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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Bloody revolutions? The Last Summer & Birdcage Walk

5/3/2017

10 Comments

 
In literature, as in life, revolution often entails blood loss and drama. In these reviews we eavesdrop first on an assassination plot at the beginning of the Russian Revolution, while the second features an unexplained domestic death against the backdrop of the French Revolution.

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First published over a century ago, this epistolary novel of intrigue and political unrest does indeed seem bang up-to-date. The plot is deceptively simple: a young revolutionary moves in with a family at their country retreat with the intention of assassinating the patriarch. Each member of the family has initial doubts about the cuckoo in the nest and each manages to set them aside – apart from Katya, the studious youngest daughter, who sets herself aside by fleeing to her aunt in St Petersburg. Velya, the indolent son, admires the politics that contradict his father’s; Jessika, the other daughter, falls in love, not only with the man himself but with his modernising touch that persuades the father to buy a motorcar; Lusinya, the wife, is anxious he might be a sleepwalker but knows she shouldn’t pay too much attention to the opinions of a woman, especially if that woman is herself. For, as Lyu writes, in one of his letters to his accomplice, of a conversation involving the governor’s sister (p69):

Yegor should not bother her with political matters, from which, after all, women were excluded. Why should she form a judgement, the implications of which she could not put into practice? Particularly in society, discussions of political affairs ought to be forbidden, for they immediately turned even the cleverest man into a narrow-minded, bristly ass.

Entertaining and engrossing, with a clever twist at the end, The Last Summer doesn’t only open a window on a pivotal time in European social and political history, but can serve as a warning to all of us who think we can judge a person’s character on the basis of a short acquaintance. Thanks to Peirene Press for my review copy.

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Julia Fawkes is a remarkable woman: a radical political writer and feminist before the word was invented. Her daughter Lizzie, whose story this is, has been brought up with
a mind of her own; unfortunately she’s used it to marry a man as different from her mother’s set as words are from stone. John Diner Tredevant is a Bristol property developer who believes a woman’s place is in the home. A widower with no other family, he envies Lizzie’s other attachments and, as the French Revolution impacts socially and economically on Britain, and Diner’s beautiful houses fail to sell, he tightens his grip on what he can control. Lizzie struggles to rationalise his behaviour until she learns he’s lied about the burial place of his French wife. By then, unfortunately, with the creditors banging on the door she’s beyond the help of her former friends.
An afterword tells us that Helen Dunmore wanted to give a voice to history’s forgotten women. Julia Fawkes was renowned in late eighteenth century radical circles but none of her writings remain. This is also highlighted in the, to my mind unnecessary, Prelude in which a contemporary dog walker comes across Julia’s grave. There’s a second, more useful prologue, disguised as Chapter 1, in which an unnamed man buries woman’s body in a woodland glade, before we switch to Lizzie’s first person voice in the story proper.

Birdcage Walk is a drama of the parallels between public and private violence, of disillusionment, defiance and fear. It’s an important reminder of our foremothers’ fight for human rights and, in the character of a neglectful wet nurse,
cruelty to babies. While I enjoyed the Scarlet Pimpernel novels as a teenager, I don’t think I’ve ever read a fictionalised version of the impact of the French Revolution on neighbouring countries (apart from Jane Austen’s references to the Napoleonic Wars). Thanks to Hutchinson for my review copy.

It’s sheer coincidence that I chose to post these reviews few days before International Women’s Day. Last year and the year before, I used the occasion to run a poll on fictional heroines; this year, on March 8th, I’m reviewing a non-fiction book about testosterone myths. But, before that, I need a 99-word story for the compilation Charli’s posting on that day.

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These are the instructions: In 99 words (no more, no less) include slag in a story. Slag is a glass-like by-product of smelting or refining ore. Slag is also used in making glass or can result from melting glass. It can be industrious or artistic. Go where the prompt leads.

At any other time of the year it might have led me to the grassed-over heaps of slag from the former coal mines around where I live. But there’s a nastier use of the word in British slang that I can’t ignore. With a heavy heart, here’s my contribution:

The good girls

They spat that name as she shivered down the corridors, taunts that slapped her ears. They were the good girls with glossy hair and proper parents, while she was ….

It hurt the first time. And the second and the third. But he bought her stuff she needed, and drugs that made it hurt a little less. He promised to protect her. Until he didn’t.

Next time, she’d call the shots; the good girls could call her what they liked. After all, her body was built for pleasure; it was time she took some for herself.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
10 Comments
Sarah
5/3/2017 10:51:45 pm

It's clear why you liked the first book. They are both disturbing in their way but this one seems like it's threaded together nicely. The characters are interesting. I couldn't quite tell if you liked the second one. ?

The flash was difficult to read but well done. (I was wondering if someone would use that term in this way.)

Reply
Annecdotist
7/3/2017 02:23:41 pm

I did like the second one but it feels like a book that won’t really stay in my mind. However I’ve seen other bloggers raving about it.

Reply
Irene Waters link
6/3/2017 06:02:38 am

Lost my first reply. Hate it when it does that. You can never get those words back on the second time around. Interesting reviews. I enjoy social history and the second one particularly sounds as though it could be a book for me.
Like you, the other meaning of slag was foremost in my mind. Your understating worked perfectly and the meaning was loud and clear. Great flash.

Reply
Annecdotist
7/3/2017 02:21:28 pm

Oh sorry it did that to you, Irene. Most infuriating. I’m glad the meaning came over in the flash – I quite liked the idea of writing about the subject without mentioning the term. But I see you’ve gone a stage further and squeezed the double meaning into yours – very impressive.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
6/3/2017 09:53:30 am

Hi Anne, You do read interesting books. Great reviews as usual. Your flash is excellent. There's no mistaking her meaning, and I'm pleased she's taking control to ensure there's pleasure for herself. I think I was more familiar with use of the word as an insult. I guess there's not much more insulting than that. For some.

Reply
Annecdotist
7/3/2017 02:18:26 pm

Thanks, Norah, glad you enjoyed the reviews and flash.

Reply
Deborah Lee link
8/3/2017 04:01:08 am

I was wondering if someone else would go in this direction with the prompt! I like your take on it. This made me think. Also enjoyed your reviews. I adore good history-based fiction and these both sound like winners.

Reply
Annecdotist
8/3/2017 11:45:37 am

Thanks, Deborah, I hope you manage to give one of these novels – or both – a try.

Reply
Charli Mills
8/3/2017 05:27:25 am

How intriguing the first was written over a century ago, yet seems a relevant read. The second book is interesting to me, too as I think historical fiction is wide open for telling the stories about or from the view of forgotten women. Ah, slag. So intent on the chemical process and results I missed its other meaning! Masterful writing, Anne. First of all, it works effectively without use of the word, but its implication. and the point on pain -- it can take double meaning from physical pain or the emotional pain suffered from the isolation and taunts. Her point of strength might be something fearsome in the making.

Reply
Annecdotist
8/3/2017 11:44:29 am

Charli, I love that you are so wrapped up in your passion for the geology that you overlooked the other meaning – after all who wants to keep that nastiness in her head? And yes, I think my character’s awakening will be something to behold!

Reply



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