10 Year Blogversary - My Favourite Book from 2020 - The Five by Hallie Rubenhold - #BookReview

 

"There are two versions of the events of 1888. One is very well known; the other is not. The first one is the one printed in most history books......... Then there is the other version..... which most choose to forget."

***

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers.

What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.

Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become more famous than any of these women.

In this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally gives these women back their stories.

***

Continuing with my ten year blog anniversary celebrations, here is another of my favourites of the decade. Today I am publishing my favourite read from 2020 and it was originally posted on 27th May of that year.  This nonfiction title made a huge impact on me has stayed with me ever since.

I originally read this during the pandemic and my review reflects that. I have updated the review a little so there is more information about the book and the author but essentially the review is as it appeared that day.

I have a library copy of this book which I had borrowed before all the libraries were closed. However, half way through this book I knew I would want a copy of my own so bought one online. It is a fantastic book and one that I know I shall return to.

I suppose it resonates with me as my own ancestors were in the same area at the time of the murders. Flower and Dean Street is well known for it's Victorian doss houses and the 1881 census places my own great-great grandparents as being resident in Flower and Dean Street at the time the census was taken. It is a strange thought that they were rubbing shoulders with the Ripper victims and possibly even the Ripper himself.

The author has clearly done extensive research in preparation for writing this book and it contains a bibliography that runs to twenty-one pages. She has taken all of these resources and written an accessible and engaging book.

At no point does she deal with the brutality with which these women lost their lives. Instead, she focuses on the women who were murdered; their childhoods, adolescence and  adult lives which were cut tragically short. She challenges the belief that they were 'merely prostitutes,' as was contemporaneously believed and reported and presents us five women who were trying to live and survive during difficult times and in straightened circumstances.

Ms. Rubenhold has humanised and given these women a voice. Certainly, they were women who were down on their luck, homeless and alcoholic but with the exception of two of them there is no evidence to suggest that they were sex workers.

I wholeheartedly applaud the author for this book. She presents us with five women who were not merely victims of the Ripper but were victims of the time in which they lived. They were victims of their gender, time and world into which they were born - a time in which women did not have a voice. Well done Ms. Rubenhold for giving us the means by which we can see these women for who they really were and not merely as the Ripper's victims. I highly recommend this book.

ISBN: 978 1784162344

Publisher: Black Swan

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  432 (paperback)

About the Author:

Hallie Rubenhold is a bestselling author, social historian, broadcaster and historical consultant for TV and film.

She published The Five; The Untold Lives of The Women Killed by Jack the Ripper in 2019 and was the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction. It is the first full length biography of the Ripper’s victims. 

In 2005, Hallie published The Covent Garden Ladies, and was the subject of three television programmes, including the hit drama series, Harlots (ITV Encore, Amazon and Hulu). In 2006, BBC4 broadcast The Harlots Handbook, a documentary based on Hallie’s book which she presented.

Her equally celebrated second book, Lady Worsley’s Whim (entitled The Lady in Red in the US) about the 18th century’s most infamous adultery trial became BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in November 2008. In August 2015, it appeared as a 90 minute drama for BBC2 entitled The Scandalous Lady W, starring Natalie Dormer and Shaun Evans.

Hallie is also the author of a series of novels set during the period of the French Revolution. The first of these, Mistress of My Fate was published in 2011 (2013 in the US). The second, The French Lesson was published in the UK in April, 2016.

In addition to writing books, articles and reviews, Hallie regularly appears on TV as an expert contributor to documentaries. 

Hallie has a passion for telling a great historical tale and has a nose for unearthing previously unknown stories from little-known sources. She loves challenging our preconceived notions about our ancestors lives and revels in history’s surprising, unpleasant and gritty truths. Her extensive academic experience extends to research, teaching, lecturing and curatorial work. In the past she has been employed as a curator for the National Portrait Gallery, a university lecturer and a commercial art dealer. In 2014 she curated an exhibition on women’s reputations in the Georgian era for No.1 Royal Crescent in Bath and has been involved with several projects at the Foundling Museum in London.

Hallie received her B.A. in History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and an M.A. in British History and History of Art from the University of Leeds. Remaining at Leeds, she embarked on her studies for a PhD and later completed her thesis on the subject of marriage and child-rearing in the eighteenth century.

She lives with her husband in London.

(author media courtesy of her website https://www.hallierubenhold.com/ / Sarah Blackie)

(all opinions are my own)

Dreaming of Flight by Catherine Ryan Hyde - #BookReview

Stewie rolled his shoulders and pulled the collar of his shirt away from his sweaty neck. It bothered him when it clung there.

He had never gone down to that last house before, because he hadn't needed to. He had always sold out his wagon full of eggs without needing to walk so far.

There was a good quarter of a mile gap along the banks of the lake - an undeveloped spot with no houses. It was after six but still quite hot in an unseasonably summerlike spring. Four of his regular customers had not been home, or had not answered their doors.

***

Never knowing his parents, eleven-year-old Stewie Little and his brother have been raised on a farm by their older sister. Stewie steadfastly tends the chickens left by his beloved late grandmother. And every day Stewie goes door to door selling fresh eggs from his wagon―a routine with a surprise just around the corner. It’s his new customer, Marilyn. She’s prickly and guarded, yet comfortably familiar―she reminds the grieving Stewie so much of the grandmother he misses more than he can express.

Marilyn has a reason for keeping her distance: a secret no one knows about. Her survival tactic is to draw a line between herself and other people―one that Stewie is determined to cross. As their visits become more frequent, a complicated but deeply rooted relationship grows. That’s when Stewie discovers how much more there is to Marilyn, to her past, and to challenges that become more pressing each day. But whatever difficult times lie ahead, Stewie learns that although he can’t fix everything for Marilyn or himself, at least he’s no longer alone.

***

Oh my goodness, it is extremely rare that I cry when reading a book. This novel had me reaching for the tissues well before the end, and of course, at its conclusion also.

The main character, a child called Stewie, has what my mum would have described as 'an old head on young shoulders'. He has had to deal with so much loss in his short life, and consequently, he is a boy who is filled with sadness and takes life very seriously. He is an utterly delightful character and one I felt fully invested in. My heart ached for this little boy, and I wanted to scoop him up and cuddle him.

His relationship with his surly, elderly neighbour Marilyn is the main theme of the book. Marilyn is a woman with secrets of her own and initially it appears to be a very unlikely friendship. However, it serves to demonstrate Stewie's character perfectly. He is caring, sensitive and loyal to the extreme. 

Although the book is the story of Stewie's sadness and inability to deal with his grief, it is ultimately a life-affirming and hopeful story which I highly recommend.

The author already has an extensive back catalogue and I am looking forward to delving into some of those.

ISBN: 978 1542021586

Publisher:  Lake Union Publishing

Formats: e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  304

Support Independent Bookshops -  Purchase link to Bookshop.org*

About the Author:

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 44 published and forthcoming books.

Her newer releases are Dreaming of Flight, Boy Underground, Seven Perfect Things, My Name is Anton, Brave Girl, Quiet Girl, Stay, Have You Seen Luis Velez?, Just After Midnight, Heaven Adjacent, The Wake Up, Allie and Bea, Say Goodbye for Now, Leaving Blythe River, Ask Him Why, Worthy, The Language of Hoofbeats, Take Me With You, Walk Me Home, and When I Found You.

Forthcoming are So Long, Chester Wheeler, and Just a Regular Boy.

Other novels include When You Were Older, Where We Belong, Don’t Let Me Go, Second Hand Heart, Jumpstart the World, Becoming Chloe, Love in the Present Tense, The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance, Chasing Windmills, The Day I Killed James, and Diary of a Witness.

She is co-author, with publishing industry blogger Anne R. Allen, of How to be a Writer in the E-Age: a Self-Help Guide.

Her bestselling 1999 novel Pay It Forward was made into a major Warner Brothers motion picture. It was chosen by the American Library Association for its Best Books for Young Adults list, and translated into more than two dozen languages for distribution in over 30 countries. Simon & Schuster released a special 15th anniversary edition in December of ’14.

Pay It Forward: Young Readers Edition, an age-appropriate edited edition of the original novel, was released by Simon & Schuster in August of ‘14. It is suitable for children as young as eight.

(book courtesy of NetGalley)

(author photo courtesy of her website)

(author bio courtesy of Good Reads)

Support Independent Bookshops - Buy from Bookshop.org

*Disclosure: I only recommend books I would buy myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains an affiliate link from which I may earn a small commission.

The Darlings by Angela Jackson - #BookReview

 Before I begin my review of this book I have some exciting news! Next Monday, the 21st of June, there will be an interview with Angela Jackson, right here on the blog. So, please drop by on Monday to find out more about this very talented author.

"When Mark Darling was fifteen years old, he killed his best friend.

In an attempt to score a perfect six, he swung a cricket bat with such force that his young hands lost their grip on it. He laughed as the bat zoomed through the air, until it hit Fergus Banks on the head with a firm whack.

Mark's body clock shifted. He shut out the daylight, slept sun up to sun down. At night, fuelled almost solely by junk food, he lurked online, clicking and scrolling his way around, while documentaries buzzed at low volume from the television. His parents tried to help, via a conveyor belt of therapists, but each time he described the accident, it served only to burn the sounds and images more deeply into his brain."

The Blurb

When Mark Darling is fifteen years old, he is golden boy, captain of the school football team, admired by all who know him. Until he kills his best friend in a freak accident.

He spends the next decade drifting between the therapy couch and dead-end pursuits. Then along comes Sadie. A mender by nature, she tries her best to fix him, and has enough energy to carry them both through the next few years.

One evening, Mark bumps into an old school friend, Ruby. She saw the accident first hand. He is pulled towards her by a force stronger than logic: the universal need to reconcile one's childhood wounds. This is his chance to, once again, feel the enveloping warmth of unconditional love. But can he leave behind the woman who rescued him from the pit of despair, the wife he loves? His unborn child?

This is a story about how childhood experience can profoundly impact how we behave as adults. It's a story about betrayal, infidelity and how we often blinker ourselves to see a version of the truth that is more palatable to us.

***

Every once in a while I read a book whereby I am so engrossed that real life becomes an irritation. It intrudes upon the fictional world that I have become so completely absorbed by. This was one of those books that I could not put down. A series of conveniently short chapters found me promising myself "just one more before I turn the light out and go to sleep." One more chapter quickly turned into ten... or twenty.

This is Angela Jackson's second novel to be published. I read The Emergence of Judy Taylor back in 2013 when it was first published and you can read my review by clicking here. In fact, it made it into my top ten books of the year because I enjoyed it so much.

In fact, in that review I said, "Angela Jackson... is a new writer to watch and if this book is anything to judge by, she will produce some outstanding writing." And indeed she has done just that. Sometimes it is very gratifying to be able to say, "I told you so."

Although Mark is the central character, Ms. Jackson has made her other characters so real that my sympathies were not solely with Mark but with Sadie and Ruby too. There were times when I wanted to shake all three of them because, as the reader, I could anticipate the potential pitfalls in which they might fall.

In Mark, the author has created an extremely complex character and I frequently found my sympathies to be in juxtaposition. At times I felt empathy towards him. At other times his apparent selfishness rankled as he messed with the lives and emotions of others. However, he is a realistic character who demonstrates that both love and life are rarely straightforward.

As much as I enjoyed reading the author's first work, her writing has matured during the interval between the two novels. The Darlings is a sophisticated book which compels the reader to be empathetic and to laugh and cry simultaneously.

I unreservedly recommend this novel and feel confident that it will make it into my top ten books at the end of this year also.

ISBN: 978 1785631337

Publisher: Lightning Books

About the Author:

Angela Jackson is a former psychology lecturer. Her debut novel The Emergence of Judy Taylor won the Edinburgh International Book Festival's First Book Award in 2013 and was Waterstones' Scottish Book of the Year. She lives in Edinburgh.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett - #BookReview

"The first time our father brought Andrea to the Dutch House, Sandy, our housekeeper, came to my sister's room and told us to come downstairs. 'Your father has a friend he wants you to meet,' she said.

Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish folly in small-town Pennsylvania taken on by his property developer father. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her delicacy, her brilliance. Life is comfortable and coherent, played out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners in the frames of their oil painting.

Then one day their father bring Andrea home. Her arrival will exact a banishment: a banishment whose reverberations will echo for the rest of their lives.

As decades pass, Danny and his sister are drawn back time and again to the place they can never enter, knocking in vain on the locked door of the past. For behind the mystery of their own enforced exile is that of their mother's self-imposed one: an absence more powerful than any presence they have known.

The Dutch House is a story of family, betrayal, love, responsibility and sacrifice; of the powerful bonds of place and time that magnetise and repel us for our whole lives.

***

Having read this book and thought it wonderful I have been continually asking myself why I have never read any of Ann Patchett's books before! She has an extensive back catalogue, which I now have the joy of reading, so I am very happy about that.

The author portrayed this dysfunctional family with insight and understanding. I really liked the relationship between Danny and Maeve. They were totally believable, as indeed, were the less focal characters. 

The time span covers several decades and I particularly enjoyed seeing how Danny's character developed. His narration starts when he is still a young boy and takes us through to his adult life. We see how his character matures and changes and makes the reader question how we think we may have reacted if we had been in the same situation.

The titular house itself plays a significant part in this book, playing as compelling a role as the characters do. The descriptions were tangible and I really could see it's exterior and wander around the rooms in my imagination. I think it takes enormous skill for a writer to be able to imbue an inanimate object with such life.

The book tackles many themes, among them, family, forgiveness and loylaty. Ms. Patchett is clearly a phenomenal storyteller and writes with acute observation of the world around her. I really cannot wait to read more of her work.

Have you read any of her earlier novels? Which were your favourites?

ISBN: 978 1526614971

Publisher: Bloomsbury

About the Author:

Ann Patchett is the author of seven novels and three works of non-fiction. She has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction three times; with The Magician's Assistant in 1998, winning the prize with Bel Canto in 2002, and was most recently shortlisted with State of Wonder in 2012. She is also the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2012. 

She is the co-owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee where she lives with her husband, Karl.

Diary of the Fall by Michel Laub - Translated by Margaret Jull Costa #BookReview

"My grandfather didn't like to talk about the past, which is not so very surprising given its nature; the fact that he was a Jew, had arrived in Brazil on one of those jam-packed ships, as one of the cattle for whom history appears to have ended when they were twenty, or thirty, or forty or whatever, and for whom all that's left is a kind of memory that comes and goes and that can turn out to be an even worse prison than the one they were in."

A schoolboy prank goes horribly wrong, and a thirteen-year-old boy is left injured. Years later, one of the classmates relives the episode, as he tries to come to terms with his demons.

Diary of the Fall is the story of three generations: a man examining the mistakes of his past, and his struggle for forgiveness; a father with Alzheimer's, for whom recording every memory has become an obsession; and a grandfather who survived Auschwitz, filling notebook after notebook with the false memories of someone desperate to forget.

Beautiful and brave, Michel Laub's novel asks the most basic - and yet most complex - questions about history and identity, exploring what stories we choose to tell about ourselves and how we become the people we are.

***

The writing in this book is beautiful. By that, I do not mean it is pretty and flowery, but that it is a collection of short, succinct, spare chapters that convey emotion and meaning. It was very moving and each word was meticulously placed and really mattered.

It was hugely thought provoking and engaged me from start to finish. If I had to sum up it's theme in one word I would say that it is about guilt and how a childhood prank can affect the life of both parties involved, well into adulthood.

However, it is about so much more than that. Each section is divided into the story of a grandfather, his son and his grandson and it tackles the generational impact of the Holocaust. However, it is not a book about the Holocaust per se. In fact, there are no descriptions of the grandfather's time in Auschwitz but it's shadow hangs over the theme of the book.

Written in the first person narrative of the grandson, the book has an immediacy despite it largely being about events of the past. It tells a relevant and purposeful story and is very well worth reading.

This book is a significant addition to the Jewish fiction canon and I highly recommend it. 

ISBN: 978 1846557323

Publisher: Harvill Secker

About the Author:

Michel Laub was born in Porto Alegre and currently lives in Sao Paulo. He is a writer and journalist, and was named one of Granta's twenty 'Best of Young Brazilian Novelists'. Diary of the Fall is his fifth novel, and is the first to be translated into English. It has received the Brasilia Award and the Bravo! Bradesco Prize.

About the Translator:

Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for nearly thirty years and has translated novels and short stories by such writers as Eca de Queiroz, Fernando Pessoa, Jose Saramago, Javier Marias, Bernardo Atxaga, Diogo Mainardi and Albrto Barrera Tyszka.

She has won various prizes for her work, most recently the 2012 Calouste Gulbenkian Prize, with Teolinda Gersao's The Word Tree, for which she was also runner-up with her version of Antonio Lobo Antunes' The Land at the End of the World.

The Five (The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper) by Hallie Rubenhold - #BookReview

"There are two versions of the events of 1888. One is very well known; the other is not. The first one is the one printed in most history books......... Then there is the other version..... which most choose to forget."

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers.

What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.

Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become more famous than any of these women.

In this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally gives these women back their stories.

***

I have a library copy of this book which I had borrowed before all the libraries were closed. However, half way through this book I knew I would want a copy of my own so bought one online. It is a fantastic book and one that I know I shall return to.

I suppose it resonates with me as my own ancestors were in the same area at the time of the murders. Flower and Dean Street is well known for it's Victorian doss houses and the 1881 census places my own great-great grandparents as being resident in Flower and Dean Street at the time the census was taken. It is a strange thought that they were rubbing shoulders with the Ripper victims and possibly even the Ripper himself.

The author has clearly done extensive research in preparation for writing this book and it contains a bibliography that runs to twenty-one pages. She has taken all of these resources and written an accessible and engaging book.

At no point does she deal with the brutality with which these women lost their lives. Instead, she focuses on the women who were murdered; their childhoods, adolescence and  adult lives which were cut tragically short. She challenges the belief that they were 'merely prostitutes,' as was contemporaneously believed and reported and presents us five women who were trying to live and survive during difficult times and in straightened circumstances.

Ms. Rubenhold has humanised and given these women a voice. Certainly, they were women who were down on their luck, homeless and alcoholic but with the exception of two of them there is no evidence to suggest that they were sex workers.

I wholeheartedly applaud the author for this book. She presents us with five women who were not merely victims of the Ripper but were victims of the time in which they lived. They were victims of their gender, time and world into which they were born - a time in which women did not have a voice. Well done Ms. Rubenhold for giving us the means by which we can see these women for who they really were and not merely as the Ripper's victims. I highly recommend this book.

ISBN: 978 1784162344

Publisher: Black Swan

About the Author:

Hallie Rubenhold is a best-selling author, social historian, broadcaster and historical consultant for film and television. She is the author of two novels, Mistress of My Fate and The French Lesson. 

She has also written non-fiction titles The Lady in Red, The Covent Garden Ladies, The Scandalous Lady W and Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies.

She lives in London with her husband.

Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins - #BookReview

"They are waiting for an answer. What do they want me to say? Perhaps they think I am a stalker, targeting the president of an Oxford College on his early morning jog. I have an urge to laugh which is inappropriate. There is nothing funny about this, nothing whatsoever. Felicity is missing. The whole country is looking for her."

When the eight year old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers.

As Dee looks back over her time in the Master's Lodging - an eerie and ancient house - a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges: Nick, the fiercely intelligent and powerful father; his beautiful Danish wife Mariah, pregnant with their child; and the lost little girl, Felicity, almost mute, seeing ghosts, grieving her dead mother.

But is Dee telling the whole story? Is her growing friendship with the eccentric house historian, Linklater, any cause for concern? And most of all, why was Felicity silent?

Roaming through Oxford's secret passages and hidden graveyards, Magpie Lane, explores the true meaning of family - and what it is to be denied one.

This fabulous book ended up being a quick read for me as I could not put it down and sprinted through it to get to the books conclusion. Mostly told retrospectively during a police interview, the narrative goes back and forth with the recollections of the main character, Dee, coupled with the immediacy of the interview.

The characters were excellently portrayed.  Nick and Mariah were difficult to like and this opinion did not change throughout the book. Equally, both Felicity and Dee were engaging characters and I suspect most readers will love Felicity for her innocence and vulnerability. The main character, Dee, had a combination of strength and weakness and as the book progressed I did come to wonder how reliable she was as a narrator.

The house itself felt as though it was a character as the Masters Lodging is a focal point of the novel and much of the story is linked to the house. The author did a brilliant job of making the house come alive as she did with Oxford itself. Highly atmospheric I felt completely immersed in the setting of this novel.

It is a sensitive, eerie and excellently written novel and I can hardly wait to read another book by Ms. Atkins. Have you read any of her other books? I would love to hear about them. 

Keep safe and well through these difficult days my friends. Thank goodness we have our books to keep us company while we are isolated and socially distanced. 

ISBN: 978 1786485571

Publisher: Quercus

About the Author:

Lucy Atkins is an award winning author, feature journalist and Sunday Times book critic. She has written for newspapers including The #Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times and The Telegraph as well as many UK magazines. She teaches on the Masters in Creative Writing at Oxford University and lives in Oxford.

Some of her other books are, The Missing Ones, The Night Visitor and The Other Child.