The Night Visitor – Lucy Atkins

Psychological Thriller
5*s

A book that captured me from the first page where we meet Olivia Sweetman making her way to address all two hundred guests gathered at The Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons in London. All those people are amongst the jars of organs to celebrate the publication of historian Olivia Sweetman’s book, Annabel, a study of a Victorian woman who became one of the first surgeons, a woman who also had a sensational personal life too, captured within Annabel in her own words.

After the celebrations the book switches to the run up to the publication of the book, eventually as far back as when Olivia first saw Annabel’s diary in Ileford Manor in Sussex in the hands of Vivian, the housekeeper cum research assistant that Olivia would come to depend on as she juggled her television appearances as a celebratory historian, her marriage to David, busy writing and researching his own book, and her three children Dom, Paul and Jess.

I adored every word of this book, there is always something absolutely irresistible in a book about a book after all, but The Night Visitor has taken this kernel and added the most memorable characters, a plot that is underpinned by meticulous timing so that I became bound up in Olivia’s fight for her reputation long before I understood why she was needing to fight in the first place.

Adding to the history we also hear about beetles, more specifically the dung-beetles that Olivia Sweetman’s father studied, hence that eye-catching cover.

‘Your eye for detail, your doggedness, you’re just remarkable,’ she said, looking into my eyes. Hers really are a striking colour. At that moment they reminded me of a beetle called, Necrophilia formosa, whose iridescent carapace is somewhere between violet and royal blue and which feeds on beautiful flowers that reek powerfully of rotting fish.

So we have Olivia the modern woman juggling life and making her mark studying a woman who was forging ahead in a man’s world in the Victorian times, and we have Vivian, who outshines them both with her strangeness, her adherence to strict routines, her sharp mind which is at odds with her position as a housekeeper but most of all a character who is oh so very believable. When reading the chapters narrated by Vivian, we hear from the two women in turn throughout the book, I was strongly reminded of some of the wonderful creations of Ruth Rendell who created equally dislikeable but fascinating characters.

Olivia has Vivian in her life as a necessary evil, she looks down on the woman who she depends on to give her access to Annabel’s diary, to do the tiring leg-work during the research into this woman’s life and while she is grateful for all her hard-work, her doggedness and attention to detail, once the book is edited, she finds her relentless appeals to write another book difficult to shut down. This struggle between the needy and the needed while trying to maintain the smooth politeness that society demands that makes the entire story so believable.

Whilst the plotting is superb it is definitely the characters that lead this novel and even the bit parts are wonderfully drawn giving you a real sense of the describer and described in broad brush strokes

I do remember how grim I felt as I sat behind Maureen’s desk, unreasonably infuriated by her ‘Smile! It’s gin o’clock!’ sticker on the till and her ‘Keep Calm, It’s Only a Royal Baby’ coaster. I was fighting the urge to rip both objects up and put them in the bin. I have known Maureen since childhood, we were in the same class at primary school and she has always irritated me. She is intrusive, bossy and rather dim.

The Night Visitor will hopefully not haunt me in the way that she haunted Vivian, but these characters, the intricate storyline full of fascinating detail will stay with me for a long time to come. I can safely predict this will be one of my books of 2017.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Quercus who provided me with a copy of The Night Visitor. This review is my unbiased thanks to them.

First Published UK: 4 May 2017
Publisher: Quercus
No of Pages:  368
Genre: Psychological Suspense
Amazon UK
Amazon US

Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain #20Booksofsummer

Non-Fiction
3*s

An alternately moving and exasperating memoir written by a woman who moved from childhood to adulthood during the lead up to World War I, this book published in 1933 uses her diaries and letters from that time to give us a picture of what the realities of war meant for a young woman of her generation.

The book opens with Vera’s desperation to go to Oxford despite her family’s, particularly her father’s objection to this course at odds with the opportunity to study being freely offered to her brother, Edward. It is exceptionally hard to picture a life of the fairly privileged, intelligent and inquisitive Edwardian young lady whose life was still mapped out by the strictures of the Victorian Era. Funny also to read her comparison to the young people of the day when she was writing this memoir who she viewed with envy for the freedom offered to them. Of course from my perspective the generation she envied for the easiness of their lives; the freedom to court without chaperones, to receive degrees even as women and to be employed despite being married, appears to be wildly exaggerated compared to the freedoms we have nowadays. This is just one example of why I’m glad I finally made time to read this book as it demonstrates how feminism wasn’t one wild gallop to get the vote, the struggle was long and incremental and yet women like Vera appreciated the progress made towards a better future.

The book covers Vera’s coming down from Oxford to join the VADs nursing in England, Malta and France throughout the war whilst she simultaneously worried about her brother and her friends fighting in the conflict which as the war progressed she began to hate with a vengeance for its waste of life at the behest of political masters. She saw through the treaties for the young to become heroes to give up their futures for egos. She also records one of the rarely recorded views of the older generation, those who had to live without servants for the first time in their lives, the men and women who had given their children to the fight both on the battlefields and to other war-work thereby forgoing the previous right to call on their unmarried daughters when required.

Following the end of the War Vera retakes her position at Oxford this time to study History rather than English becoming ever more interested in international politics which I’m regretful to report I found in the main a struggle to read as they referenced matters that my knowledge simply wasn’t great enough for me to fully appreciate. With my interest far more keen on the politics relating to women’s lives, this section wasn’t a complete right-off as the considerations proposed for women during the War were under attack following the conclusion of it – to have these put into wider context was enlightening.

My exasperation with the book was in part with her condescending tone which covered whole swaths of the population; the locals from her teens, those women who wanted to seize life rather than study or grieve, those who hadn’t worked through the war because they were too young, men, in general who weren’t her brother or her friend etc. etc. and whilst some of the earlier sections can be considered a faithful recording of her younger self, this continual holding herself up as a paragon of one whose life has been more meaningful than those that didn’t share her experiences, her political ambitions or her daily preoccupation with being taken seriously by everyone got a little wearing.

This is a huge book at over 600 wordy pages with parts, such as the experiences of nursing during the war that I found exceptionally interesting and poignant and those latter pages which detail her work with the League of Nations that frankly I found less so. That said, with a book full of detailed accounts of life before, during and after the war I felt that I truly put flesh on the bones of what I understood life to be like in the UK during this time and even more when right at the end of the book Vera and her friend Winifred take a tour of Europe to have a taste of what those nations lives looked like a decade after the war started compelling reading.

A worthwhile book to read and one that although this short review merely highlights a small proportion of its content, has broadened my knowledge of the time period, albeit for one section of society in particular. At times desperately sad and a reminder of quite what an entire generation went through in the hopes of forging a better future at others I was cheering Vera on with her ambition to make the world a better place. Sadly my overall feeling when I reached the end was discomfort as I couldn’t help but consider Vera’s hopes for peace were to be dashed with the Second World War already looming on the horizon at the time of publication.

First Published UK: August 1933
Publisher: Virago
No of Pages 640
Genre: Non-Fiction (Memoir)
Amazon UK
Amazon US

The Life Project – Helen Pearson

Non-Fiction 4*s

This is a book about long-term studies of people born into pre-defined parameters and followed through their lives, and touches on how those studies have helped and informed the medical professions as well testing social science theories. That all sounds a little dry, but fortunately this book is anything and although I’m not entirely sure who the target audience is, I found it fascinating.

The book starts by looking at maternity care, for the children born in April 1946 the (at that time one off study) concentrated on where the children were born, whether they survived the first month of life, how long their mothers were confined for and how much they cost. This was in before the creation of the NHS and these children were born at the start of the baby boon but the study had initially been planned by members of the eugenics society to discover why fewer babies were born to the middle classes which caused anxiety about the future of the country. Having dispatched midwives and health visitors to fill in questionnaires about the lives of the 5,000 plus children born in the week the scientists were then able to start writing their reports.

The book talks about the design of follow-up studies for this group of children and what they were trying to discover which leads to the make-up of the questions but also brings in later studies, one in 1956, another in 1970. Another study should have begun in 1982 but Margaret Thatcher wasn’t a big fan of social science and by this time the studies were costing a considerable amount of money so this never took place but a study in Bristol begun in 1991 where DNA was collected from blood and placentas and is still stored to this day. The last study began in 2000 and with those children having reached their teens the next is into the final stages of planning.

I actually knew about the 1991 study through a throw-away comment from my mother who knew one of the participants when he was still a young boy but I didn’t realise how big it was or how far these studies have actually gone towards defining policy. With studies on Grammar versus Comprehensive Schools, obesity, smoking and where it is best to give birth there is very little that hasn’t been plundered to make a case or in some instances to disprove a case.

Helen Pearson is obviously a big supporter of these studies and as the UK is the only country to have so many lives monitored and for so far back, for the ‘better good’, I’m with her although the costs are immense of course as the way we live has changed at such a fast rate continual studies are needed to reflect this. Although a supporter, the author is good at balancing the good done with the misrepresentation of some of the facts and pointing out where the facts themselves could be found wanting – one example of this is a study from the first two birth cohorts which states that children with interested parents do far better than those without at school, and life in general. However as it was teachers who were judging the ‘interest’ levels of parents in their child’s education at a time when these very parents rarely set foot in a school, it may well be that the teachers stated that the parents were interested in the education of their offspring more often if the child was doing well at school.

There are so many interesting facts and a few small insights into the lives of a couple of the earlier candidates, who are still being monitored, that I think there is something to interest many people. I even enjoyed some of the walk through the politics of funding the next phase and next study although the tales of how exhausted those in charge were became a little wearisome at times.

I’m very grateful to Amazon Vine for giving me a copy of this book which gave me a lot to think about on so many different levels. Despite being a book with an academic subject the author has made it incredibly accessible to those with no knowledge of the subject at all. The Life Project will be published on 3 March 2016.

Home Fires – Elizabeth Day

Historical Fiction
4*’s

Home Fires is the story of two women, Elsa who was born during the First World War and Caroline who is her daughter-in-law. Both women had their lives defined by war. Elsa’s father returned to the daughter he didn’t know a damaged and brutal man. Caroline’s son Max decided to join the army.

The story is gentle but powerful, full of richness with the intensity of feelings, and what can happen when the layers of finesse are stripped back. All the relationships in this book are authentic; Elsa’s with her daughter-in-law, Elsa with her Grandson, Caroline’s suffocating love of her only child Max and her shifting love for her husband Andrew are familiar yet unique. Told in narrative by Caroline in the present day and Elsa in flashbacks to the 1920’s this is a sumptuous book full of detail as well as touching without being mawkish.

I read Scissors, Paper, Stone and thoroughly enjoyed it and Elizabeth Day has proved herself to be an author to watch for those of us who enjoy depth and a deft hand with difficult subjects

Family Secrets: Living with Shame from the Victorians to the Present Day – Deborah Cohen

History
5*’s

I read this book against the backdrop of my adult daughter and her close friend trawling through Facebook to find out whether a rumour they’d heard about a school friend was true or not – it wasn’t, but it certainly leant weight to Deborah Cohen’s affirmation that there is a difference between privacy and secrecy. As an amateur genealogist I have delved into the papers of the late 19th century and wondered how some of those whose actions were written about continued to live in their tight-knit communities with little opportunity of escaping their past misdemeanours, but of course they just had to, particularly if they were poor.

The subjects of this book tend to be the middle-classes, those who had the money and the means to hide their secrets or at least have some measure of control over how much of their secrets were exposed. The book starts in the late 18th century detailing the ways that men who had relations with women in India integrated their sons and daughters into society. Deborah Cohen then moves through the decades detailing those secrets that were important to their times; divorce, mental disabilities, adoption and homosexuality alongside careful explanation of popular views of the times, laws and the importance to the family that these were either kept secret or not.

The last section deals with the views of RD Laing and how his views helped to change society’s view of the family to the re-drawing of boundaries about what today is viewed to be privacy and an individual’s right to keep secrets which is not the same as the requirement to keep the family secrets.

This is a fascinating and accessible way of presenting social history, well researched using some previously closed records it is well written has enlightened me about each of the areas covered.

After reading this book I looked at some of the divorce records for the early 1900’s which largely demonstrate Deborah Cohen’s theory that it wasn’t something either a man or woman would go through without real cause. Random records I looked at described an awful way of life for both sexes with divorce being the only way they could extract themselves from lifelong misery.

Related articles

• Victorian Values: What’s The Obsession? (katiestransition.wordpress.com)