book, he's Police Commissioner Rudolf Grovian) a bigger role than the book did.

There was a hole in her life. She knew it concealed some dark, squalid episode, but her memory of it was missing. Until a few years ago she'd fallen into that hole innumerable times, night after night. The last occasion had been four years ago, before she met Gereon, and she had somehow managed to close it. She had never expected to fall into it again since her marriage to him. And then, on Christmas Eve of all nights, it had happened. 

The Netflix adaptation took liberties with the story and characters, of course. I didn't mind it. There's a hint of Season 2, by making the flawed Detective Harry Ambrose taking another case. Dunno if that would work, or even if Netflix will bring Cora back. I really think it's better as a one-off Netflix original miniseries. The actors are excellent. Bill Pullman (as Detective Harry Ambrose) and Dohn Norwood (as Detective Dan Leroy) share convincing chemistry as partners. I've forgotten that Jessica Biel is a pretty decent actress. She brought Nora Bender to life.