First a quick history lesson.
In Victorian times the low cost of paper allowed publishers to put out cheap,
sensational fiction, known as “penny dreadfuls”, to be enjoyed by the masses.
These had plots filled with moral depravity and bloody murders and were
considered rather scandalous at the time. The
Pleasures Of Men by Kate Williams
(Michael Joseph, $37) is a pastiche of the penny dreadful – a gothic horror
that’s risqué, quickly readable and completely overwrought at times.
Set in 1840 it’s the story of
a highly-strung orphan Catherine Sorgeiul who lives with her sinister uncle in
London’s East End. This a city of seedy neighbourhoods filled with gin houses
and brothels, poverty and danger. Mostly trapped indoors, Catherine leads a
lonely, claustrophobic life with only her own imagination to entertain her. She
becomes obsessed with a serial killer known as The Man Of Crows who strikes at
young women while they are out walking the streets. The tragedy of her past
leads Catherine to fancy she has an understanding of evil and soon she believes
she is the only one who can recognise the murderer and put an end to the
atrocities.
At first she contents herself
with dwelling on the details of the crimes, imagining how the killer and his
victims felt, intent on writing a book about him. Then she takes to the streets
late at night, walking in his footsteps. But nothing is what it seems in
Catherine’s world and danger lies closer than she thinks.
There is a little of
everything here: a whiff of lesbianism, bibs and bobs of Victoriana, lashings
of sexual obsession and betrayal, a scattering of Dickensian villains, locked
doors, mysterious markings on walls and secret rooms. The writing is feverish -
words like heat, filth, blood are repeated constantly. At times reality and
Catherine’s ramblings become confused and, as the story progresses, the whole
thing becomes increasingly lurid and hysterical.
UK author Williams is a
historian with a successful book about the young Queen Victoria under her belt
so we can take it that she knows the period. She has said that her aim with
this novel was to expose the world the Victorians tried to hide beneath a
veneer of respectability. The result is a garish, melodramatic version of
history, one that might leave gentler readers in what I believe was known at
the time as “a fit of the vapours”.
Williams scored an
astonishing million-pound contract for this blend of darkness, obsession and
sexual creepiness. While it's an enjoyable curiosity, it doesn’t scream
bestseller to me and certainly isn’t a patch on the book it begs comparison
with – Sarah Water’s Tipping The Velvet.
Were I the publisher who signed that million-pound deal I suspect I might be
feeling a bit penny-dreadful myself by now!
Footnote:
Footnote:
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