Harriet Devine's Blog

All the Light We Cannot See

Pretty well straight away after each issue of Shiny New Books comes out, we editors start planning for the next one. We have a spreadsheet, divided into categories, and as decisions are made the books go on there. We find them ourselves, of course, through catalogues and newspapers, and lots of publishers send them unsolicited. Then there are our wonderful reviewers, who often suggest books they'd love to review. But it's all a bit of a moveable feast. It's not unusual for someone to want to review a book that turns out not to be up to scratch for some reason -- this has happened to me very recently with a non-fiction book I thought sounded really interesting but ended up thinking was pretty stupid -- needless to say I'm not going to tell you what it was!

But sometimes things go the other way, and we get late additions, and so I was able to add something to replace the one I'd taken off. And this is it. All the Light We Cannot See was published in the US last year, and has just won the Pulitzer Prize, but it's new in paperback in the UK, so it qualifies for our Shiny timescale (books published in the last three months). The novel has been attracting a huge amount of attention, and a friend mentioned it to me, having heard it reviewed on the BBC's Front Row. The fact that the novel is set in St Malo, just down the road from where I live, piqued my curiosity, so I bought it, just to see if the hype was really justified. 

You'll have to wait for my review till Shiny 6 comes out in about three weeks time, but I'm here to tell you that the minute I'd started it I was completely hooked. It's beautifully written, with a riveting and original story, and I'm loving every minute. 

Barbara Pym: A Passionate Force by Ann Allestree

Harriet chose a chocolate biscuit. 'I do believe the Archdeacon has been asking you to elope with him!" she declared triumphantly.

'Oh Harriet, how dreadful you are!' said Belinda, unable to help laughing at this monstrous suggestion. 'As if a clergyman, let alone an archdeacon, would do a thing like that!'

'Then he's been telling you that he's very fond of you, and wishes he'd married you instead of Agatha', went on Harriet, gallantly persevering.

'Well hardly that', ventured Belinda, growing a little more confidential, for the Ovaltine had loosened her tongue. 'I mean its a bit late for anything like that, isn't it'.

 A good friend introduced me to Barbara Pym's novels in the 1980s, and I fell in love at once. I have come back to them from time to time since then, and they never cease to delight me. Indeed Pym is one of the few novelists I almost don't dare to read in public places, as I'm liable to start chuckling loudly at passages like the one above, from her first novel,  Some Tame Gazelle (1950).

So I was delighted to see that a new biography had come out, especially as I'd always intended but never managed to read the 1990 one by her friend and colleague Hazel Holt. I galloped through its 148 pages, and certainly l learned a few things about Pym that I hadn't been properly conscious of before -- her close and loving relationship with her sister Hilary, her long years editing the scholarly journal Africa, and her many passionate attachments to various men throughout her life. She never married, but was evidently very attractive and had many admirers as well as male friends both straight and gay. I also knew that, after the six very successful novels she published between 1950 and 1961, she was unable to get any publisher to take anything on for 18 years. It was an article in the TLS with warm praise for her writing by David Cecil and Philip Larkin that revived her career and she had several years of well deserved success, including a Booker nomination, before her death in 1980 at the age of 67.

Not having read the earlier biography, I'm not able to comment on what, if anything, has been added by Ann Allestree. But in any case I was interested by the way she pointed out the frequently close relationship between Pym's life and her fiction, and to meet the originals of some of the more egregious male characters -- usually archdeacons or academics -- who populate her books. Her love for Jane Austen and for Ivy Compton Burnett, from whom she said she learned a lot about dialogue, come over well here. There are some interesting quotations from her diaries, and from letters to and from her friend Philip Larkin. I liked the accounts of her visits to churches and of the various houses she lived in, both of which were duly visited and described by Allestree. I would have loved to see some photos, many of which are described but not shown.

But I'm afraid I can't praise this book unconditionally. I think it could have been a good book if someone had taken the trouble to copy edit and proof read it. But as it stands, it is in desperate need of some work. The organisation of the material is a little odd and sometimes repetitive, but the most bothersome thing is the problems with the punctuation. This may seem a minor thing to some people, but punctuation (commas etc) are there for a reason -- properly placed, they make sense of what is being said, but if they are badly placed or missing it's hard to understand the argument, and I sometimes found myself having to re-read sentences. Then there's the question of the quotations. These are done very oddly indeed. Sometimes they start with a double quotation mark and end with a single, or fail to end at all. And far too often you can't actually tell if a passage is a quotation or not -- some certainly are, though not marked as such in any way --  or where it begins and ends. There's a curious habit of enclosing the names of characters with either single or double quotation marks, though this tends to come and go. And though there's a Select Bibliography, none of the items listed have any dates. So I was left with the impression of having read a promising first draft, but one that had me itching to get out the red pencil. 

I'm really sorry to have to say this. I'm not generally in the habit of writing on here about books I haven't enjoyed, but however this happened (author or publisher) it seemed such a shame. I wish Ann Allestree the best with it, and perhaps there will be readers less fussy than myself. And I'm grateful to The Book Guild for sending me a review copy.

 

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

It was very nice of my fellow SNB editor Annabel to nominate me for this award. Here are the rules:

• Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
• List the rules and display the award.
• Share seven facts about yourself.
• Nominate 15 other amazing blogs and comment on their posts to let them know they have been nominated
• Optional: display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you

7 Facts About Me

1. I've lived in rural France for the past three years 

2. My parents were both in the theatre -- my father an actor/director, my mother a theatre designer

3. I wanted to be an actress but found out I wasn't very good at it

4. I didn't go to university till I was in my 30s

5. I have two kittens who are fighting on the sofa next to me as I write this

6. I've been practicing meditation for over 40 years

7. I used to live near Glastonbury and went to the very first Glastonbury Festival

Fifteen Amazing Blogs

I suppose I can't nominate Annabel back, though I would if I could. But I can nominate my two other fellow ed.s, whose blogs I loved and admired long before we started working together.

Simon of Stuck in a Book - Simon's was one of the first blogs I started following, and we first met when I lived rather briefly in Oxford a few years ago. Lovely to be working with him now.

Victoria of Tales from the Reading Room - ditto Victoria -- though we never met in person until earlier this year, I've admire her lovely, intelligent blog for years.

Then some of our lovely contributors:

Alex of Thinking in Fragments - a fellow lover of crime novels, about which she writes with great perceptiveness. 

Helen of A Gallimaufy - if we want someone to do justice to anything slightly quirky, this is who I always think of. Her blog is a delight, witty and intelligent and honest.

Elaine of Random Jottings - another long-time favourite, avid and wide-ranging reader, not afraid to express strong opinions! 

Barb of Leaves and Pages - a blog I discovered only  a few months ago and have come to love. Vintage books, gardens and more besides, from a blogger who lives in Canada

Rachel of Book Snob - Rachel can be counted on for the most intelligent, readable and perceptive reviews. 

Hayley of  Desperate Reader - for some reason Hayley and I seem frequently to be reading the same books, especially of the vintage variety. I always think her reviews of them are better than mine. 

Falaise of 2606 Books - another new discovery and a lover of Euro crime, a genre that on the whole I think I don't like all that much -- until I read his reviews, when I decide I have to read the book.

Dark Puss of Morgana's Cat - ah, Dark Puss -- a scientist, a lover of SteamPunk, an indefatiguable searcher-out of paintings and information about the artists. 

Danielle of A Work in Progress - Danielle reads more books than anyone I have ever encountered - I'm always totally amazed at the breadth of her reading and reviewing.

Lyn of I prefer reading - Lyn loves vintage books as much as I do, and blogs about them, and her cats, and her Australian garden.

Karen of Cornflower - one of the first blogs I ever read, full of interest, and with a very wide readership.

And two who can't be left out

Simon of Savidge Reads - who could forget "the other Simon"? Delightfully honest and open -- much loved by the whole blogosphere, I think.

Karyn of A Penguin a Week - yes, once a week there's a real treat -- Karyn's review of her latest old Penguin, which she collects avidly and writes about wonderfully well.

Sorry to anyone who should be on here -- too many great blogs to include them all.

 

Shiny New Books Issue 2 Goes Live

 

Yes, folks, after a rather frantic few days of last minute reviewing, uploading, proofreading, and much mysterious clicking of keyboards by the technical whizzes Simon and Annabel, while Victoria and I watched openmouthed on Skype, issue 2 is up and running this morning. There's so much in there I hardly know how to begin, so I'll bring you some highlights in the coming days. 

Just wanted to say, though, and I shall be saying this again I'm sure -- I was proofreading for most of yesterday and the thing that struck me most forcibly was the quality of the reviewing. This issue has many more reviews by contributors rather than just by the editors, and they are a really talented bunch. We are so happy to have them all on board. So do head over to Shiny New Books and have a browse.

There's a new look, too, with summer colours and a new banner photo -- see above. We love it, and hope you will too. 

Shiny New Books

If you've popped in here in the last few days, you may have noticed a smaller version of this logo over there on the left. If you wondered what it was doing there, wonder no more. Today's the day when we are announcing a new and exciting venture -- a quarterly online magazine, absolutely stuffed with reviews of all the latest books to hit the shelves. Our subtitle is 'What to Read Next and Why', and it's a recommendations magazine for everyone who loves books.

And having said we, I must now introduce you to our team of editors, and I'm sure they will all be familiar to you. The idea for Shiny New Books came from a discussion between Annabel and Victoria, and they recruited Simon and me. Between us we have nearly thirty years of blogging experience, and we see eye to eye when it comes to books and reviewing, so working together has been great.

In the magazine you will find reviews of newly published fiction, non-fiction and reprints. There's also a section called BookBuzz, with interviews and articles by many of the featured authors. Then there are competitions -- in the first one, the winner will receive a copy of each of the editors' favorite books. 

We've done a great deal of reviewing ourselves, of course (and what fun that's been!) but we've also recruited some of our favorite bloggers and we'll continue to do so -- there's the option to offer to write for us, and we'll be on the lookout for talent online as well.

We're going live on 7 April, so if you go the the site at the moment, all you'll get is the front page. You can bookmark it if you like, or put it in Feedly (a great way of keeping up with the blogs you follow). Meanwhile you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook.  You can also sign up for a newsletter which will appear more often than the magazine and will have lots of bonus material.

We are really excited about this venture and hope you will be too. We will of course be letting you know on 7 April that Shiny New Books is finally live!

Reading, Writing, Re-reading

I've been a bit unwell this week -- nothing serious, just one of those bugs that doesn't come to much but leaves you a bit feverish, queasy, and lacking in energy. So I've been sitting around, watching old movies, and reading the first book that came to hand, which happened to be The Conspiracy Club. It only came to hand because, in the writing group I've recently joined, we have been set the task of writing a crime story, and we all took a book home with us, so that we could analyse and comment on how the novel began.

Raging emotions, dead tissue -- that was the first sentence. Does it grab you? Obviously it sets out to. In fact it's setting up one of the central themes of the book. The protagonist, Jeremy Carrier, is a psychologist (raging emotions) who gets caught up in the investigation of a series of gruesome murders after he meets an old, retired pathologist (dead tissue). Smart, though a bit gimmicky if you ask me, but the novel held my attention all the way through and I finished it in less than a day. 

I had a phase of reading Jonathan Kellerman some years ago. He's a psychologist himself and mostly writes about another psychologist, Alex Delaware, who seems to spend more time helping to solve crimes than he does seeing his patients. I haven't read one of his books for years, so it was interesting to return to him and to see why they had attracted me in the past. But something even more interesting happened while I was reading this one. I got about a third of the way through and found a scene that seemed rather familiar. The old pathologist invites Jeremy to dinner, and takes him to an unremarkable looking building in a rather run down part of the city. Inside, though, is a dining room of unimaginable grandeur, presided over by a tableful of ancient millionaires, where Jeremy partakes of a huge dinner of such ridiculous richness that, in my queasy state, I actually felt rather sick.

This rather wonderful set piece seemed to ring a distant bell with me -- could it have reminded me of something else? Another novel, or a film? No idea, so I read on -- and a little later, encountered another such moment. This time, a suspect proves to be having a clandestine relationship with a married colleague, and Jeremy sees the two of them meeting on a dingy street. The woman is wearing a white fake fur coat, which swings open as she gets into the car, revealing that she is naked underneath. That did it. No question, I had read this novel before. It was published in 2003, so it must have been in the last ten years. Yet apart from those two incidents, I recalled absolutely nothing about the plot, though when the identity of the villain was revealed, I realised I wasn't exactly astonished.

I'm not sure what this says about me, about novels, or about memory in general. Obviously those were powerful images, which must have made an impression on me the first time round, while the rest of the plot, though reasonably page-turning, was in the end pretty conventional. So all this was actually quite interesting in the light of the fact that, for the first time in my life, I'm now writing fiction myself, and crime fiction at that. I honestly don't think I have it in me to write a full length novel, but I've produced two short crime stories and am well on the way with a third. And I'm loving every minute. I shan't be trying to emulate Kellerman in any way whatsoever -- Agatha Christie is a likelier role model -- but a plot is a plot, and when you come down to it, there are only a limited number of motives and means and opportunities. Fun.

I'm on KIndle! (Being George Devine's Daughter)

A few years ago, my childhood memoir was published. It came out in 2006, a significant year which accounted for what may seem a rather mystifying title, at least to those with little or no knowledge of British theatre history.

My father, George Devine, was the founder of a ground-breaking company at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The English Stage Company, as it was called, came into being in 1956, so the book was published to coincide with the company's 50th anniversary. 

Now, seven years after it first appeared, the book is available on Kindle, at a special introductory price of £2.05. 

I'm not all that keen on blowing my own trumpet, so I'll let a couple of other people blow it for me. The book was reviewed in 2006 by dovegreyreader, and Simon of Stuck in a Book wrote about it in 2010 and kindly included it in his list of 50 Books You Must Read. Thanks to both of them! 

The Kindle edition has been updated a bit, mostly because I've found out a bit more about my ancestors and relations. Sadly, it lacks the photos that are in the paperback, but there's a link to a website where they can all be seen. Of course the paperback is there too, and I'm amused to see that, while that costs £8.99 new, a couple of American sellers are cheekily trying to get over £100 for used copies. Good luck, guys!

The Quiddity of Will Self

I sat on the Picadilly Line with Will Self's liver on my lap...

This novel was kindly sent to me by the publisher several weeks ago, and I started reading it at once. The only reason it's taken me so long to get around to reviewing it is that I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it justice. If I describe it as a postmodern extravaganza -- and surely someone somewhere has called it just that -- regular visitors here (if any there be) will see at once that it's not the sort of thing I usually read and review. But let's have a go anyway.

First of all, the title. I did not know what quiddity meant, and had to look it up, though if I hadn't bothered I'd have eventually found a definition some way into the novel. Here's what the OED has to say about it: 

• 1 the inherent nature or essence of someone or something.
  2 a distinctive feature; a peculiarity:his quirks and quiddities

OK -- both probably relevant here. Now how about Will Self? I knew he was a novelist of rather scary brilliance, but all I'd read by him was some of his journalism. Was this going to hamper my enjoyment of the novel? I can't possibly say, but probably if I had it might have added another layer to my enjoyment. Not that it needed any more layers, because I enjoyed it very much indeed.

But what's it about? I hear you say. Well, I can quote the blurb to give you some kind of idea:

The ghost of a beautiful young woman, Sylvie, hovers outside the window of Will Self's study. She is seeking to influence his latest novel, before she can rest in peace.

Sylvie was a member of the WSC -- a mysterious cult of charismatic writers who appear to worship Will Self. When Richard, a twenty-something wannabe, discovers Sylvie's dead body he gets sucked into their dark world of absinthe, cloaks, and bizarre initiation rites, slowly losing his sense of perspective on the strange events that encircle him. What is the true nature of the WSC? What did they do to Sylvie? And does Richard now face a similar fate?

Quite honestly, though, this is really only scratching the surface of the comic, multi-faceted, multi-narrated, metafictional, confusing and delightful plot. Five different narrators voice the novel's five parts -- or rather four, as Richard, who narrates Part One, returns in Part Three in the form of a diary he is writing in a Liverpool tower block, while he also writes a novel, watched avidly by numerous members of the general public. Sylvie narrates Part Two, after her own death. Part Four is narrated by Mia, and takes place in 2049, after the death of Will Self, who, we learn, finally managed to win the Booker Prize in his 80s. And Part Five is narrated by Sam Mills. But what Sam Mills is this, and how much relationship is there with the 'real' Sam Mills? Well, for a start, the Sam Mills who has put her name on the title page is female, and the Sam Mills in the novel is male. But the very name of the novelist hints at some kind of gender confusion, and  as Sam Mills wrote recently in a Guardian article, 

In symmetry with Will, I suffer from sex dysmorphia; I habitually feel like an angry young man trapped in the body of a female …

 Be that as it may, there does seem to be some autobiographical material in this section -- it is undoubtedly true, for example, that Sam Mills was, or is, a writer of young adult novels, a couple of which I've reviewed on here, and almost certainly this novel did take nine years to write and was turned down by several publishers. As for the letter purportedly written by Sam to Will Self, and the account of his reply -- well, who knows. And does it matter? I don't think so. In fact I know it doesn't. For this is a novel partly -- or largely? -- about writing, about words, about identity and its confusions.

And would you like this novel? You'd have to be prepared to let go of a great many preconceptions about how stories are meant to be told, and of the need to come out at the other end with some kind of satisfying conclusion or closure. There's lots and lots of sex, though not of the gratuitous variety -- it is, believe it or not, integral to the plot. The only thing I can think of that the novel resembles a little is a film called Being John Malkovitch, so if you ever saw that and liked it, you'd perhaps like this too. 

Anyway, I'm in no doubt that this is a novel of real brilliance. The Daily Mail, my least favorite newspaper of all time, wrote of 'glimpses of genius', and for once it's hard to disagree with them. 

Oh -- and as for that opening quote about the liver -- well, you'll just have to read the novel to see what that's all about.

Related articles

Sam Mills' top 10 fictional sex changes

Don's Diary, 1996

In an idle moment this morning -- or rather one that should not have been idle except that I was procrastinating -- I googled myself. Of course pages and pages came up of entries to this blog, but buried deep among them I found this, which I wrote for the THE's 'Don's Diary' spot. 1996! That's a heck of a long time ago. I'm not sure why I'm sharing it with you, but here goes. I know I was very chuffed to get it published. 

Don's Diary

6 MAY 1996

Wednesday. It is bitterly cold as I set off from Gatwick. At the check-in a man asks the purpose of my visit. I tell him I'm going to a conference in Columbia, South Carolina, and he says he has just checked in a professor heading for a conference in the same city. What is mine on? Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women writers, I tell him. Oh well, he says, it cannot be the same one as the professor was a man. The check-in queue hardly seems the place for an ideological discussion, so I smile and move on.

Waiting for my connection in Atlanta, I meet Gary Kelly from Keele, who is one of the plenary speakers on the conference (though not the professor on my Gatwick flight). By 8pm United States time I am in my room. I am saving money by staying in a dorm and am supposed to be sharing a room, though my roommate has not appeared yet. I feel predictably depressed by the room, which is all concrete and lino, with a shared shower-room down the hall. It is also bitterly cold, so I pile the bedclothes from the second bed onto mine, hoping Ms X will not appear and demand them back. I sleep reasonably well, though I am wide awake for an hour at 2am.

Thursday. It is still very cold, but bright and sunny. Spend the morning wandering around Columbia which has some attractive old (by American standards) buildings including part of the campus of the University of South Carolina, which is hosting the conference. At lunchtime I turn up for registration and discover that Gary Kelly and I are the only non-US participants. Everyone I speak to seems astonished that although I have come all the way from England, I am not reading a paper: I would have done, but found out about the conference too late. I attend the first two sessions, and am impressed by the professionalism of the papers. Mostly by graduate students, they are all very well researched, and informed by critical theory without being overloaded with it.

In the evening I attend the first plenary lecture, by a high-flying female academic. It is mainly about women riding horses. I also feel it is rather anglophobic - she makes a lot of jokes about the English weather and national character. No point in taking offence, though. I am exhausted by the end of the evening. Still no roommate! And I have discovered how to turn on the heating, so the room is tolerably warm now.

Friday. Papers start at 8am! Unable to decide which sessions to attend (each time-slot has five to choose from) I session-hop. By the end of the afternoon, I've heard 12 papers plus Gary Kelly's plenary lecture. My head is spinning with terminology and I am increasingly irritated by the way everyone says "quote. . . unquote" and/or signals same by waving their fingers in the air. Time to go back to the dorm for a rest.

In the evening, there is a reception, with the most lavish provision of food and drink imaginable, everything constantly replenished. Everyone gets very jolly. I meet Paula Feldman, on the faculty at USC, who invites me back for drinks. I make my excuses, saying I am too jet-lagged, then regret it. After all, I have come to make contacts.

I meet some interesting people at the reception, though, and volunteer to help publicise next year's conference in Europe. I also sign up to write an entry in a forthcoming dictionary of literary biography.

Walking back to the dorm, I finally meet someone who has read and apparently enjoyed my book on Mary Wollstonecraft, which seems to have only just appeared in the US. Feel pathetically gratified. Sleep like a log. Still no room-mate.

Saturday. I've heard nine papers by lunchtime, some better than others. I am unable to concentrate on one, about two little-known verse dramas by Mary Shelley, because both the moderator and the speaker persist in pronouncing the title of one of them as "PORsepine", which makes me think about pigs. Lunch is laid on in a revolving restaurant, which induces mild nausea.

The afternoon brings the third and final plenary lecture, followed by a round-table discussion under the title "Where do we go from here?", which mostly deplores the lack of women's texts of the period to teach from, and persistent prejudice on interviewing committees towards those who admit to an interest in same.

In the evening I get a second chance to go to Paula Feldman's, and enjoy myself enormously. Champagne is flowing, strawberries and ice-cream appear, we all inspect, and are suitably impressed by, her huge collection of 19th-century women's poetry. Addresses and email addresses are exchanged. I express my intention of attending, and contributing to, next year's conference, which will be in California.

Back in the dorm I reflect on what I have learned. First, the fact that much excellent work is being done on what was, until very recently, an almost unknown body of literature. Second, that though English undergraduates, despite slipping standards, are still rather better informed than their US contemporaries, the gap has certainly closed by graduate level. Third, that conferences are always worth attending for social and intellectual networking, fatigue notwithstanding. The weather has started to warm up, and I have two days to relax in the sun before my flight home.

 

A Treacherous Likeness

I do like a good historical thriller (with the emphasis on good) and especially so if they have real historical figures appearing in them. Tricky to do, but fun if it works. So I was more than delighted when I was offered Lynn Shepherd's latest novel to review, since the historical figures in it are people about whom I already knew rather a lot. But as it turned out, that was a bit of a mixed blessing.

The people concerned here are the poet Percy Shelley, his wife Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and her step sister Claire Clairmont. In fact when the novel begins, in 1850, Percy is long dead, and Mary is a sick elderly lady living with her son, the 'controversially ordinary' Sir Percy and his manipulative wife Jane, whose sole purpose in life is to sanitise the poet's posthumous reputation, a far from easy task. This is, indeed, the starting point for the novel. Jane Shelley is deeply anxious because Claire, for many years an exile from England, has reappeared in London. Jane fears that she holds documents that will show that the poet, far from the ineffectual angel she wishes him to appear, was actually immoral, untrustworthy, and verging on the unbalanced. To help her to retrieve the documents Jane calls in the detective Charles Maddox, who soon works out that there are other secrets to be uncovered which are at least equally damaging, and which involve his own family. Soon we are back in the years 1814 to 1816, as Charles looks hard at the existing evidence of the shenannigans of the Shelley entourage, uncovering disturbing indications of unexplained infant deaths and promptings to suicide. 

Lynn Shepherd was well qualified to write this novel, as she has a PhD in English Literature and has clearly used all her research skills here. Not only that, but she has brilliantly interwoven the real words of her characters -- Mary, Shelley and Claire -- with her own imagined dialogue, so that the people appear totally convincing. Also, all the mysteries that Charles sets out to solve are genuine and have puzzled Shelley scholars for generations. What was the true nature of Shelley's relationship with Claire? Whose was the baby Elena, adopted and then inexplicably dropped by the Shelleys in Italy? What happened in Wales in 1814 to terrify Shelley so much? and much more besides. I could not possibly fault all this, or indeed wholly disagree with her conclusions about Shelley's peculiar mental state. I've always had a very soft spot for Claire and thought she came out well here. But, though I've never really warmed to Mary, I can't say I've ever gone down the road that Shepherd takes us on -- enough said.

Many years ago I wrote a book about Mary Shelley's mother, the great feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and did my fair share of puzzling over discrepancies in the historical accounts, one of which resulted in an article with the rather charming name 'A Meritorious Wife; or, Mrs Godwin and the Donkey'. You might think that this foreknowledge would have put me off the novel, and I see that Daisy Hay, author of the recent Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives, showed her displeasure with it in her Guardian review. But you know what? I took it all with a pinch of salt and thought it was really good fun. In fact my only real quibble was that by the end my head was rather spinning with all the revelations and complications that Charles uncovered. But maybe that's just me. 

I have not read Shepherd's other novels, but I am now keen to read Tom All Alone's, which uses the characters and seetings of one of my favorite novels of all time, Bleak House, as well as featuring the attractive detective who reappears here. Anyone else read either of these?