Immersive and convincing historical fiction: A Pearl for My Mistress by Annabel Fielding

 

Both Hester and Sophie are trying to escape. Hester dreams of travelling. She has left her family and her home, abandoning her working class vocabulary and Northern accent to become the perfect lady’s maid. Sophie longs for independence, to free herself from the rigid shackles of her aristocratic upbringing. In trying to escape, they find each other. But it’s 1934 in England, so can their relationship survive the threat of war, financial instability, and slander?

When I began this book I imagined it would be an easy read; your average romantic novel. How wrong I was. This book is so much more than a love story. Yes, the pace nips along nicely and the story is totally immersive, but the historical context adds great depth and intrigue, and the prose is beautiful, elegant, and expressive.

This book is not merely set against a backdrop of the 1930s, but is completely immersed in the time. Fielding’s writing is so evocative that it’s easy to imagine every last detail of life in 1930s England. A Pearl for My Mistress is clearly thoroughly researched, and the historical context is effortlessly intertwined with the plot. Fictional narrative merges with real-life events and characters, moving seamlessly from intricate details of high society life and working class drudgery to broader political themes. While the details are intricate and informed, they never overpower the story. The political climate of the era is profoundly complex, and so the book benefitted from a range of viewpoints. I imagine Lucy, given her support of the Blackshirts, is a somewhat divisive character, but her motivations are perfectly justified, even, at times, sympathetic.

My only gripes were very minor—the commitment to telling the story in the voice of both Hester and Lucy meant some immersion was lost when they were together and the reader had to jump between the two perspectives. I was sad, too, that Hester faded a little into the background towards the last third of the novel.

There’s so much to love about this book: the vividly described historical context, the convincingly flawed characters, the sensual, sentimental, and oh so relatable descriptions of love (which Fielding describes beautifully as like “velvet”). I also loved Fielding’s descriptions of writing and reading, and the power of words and legends to inspire and even control. Fielding’s passion for the era and for the writing process itself is infectious. This is no simple romance, but a story about misplaced trust, self-destructive behaviour, and how characters can survive and thrive against manipulation on a personal and political scale.

Favourite quotation: “Lucy Fitzmartin lay in the darkness, feeling absolutely no inclination to sleep. Her mind was ablaze with stories, with thoughts, with possibilities. She could feel the spectres of a thousand plots at her fingertips. Words flared up in her head, colliding and intertwining with one another, forming sentences and paragraphs of the stories yet to be written. Now she had someone to read them.”

Annabel Fielding, A Pearl for My Mistress (HQ Digital, 2017)

Thank you to Annabel Fielding and HQ Digital for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire by Brian Keaney

I loved the concept of this. Take one unexplained event from the life of a literary genius, add a splash of fact and a generous dose of fiction, and bake, until the resulting mix has increased in size and scope a hundred times over. The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire follows three disparate characters and their intertwining lives in early 19th-century London. Tuah, an ex-slave; Anne, a prostitute; and a young Thomas de Quincey. Weaving through the story, dealing out pleasure and pain in equal measure, is the ominous presence of opium.

I was really excited to read this, having been introduced to Thomas de Quincey’s work while at university. I haven’t read ‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’ (which inspired this novel), but I loved his morbid satirical essay ‘On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts’. In preparation for this I tried to look up my study notes, but all I could find was an elusive reference to it in an essay on the poetry of Browning. Disappointing for me now, but no doubt at the time I thought my passing reference was very witty and intellectual.

The narrative is told from the perspective of each of the three main characters. Each character has an individual, if slightly contrived, voice. Tuah’s speech is peppered with the Bible verses introduced to him by the ship captain who taught him to speak English. Anne’s speech is full of the grammatical idiosyncracies one might expect from your run-of-the-mill 19th-century street urchin. She is a street urchin with learning, however, and every word that might be considered too erudite for her is italicised. I found this a little distracting, but I think it emphasises that however much she may learn the ways of the upper classes, she will never leave behind her impoverished roots. While Thomas might use those words naturally, for her they come from a world beyond her own. She cannot forget it, and neither can we.

The characters themselves are well developed, and while they do give a cross section of 19th-century society, they do not feel stereotyped. By far my favouite character was Archie, whose philosophy and wit were sunshine among the clouds. I thoroughly enjoyed his conversation with Tuah about reading having “cured” him of his hunchback. Seeing Tuah’s puzzlement, he responds, “You are tempted to point out that it is still there…Literature is the great leveller…for when I read I stand as straight and true as any man.”

The writing is good and often wryly funny, although I was rarely completely absorbed by it. The highlights are certainly the descriptions of early 19th-century life in London. Particularly the more unpleasant aspects. Racism, child sex, rape, torture. Keaney certainly doesn’t shy away from describing these in vivid, macabre detail, confronting the reader with the gritty reality we are often all too happy to ignore.

For me, the pacing felt a little off. I enjoyed exploring the backstories of each of these characters, but wasn’t fully invested until Thomas and Anne finally meet. It was a shame not to spend more time with this and the fall-out of their relationship. Since the consequences of this are not explored, the ending comes abruptly and is a little anti-climactic.

An enjoyable read for fans of literary historical fiction but this didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

Favourite quotation: “he lay down flat with his ear to the ground and listened. At first it was no more than a whisper, like the sound of the wind breathing through the sedge beside some ancient and forever sunless sea. But gradually the murmur grew and Thomas knew it then for what it was: the footsteps of all those who had ever walked, or ever would walk upon the face of the earth. He listened harder, knowing there was a meaning in those endlessly changing patterns, if only he could understand it.”

Brian Keaney, The Alphabet of Heart’s Desire (Holland House, 2017)

Thank you to Brian Keaney and Holland House via NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.