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I was pleased to have the opportunity to read this book and will recommend it to my reading group. As others have commented, it’s hard to believe that such a skilfully crafted book is actually a debut novel. 18th century London is so well depicted that I could see many of the scenes in my mind’s eye – the mark of a good historical novel.
Having read Cleland’s “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” (aka “Fanny Hill”) and Defoe’s “Moll Flanders,” I was already familiar with the low life of 18th century London, but knew little of the lives of the Spitalfields weavers, and these disparate worlds were well realised and nicely contrasted. Was Sonia partly inspired by Hogarth’s ‘Harlot’s Progress’? (The first engraving shows a young and innocent Moll Hackabout, just off the cart that had brought her to London from the country, being accosted by an ageing bawd, who inveigles her into prostitution.)
Each chapter of this novel is alternately related by the main characters, Esther & Sara, and we only see the other characters from their viewpoint. Some of the events are rather predictable – in particular, the outcome of the weavers’ protests – but there are a few surprises along the way, particularly in the court scenes. I was glad that Sara retracted her evidence against Lambert, as there are times when her deviousness and impulsive behaviour make her an unlikeable character. Occasionally, she’s naïve, however - for example, in thinking that she’ll be allowed to keep her baby and that she and Barnstaple have a future together. I wondered how Sara would make a living for herself and her baby after returning to her mother, once the money given to her had run out. It’s ironic that her mother had sent her away to save her from being abused, only for Sara to fall into prostitution. Both Esther and Sara achieve happiness of a kind at the novel’s end. Just as Sara manages to keep her baby, so Esther realises her dream of becoming a silk designer.
There are many striking images in the novel, often to do with clothing or weaving. For example, the gallows remind Esther of a loom. When she cuts her completed piece of silk from the loom, the childless Esther compares it to “severing the birth cord, both an end and a beginning.”
I was struck by how disconnected and emotionally remote from one another the characters are. Esther and her husband lead separate lives and Elias rejects her when she expresses an interest in his work. The weavers Bisby Lambert and John Barnstaple work lodge and together, yet remain virtual strangers. (At one point, in court, they are described thus: “They were two sides of the same coin…. Their fates were intertwined, yet opposite.”) Sara, despite her affair with Barnstaple, is never close to him. Esther and Bisby Lambert find harmony when working together at the loom, but only reveal their true feelings for each other on two occasions. Esther and Sara have no friends. (Esther can’t tell the kindly Mrs. Arnaud about the true state of her marriage.) In fact, Esther and Sara, despite their different personalities, have much in common – both are betrayed by the men in their lives and Esther rescues Sara from prostitution because her own mother had managed to escape such a life – yet despite their physical proximity (Sara dresses Esther and deals with her soiled linen), they are very rarely close. Indeed, much of the tragedy in the novel could have been avoided, if only they had confided in each other. They only truly come together in the scene before they part (Chapter 45).
What a lovely question to end on! Yes, absolutely. Hogarth was a key inspiration for me, and the novel contains references to him and his work. I love it when someone picks up on them! The opening scene with Sara and Mrs
Swann is indeed a literal representation of the first plate of a Harlot’s Progress. The journeymen weavers from Industry & Idleness come later
