Book review: The Sweet Far Thing

Faye L. Booth reviews The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray, published in hardback by Delacorte Press

Everyone has at least one ‘escapist’ book; one that allows them to lose themselves in a fantasy and perhaps return to a younger, less worldly age. For many people nowadays, the Harry Potter series provides that opportunity. For me, one such author is Libba Bray.

The Sweet Far Thing is the final instalment in Ms Bray’s historical fantasy trilogy for young adults, starring Gemma Doyle, Victorian teenager and hereditary sorceress. For those who are new to the trilogy, a quick précis – the series opens with Gemma living with her mother in India in the days of the British Empire. After her mother’s violent death, during which Gemma experiences the first of many unsettling visions, Gemma is returned to England to attend finishing school at the Spence Academy for Young Ladies, where she meets and befriends the beautiful, romantically-minded Pippa, headstrong admiral’s daughter Felicity and shy working class orphan Ann, who is attending the Academy on a scholarship in order to be trained as a governess for the children of her wealthy cousins. As well as dealing with the usual nightmarish politics of teenage girls and the lessons designed to shape them into future wives and mothers of the Empire, the four are drawn, via Gemma’s developing abilities, into the magical world of the Realms, and the lethal struggle for power dominating them.

By the time The Sweet Far Thing begins, Gemma’s class are in their final year at Spence. Gemma and Felicity are soon to have their season in London and be presented at court before Queen Victoria, while Ann will be despatched to a life of servitude, her natural talent for singing neglected. In the Realms, the race is on to destroy Gemma and seize her power, while Gemma’s ongoing attraction to Kartik, a former member of the magical brotherhood the Rakshana, is developing all the more strongly. In this final climactic episode of the trilogy, written in the classic five-act format of the tragedy, characters will be killed; begin relationships; ‘come out’; take charge of their destinies. Perceptions of good and evil will be challenged, and futures decided for the young women whose fates initially appeared so set in stone. For the readers who have been with Gemma et al since the first book, The Sweet Far Thing is likely to be an affecting read, especially towards the end, as the losses and gains of the battle for the Realms mount up.

I found myself smiling at quite a few scenes, particularly those in which the teenage protagonists’ characters are explored. Bray’s talent for creating likeably flawed personalities is clear, and the younger characters in particular are in most ways very believable. They do not conform to the ‘frigid Victorian’ stereotype held by many people nowadays, nor are they wise and responsible beyond their years; indeed, Gemma frequently makes errors of judgement the sort of which one would expect from a young girl still coming to terms with life, both in and outside of the magical Realms.

Her relationship with Kartik is not presented as the be-all-and-end-all of her existence, and while the ending of the story is far from ‘happily ever after’, there remains a strong sense of hope and possibility for the futures of the girls at the centre of the tale. I was especially pleased to see my favourite character from the entire series redeemed at least to a degree, as I considered her to be the best role model in the trilogy (still do, actually), and was somewhat perturbed by her being demonised in the second book.

As with the novel’s two predecessors, there were a few minor factors that made me wince a little, such as the strong liberalism frequently displayed by Gemma, which seems a touch anachronistic for a 19th Century girl with her relatively privileged background. In particular, the corset as a metaphor for the restrictive gender roles of the time is perhaps a little overused, as are the regular complaints about wearing the garment made by the girls: to the vast majority of Victorian women who could afford corsetry, the idea of going without would be as popular as the idea of going braless would be today – a tiny minority might well have done, but they would indeed be the minority.

Also, a ‘respectable’ institution like Spence kitting its charges out in bloomers for an afternoon’s cycling would almost certainly lead to complaints from horrified parents, too, as in the early 1890s such garments would still generally be viewed as unsuitable attire for a young woman, particularly among the relatively conservative upper classes who send their daughters to Spence. The phonetic spelling used for the speech of working class characters felt a little uncomfortable (“Wot’re you luvbirds whisp’rin ‘bout?”), although not without precedent, being a technique employed by Dickens and Hardy among others, and the portrayal of the character who comes out to her friends as a “Sapphist” occasionally veers predictably towards the classic ‘butch’ stereotype.

All the same, the book is a pleasurable and entertaining read, both for adults and for its target audience, many of whom may just be getting into historical fiction. Buy the trilogy for the bookish teenager in your life…or just read it yourself, of course.

Faye L. Booth is the author of Cover the Mirrors

THE GEMMA DOYLE TRILOGY
Book One – A Great and Terrible Beauty
Book Two – Rebel Angels
Book Three – The Sweet Far Thing

Book review: Cover the Mirrors

Laura Wilkinson reviews Cover the Mirrors by Faye L. Booth, published in hardback by Macmillan New Writing, £14.99

Faye L. Booth’s MySpace carries a wonderful quote, and axiom, by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: “Well-behaved women rarely make history.” Molly Pinner, heroine of Booth’s debut novel, Cover the Mirrors, is certainly not a well-behaved woman, and she is a genuine player (in more than one sense of the word) in Booth’s fictional world.

Cover the Mirrors is Molly’s tale of rags to riches, loss and love, ignorance to enlightenment, and, ultimately, to fulfilment. Set in mid 19th Century Preston, when spiritualism was at the height of its popularity, the book opens with a fifteen year old Molly learning her sick maiden aunt’s craft as a spirit medium. After Aunt Florrie’s death, Molly inherits the thriving business and to the wealthy and bereaved of the town she proves herself to be a gifted communicator with the dead.

And while Molly clearly enjoys her work and is a shrewd entrepreneur the truth is that, like most teenagers, she is much more interested in the living, those made of flesh and blood, and testosterone. A dalliance with a local businessman, William Hamilton, leads to an unwanted pregnancy and an arguably even less attractive proposition: marriage. Molly understands that once married she will no longer be her own woman, her home and business will belong to her husband, and she is desperate to remain in control, despite her strong feelings for William. The crux of the novel lies in how this canny young woman negotiates this emotional minefield. There are other surprises in store but to expand on these would reveal too much – suffice to say that Molly encounters spectres of an altogether earthlier form that those she conjures for the delight of her paying customers.

Booth knows how to weave a compelling yarn, and is adroit at establishing convincing period atmosphere without letting it stand in the way of plot and character development. The story trips along nicely. Preston, in its industrial heyday, with its beautiful squares and grimy slums, rich and poor, is a perfect backdrop and Booth’s love for her home town shines through the prose, as does her fascination with the period. Booth’s research is meticulous, she transports you entirely, engaging all the senses - one can feel, hear, smell and see her world. There’s everything one could expect from a bodice-ripper: sex, romance, and intrigue. Wretched mill workers and handsome serving boys rub shoulders with wealthy socialites and dashing gents, and if this sounds standard historical fare then don’t be mislead. The writing is beautiful.

Molly is an impressive and all too rare creation in historical fiction - a real woman, neither sinner nor saint, she is flawed and affable. Lusty, busty and strong-willed she is a woman I could almost imagine being mates with, albeit one who wears petticoats and carries a reticule rather than skinny jeans and a tote. And the 'almost' is important. While Molly faces dilemmas that young women face today, she is very much of her time, and this is credit to Booth’s skill as a writer. Molly is not a 21st century girl trussed up in a corset, she is of her time. And this is true of the supporting characters.

As you would expect Cover the Mirrors displays traits of the debut novel, and there are a few nits to pick, though I’m not going to do that here. This is an accomplished book from a young author – Booth is 27 – go read it yourself. I’m looking forward to her next creation.

Feature: Self-Publishing

Publishing the DIY Way by Jacquelynn Luben

Self publishing attracts much of the same disdain as ‘vanity publishing’, yet, a number of esteemed authors have published their own work. These days, when publishers are generally huge conglomerates with their eyes on the bottom line, many good writers are unable to place their books and end up taking the self-publishing route.
In 1992, before it became usual and acceptable, I did it on my own; I became a self-publisher, in order to bring out my previously rejected book. To write for its own sake was not enough for me. I wanted to be read and heard.

I knew all about vanity publishers from writing groups, and had even interviewed one for a Radio Four programme, Punters, so I avoided them. I had a personal reason for self-publishing. My book, The Fruit of the Tree, is the story of the birth and death of my baby daughter, my second child, born after two miscarriages. When, after the birth of my second daughter, I had recovered from my grief, I wanted to share the knowledge I had gained from my experience, not just with other bereaved parents, but with others who had no knowledge of tragic premature death. Having a few short articles published only fuelled my desire to write a more detailed account of my bereavement and subsequent happiness.

The Fruit of the Tree was written over three years, and was completed seven years after my daughter’s death. Then, in the next ten years, it was sent to several publishers, retained by them for a few months and then returned. Once, I was told it would be ‘a difficult book to sell’. I didn’t understand why.

I was in touch with the support organisation dealing with cot death, and my manuscript was shown to a publisher who wanted to bring out a self help book. My autobiographical account was not what they were looking for, but they liked what they read and asked me to write their book. Cot Deaths - Coping with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome was published by Thorsons in 1986, and brought out in a new edition by Bedford Square Press in 1990.
With a track record, I thought it would be easier to find a publisher for The Fruit of the Tree, but I was wrong. I rejoined a writing group and started writing fiction, but still the book claimed my attention. I decided I would publish it in 1996, the 21st anniversary of my daughter’s death.

Having read Peter Finch’s practical but humorous book, How to Publish Yourself, I obtained quotes from printers. £3,000/£4,000 seemed to be the norm for about 1,500 copies of a perfect bound paperback of 60,000 words with full coloured cover. It was beyond my price range.

Then, in Writers’ News, I read about Anne Kritzinger, a ‘short-run’ printer with modern equipment. I met her and gave her my manuscript with an order. She scanned it into her computer and produced 300 copies at around £1,300. I followed this up with additional orders later. My publishing name was Nelson Houtman - the maiden names of my mother and my Dutch grandmother. I liked the mix of Europe and traditional England - shades of Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Interestingly, booksellers sometimes react as if the name is familiar to them.

I avoided the cost of an expensive cover by choosing a black and white photo on a plain green background (regarded as a two colour cover - black plus one colour on white card). This may have been a false economy, as a good cover is essential, and much later, I changed printers and had a new cover.Printing is the easiest part of publishing. Next, I sent out press releases and flyers to magazines and radio stations, a tedious task, which nevertheless brought about some articles and radio broadcasts. I mailed the main ‘charter’ bookshops, as well as libraries.

I had learned much from having a book published. Thorsons had distributed approximately 300 review copies, while Bedford Square had only sent out about 60, first offering a press release. My attitude was always one of caution, and I opted for Bedford Square Press’s approach.

The death of a child is an emotive subject. Many people who have experienced such a death want to know how other similarly bereaved people feel, and need ammunition to counter the expectations of others. I felt that bereaved people would be helped by reading of my experience, in either of my two books. However, I also believed that, with its background of other more light-hearted events, The Fruit of the Tree was a book that could be read by anyone. I hoped too, that professionals in the medical field would gain insight from reading such a detailed first hand experience. However, gradually, I became aware of the difficulty of trying to interest a diverse audience in such a book, and I began to understand the conventional publisher’s dilemma. No review of my book has convinced me that I was wrong to believe in it, but from a financial point of view, I could see that it was not a commercial proposition.

The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths, though they mentioned the book in their newsletter, did not regard it as a self help book, so were not prepared to sell it, irrespective of any discount that I might give them. Some medical publications failed to review it for the same reason. On the other hand, to persuade people not connected with cot death to read it was equally difficult. They shied away from the idea of the death of a child, and imagined that they were going to find it extremely grim. Those that steeled themselves to read it, were full of praise and surprise. They often used the word ‘enjoyed’, and then apologised, though I welcomed this praise. I had not intended to write a dismal catalogue of tragedy, and had deliberately included many funny and silly episodes. Life, after all, is made up of a cocktail of all these things.

Selling is not easy. Even those people who were most interested, were more likely to loan the book to a friend than recommend it. I sometimes reminded people, who weren’t going to buy it, to get the book from the public library, where, at least, there was the possibility of benefit from Public Lending Right. My efforts at obtaining publicity triggered off some unsolicited orders, but, after that, I turned to selling through other ways.

I started with local bookshops and extended to telephone sales country wide, including many independent book shops, offering Firm Sale where I could. Waterstone’s were helpful, and, at that time, each store made its own purchasing decisions. W.H. Smith, however, decided not to stock copies, which was probably just as well. They order on Sale or Return, and when sales start dropping off, return the balance. This is very difficult for the self publisher to weather.

In total, I sold around 1,000 copies of my book, but, eventually, I needed to get back to writing rather than selling. However, I enjoyed being a publisher and have returned to it again, now as a Director of Goldenford Publishers. I did not make a profit on my efforts, but I got The Fruit of the Tree out to an audience that would appreciate it, and in doing so fulfilled the ambition of many years.

hagsharlotsheroines.com will be reviewing The Fruit of the Tree later this year.

Book review: A Mighty Heart

Marian Jane Williams reviews A Mighty Heart: The brave life and death of my husband Daniel Pearl by Mariane Pearl published by Virago, £10.99

Although I knew from the outset that Daniel Pearl was murdered, this did not detract in any way from the tension and empathy I felt towards Mariane Pearl as she travels through a time of utter horror in her life – the kidnap, search for and death of her husband. Mariane faced what many families and friends have faced – the knowledge that a loved one is in mortal danger, held by fanatics, and utter bewilderment as to why.

Daniel Pearl was an international journalist who passionately believed in unearthing the truth, believing that doing so would make for a more informed public and, therefore, a better world. He was the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal and was in Karachi, Pakistan with Mariane at the time of his kidnap, staying with his friend and colleague Asra – an Indian born Muslim woman who was raised in West Virginia and who became Mariane’s closest friend and invaluable support through the subsequent trials. Shortly after arriving in Pakistan, Danny leaves to meet a contact one day and never returns.

Mariane Pearl writes with extraordinary, cool clarity of the ensuing days and nights which followed his disappearance. With the organisational skills of her friend Asra they searched for the reasons why he was singled out for kidnapping; why he was in Karachi; what his views on international journalism were and which of his contacts and fixers were involved. The search involved asking every question and following every clue into the labyrinth that is the world of fanaticism and terror. Among those whom the women enlisted in the search were the Pakistani police, Pakistani Intelligence, the FBI, the world media and her husband’s employers and friends.

At times the sheer numbers of people involved in the search or possibly involved in the kidnap, make for quite complicated reading. Trying to absorb and remember the different names and where they fit into the puzzle can be distracting, but this is a compelling story told with candour and a heart-wrenching emotional honesty.

Mariane is herself a remarkable journalist and she writes a very personal and moving tribute to the man she loves. Although her situation was horrifying, frightening and extremely emotional, her journalistic skills coupled with her own unbelievable determination, the iron grip on her emotions, and her constant hope, provide a fascinating and deeply felt account of that time in her life. Here is an admirable woman who, with a handful of equally determined and compassionate helpers, is a shining example of the power of the human spirit to transcend horror. Her love for her husband, her determination to use all in her power to rescue him and find answers to the many questions surrounding his disappearance and above all, the closeness of spirit and mutual strength which obviously existed between the two of them is the beating heart of this remarkable tale.

Book review: The Post-birthday World

Katie Allen reviews The Post-birthday World by Lionel Shriver, published by HarperCollins, £11.99

There comes a moment in many people’s lives when the safe contentment of a long-term relationship is challenged and disrupted by the temptation of someone else. Whether to act on it or not is a hoary topic that has been batted back and forth across countless agony aunt pages and glasses of pinot grigio, but it is one that Lionel Shriver has brought freshly to life in The Post-birthday World.

The birthday in question is that of Ramsay Acton, snooker star, and it is celebrated every year with his wife Jude and her friend Irina and partner Lawrence. The novel is told from Irina’s point of view. One year, after Jude and Ramsay have separated, Lawrence is detained by business and Irina and Ramsay mark his birthday alone. At the end of the evening, they are tempted to kiss, and the novel explores, Sliding Doors-style, the two possible outcomes. In one, Irina and Ramsay kiss and a passionate affair begins – in the other, they resist, and Irina returns to Lawrence. The twin plots continue in simultaneous chapters that become increasingly intertwined as Shriver plays with the concepts of fate and inevitability.

The split chapters take some getting used to, but it is an intriguing device that grows ever more complex. Not only are entire scenes, such as the climactic snooker tournament, enacted twice, but motifs and fragments of prose appear in both storylines – in one, Irina has left Lawrence and he runs after her, fretting about her inadequate jacket, in the next chapter, they are uneasily still together, and it is she who runs after him with a better coat. The same phrase chimes in each chapter: “You’re not dressed for this!”.

These details are what make Irina and Lawrence’s dilemma so claustrophically convincing: real relationships are not performed on windswept moors, but bump against squabbles about the TV remote and how one of you likes the toast. It is the storyline of the affair I found less believable, simply because Ramsay, until a few twists in the denouement, seemed to me a facsimile of a character, the stereotypical un-literate but sexy bit of rough. Shriver seems to have hit a false note with his dialect, which admittedly he has adopted as a middle-class boy turned Cockney geezer snooker player, but off-puttingly it makes any conversations sound like Irina is having a heart-to-heart with Dick van Dyke: “I won’t be treated like a bauble by a bird who’s snug as a bug with another bloke” and even “I watch buff birds strut the pavement, first thing goes through my head ain’t ‘Blimey, love a bit o’ that, ‘ey!’”!

Lawrence himself is something of a stereotype too: middle class, intellectual, emotionally inept, sexually uptight and bossily unappealing: “Irina wasn’t accustomed to talking so much. Early in that speech Lawrence would have interrupted that she had made her point, so enough already.”

Perhaps Shriver’s point, as she summarises so succinctly in the prefacing quote, is: “Nobody’s perfect”. Neither man is 100% right for Irina, and as she puts it: “whichever a woman ends up with, she’ll wonder if she wouldn’t rather have the other”. This novel explores that ‘wondering’, the way choice and risk can change a life, and also whether some things are just inevitable. It is also an intricate investigation into the English class system, aging, sexuality and the whole structure of marriage.

The Post-birthday World is much too long and verbose at 600 pages, and needs a severe amount of editing. Also Irina is so buffeted by passion and panic in one relationship, and by an increasing sense of unease in the other, that her character is often subsumed by her circumstances.

However the central conceit is an interesting way of dealing with a situation that has occupied mankind since Eve and the apple, and it struck sharply with me.

Creative Writing Workshops - London, UK

Katherine May, hagsharlotsheroines member and author of Ghosts and their Uses -
www.ghostsandtheiruses.com - is running a workshop for the National Gallery on 6th and 20th October, which looks like fun if anyone wants to come along:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/what/events/oct/0610_retellings.htm

The subject is 'retellings' - using paintings from the gallery's collections to retell stories - some famous, some personal.

Book review: Reading like a Writer

Sarah Tanburn reviews Reading like a Writer, by Francine Prose, published by Harper Perennial (£7.19 on Amazon)

Living on a boat every book you keep has to work its passage. Like any avid reader or writer, I always want to keep every book that might be useful one day, that captured my imagination or had something to teach me.

It is with great relief then, that I am giving away nearly all the how-to-manuals, the guides to structure, plot, characterisation, even dialogue. I plan to keep only two, just two, great books which contain so much wisdom on the challenge of the page.


The Paris Review Interviews Vol 1 (Canongate, 2006, £10.49 on Amazon), collects sixteen of its extraordinary discussions with great writers. Worth it just for Rebecca West's acerbic judgements on her fellows, Billy Wilder's pragmatic assessment of a writer's place and Borges' sly humour, this is inimitable guidance by the greats on keeping on writing - one sentence, one word at a time. They don't all agree with each other of course, but that's part of the fun. One of my favourites is Hemmingway, grumpy but always seeking to say exactly what he means; he contradicts the writing group mantra to 'write what you know', when he likens the work of writing to an iceberg: “Anything you know you can eliminate, and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show … [of 'The Old Man and the Sea'] I've seen the marlin mate and know about that. So I leave that out…”.

The other 'how-to' book that's staying on board is Francine Prose's wonderful meditation on learning from great writing. She is a journalist, novelist, teacher and avid reader. Her argument is that we read, if we read at all, too fast, without sufficient attention to language; she wants us to, “read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision the writer ha[s] made. “
That remark alone has made me a more thoughtful writer, more aware of the specifics of punctuation and word choice.

She takes us with her through a series of essays on words, sentences, paragraphs, the fundamental building blocks. From these she talks of narration and character, dialogue, details and gesture. On each of these topics she gives a wealth of examples, and a clear-eyed course in taking your own writing and the writing of others more seriously than you had believed possible. There are so many examples, but one can spend valuable time pondering her comment that, “one mark of bad written dialogue is that it only doing one thing, at most, at a time.”

Or consider her ode to sentences: “beauty in a sentence, is ultimately as difficult to quantify or describe as beauty in a painting or a human face …if you are even thinking in these terms – that is, if you are even considering what might constitute strong, vigorous, energetic and clear sentences – you are already far in advance of wherever you were before you were conscious of the sentence as something deserving our deep respect and enraptured attention.”

I was once told in a writing class that the paragraph was the smallest unit of writing that should be considered during revision. I'd always struggled with this, as someone who agonises over each comma and conjunction, so I found Prose's comment most satisfying.

Prose bases her approach on reading good writing. She repeatedly uses examples from Tolstoy, Chekhov, Hemmingway, Woolf. She is not condescending or arrogant about it; she does not assume we are all post-graduate literature students. Indeed, she explicitly hopes we aren't. But she argues that there is always something to learn as a writer from reading the greats.

“The advantage of reading widely, as opposed to trying to formulate a series of general rules, is that we learn there are no general rules, only individual examples to help point you in the direction in which you might wish to go.”

Thus she cites party scenes from Tolstoy and Joyce to show how to handle such multi-character dialogue. Woolf's opening sentence in her essay 'On Being Ill' is deconstructed with love and attention to point the way lucidity, wit and grace. She makes the excellent point that being influenced by writers such as this is no bad thing. I would not complain if I was writing like Salinger or Hemmingway, Woolf or Rebecca West.

There is great charity and humility in Prose's approach. She devotes a chapter to reading Chekhov's short stories, describing how each time she thought she had given her class a clear piece of advice, she would find a story that contradicted her. Her last chapter 'Reading for Courage' takes us into broader territory, talking about the value of art (a book being the only piece of art you can take on the bus, she reminds us). She cites Babel, shot by Stalin for writing, and reminds that “Art implies a kind of freedom, the freedom of choice, of possibility, of the individual imagination.”

This is quite a challenge, to feel that our own efforts to write, our own lives as readers require us to engage with such matters. Again, I found it moving and inspiring, to be reminded why some books are better than others, what tools will help bolster my own judgement, and how that can feed my own writing and editing.

The book closes with a reading list. It's a little daunting, as I find I've only read half of them and feel motivated to re-read the old friends, closely, one word at a time. I'm pleased to say that quite a few of those that I have read have survived to be kept on the boat, such as Moby Dick, Anna Karenina and Pride and Prejudice. As for the rest, well there's all the space created by giving away the other writing manuals. That'll do nicely.

A Day in the Life

... of Meg Cabot.

Typical of a full-time writing life? Those of us with 9-5 jobs need to know.

AnyBody Zine

AnyBody is looking for contributions to its new zine - see their website for more details.

AnyBody is "a website giving women a voice to challenge the limited physical representation of females in contemporary society" (homepage, accessed 5 June 2007)