Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine

A book review

In Lady of Hay, a psychology professor's 1970 experiment with hypnotic past-life regression almost proves fatal to his subject; he instructs her to forget about it. Fifteen years later, Joanna, a successful London freelance journalist, proposes a skeptical article about hypnotic regression, telling her editor, "The world authority on the subject ... tried to put me under--and failed.... The whole thing is rubbish." Her ex-boyfriend knows better, but she ignores his warnings. When she interviews a psychologist who demonstrates his technique on her, she recalls a life as Matilda de Braose, the Lady of Hay.

Matilda was a real woman. King John imprisoned and starved her to death in 1210 after goading her husband into rebellion. Her fate led to a clause in the Magna Carta five years later forbidding the king to imprison people without legal authorization. Noted for her beauty, Matilda was also courageous (holding off an attack by Welsh forces while her husband was away) and outspoken to the point of indiscretion.

Despite fictional embroidering making Matilda the focus of three men's passions, the medieval setting offers a solid portrayal of King John's England, and an exceptionally vivid one. Readers experience Matilda's story through the twentieth-century character of Joanna, and Matilda remains sympathetic even when she violates modern cultural norms. Written a quarter-century ago, Lady of Hay will also remind readers of the progress women have made between then and now; few women in any Western culture today would put up with the patronizing men in Joanna's life.

As a spooky, quasi-supernatural thriller, the novel should not be taken as a realistic introduction to past-life regression therapy. Every professional who regresses Joanna behaves unprofessionally in one way or another, and the risks of hypnotic regression are exaggerated. For Joanna and the men attracted to her because of their past identities, past-life memories unleash violent emotions which push some of them to the brink of insanity. Matilda's story ends tragically; suspense mounts as Joanna's story threatens to echo hers. (1986, new Sourcebooks edition 2010; 575 pages, including a Historical Note and a list of significant dates)