The Dress Lodger

Rating:
Summary: A book that stretches the traditional boundaries of writing
Review: Dark and dingy though it may be, Sheri Holman's _The Dress Lodger_ completely changed the way I read and view novels. Inventive and well-crafted, it paints the gritty images of 1831 Sunderland with haunting accuracy and a voice that is neither modern or period - which, considering who performs the narrative in the story - revealed late in the book - could not be more perfect. This is also the first novel I ever read besides those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books where you're sucked into the story by actually being personified as a character. You're not yourself, either - you're Fos, a matchstick painter whose tragic story gets overlooked in place of Gustine's. The narrative speaks to you, drawing you into the story with such gripping originality that it's nearly impossible not to be affected by it. Holman's narrative description and dialogue are also brilliant, creating very clear and definite pictures in the mind.

But besides the dark, surreal, but beautifully gritty narrative, the characters are what makes Holman's novel so special. From the very beginning I was prejudiced against Gustine, having a preconceived idea of what her character would be like, simply because she was a 15-year-old prostitute with a young son. I was prejudiced against Miss Audrey, simply because she was a wealthy young woman trying to do charity work in a harsh world that wanted nothing to do with her. From the very beginning, I was intrigued by the character of Henry, and felt that he would remain my favorite through the rest of the book. However, in a demonstration of Holman's genius, I went from loving Henry to hating him - without Holman ever -changing- anything about him. I went from being wary of Gustine and Audrey to caring deeply for them.

All of the supporting characters - Henry's uncle, Pink, Fos, the Eye, Whilky - are extremely well fleshed-out and all have their histories and quirks that make the book so real. _The Dress Lodger_ has also been heavily researched and based in historical fact. By the time you finish, it's almost impossible to tell which characters were fictional and which were actual people - because several of them, scattered throughout, really existed.

Possibly the greatest part of _The Dress Lodger_ is its intense and fast-paced climax, as well as the action leading up to it. Never have I read a book that plays over in my mind with the same intensity as a film. I -saw- these characters. I -heard- them. I -felt- their panic and their pain. Never have I read a book with so many unexpected yet bitterly realistic twists of fate. All of this is aided by Holman's masterful prose - she has a way of telling that very few authors have, if any.

At first glance, _The Dress Lodger_ is a sweet historical novel about a young prostitute trying to save her deformed infant son in a time and place when medical science was gravely distrusted, particularly in the lower classes. But it is not sweet. It is not wholesome. It is not warm and fuzzy. It is a heart-wrenching tale of obsession, justice, madness, lust, things not being what they seem, and labors in vain.

Do not read this book if you aren't ready to be taken for a ride. Do not read this book if you aren't fully prepared to let go of all your reservations and be swept away. This is not an easy story to read.

Read this book if you're willing to let your life be changed by it. Read this book if you're sick of warm-and-fuzzy historical novels, if you want something that will hit you over the head, suck the marrow from your bones, and leave you saying, "My God, I've never read anything like that."

If you haven't guessed, I highly recommend it. But not to the faint of heart.

"The greater good? Good and evil are opposite points on a circle, Dr. Chiver. Greater good is just halfway back to bad." - Gustine.

Rating:
Summary: Compellling - and grisly - page turner
Review: Here's what I really enjoyed about "The Dress Lodger": the complex lead characters -- the depth of detail about everyday life (the past is a foreign country, as Holman well knows) -- and most of all, the plot mechanisms that kept me reading well into the night. Holman's best skill, I think, is plotting - slowly revealing or building relationships between characters and crafting the story so that the narrative seems funny and tragic and inexorable and startling all at the same time.

But I didn't like: the cartoonish secondary characters (Audrey, Pink, etc.) - Dickinsian in that they existed only to manipulate the reader's emotions -- and the cloying, psuedo-19th century narrative voice (we find out more about that later on, doesn't make it any less annoying). -- also the author's treatment of some of the more grim subject matter [such as grave robbery and (detailed) autopsies and also child abuse and the pain that lingers on from childhood trauma and grief over lost loved ones, etc] stuck me as a little bit - I don't know - graphic. The author seems to savor every nasty scene, to dwell on pain a few seconds longer than is necessary.

I've read much darker, grislier novels - that sort of thing rarely bothers me - but something about this telling seemed just too delighted about it all. If you read to the end, you'll find out a possible reason WHY the narrative voice seems to feed upon the suffering of the characters. But it doesn't make it any less distasteful.

Overall, though, this is a well-plotted book by a strong writer that delves the reader into the past as few books can. I bought it in hardcover and, after reading it, wish I'd waited for the paperback - but this is without question worth a trip to the library.

Rating:
Summary: Astonishing and Rare; Will Live on in Your Imagination
Review: I'm not sure why this author is not a household name. She deserves to be.

Very rarely does a voice come along that reminds the reader of greats such as Dickens, Sinclair, and Betty Smith (author of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"). Even more rarely does a voice emerge that resounds like the voices of past great authors but that also shines with a distinct flavor of its own.

This is one such voice.

Told in second person, present tense, but never intimidating or "artsy", this writer's prose weaves back and forth between characters and situations, yet always keeps the reader as an intimate confidant.

I don't want to say too much more for fear of spoiling this amazing book, which is surely one of the top ten books in the historical drama genre. All I can say is -- read this book, think about this book, discuss this book; support this fabulous new author to become as famous as she deserves.

Rating:
Summary: Falls short - could have been better -- 3.5 ***
Review: THE DRESS LODGER by Sheri Holman

Here was a book that I had a hard time deciding whether I liked or not. THE DRESS LODGER by Sheri Holman falls short of my expectations, but I won't be giving it a terribly bad review. What was good about this book was the story. There are several themes and story lines going on at the same time, with Gustine the prostitute and her baby as one focal point, Doctor Chivers and his obsession with his anatomy school another, and finally the cholera epidemic the third. Between the three, Holman weaves a story about life in Sunderland, England in the early 1800's, focusing mostly on that of the poor and unfortunate, but also contrasting their lives with the upper class, which is represented by Doctor Chivers and his fiancée, Audrey.

Gustine works as a pottery assistant by day, and is a prostitute by night. She and her baby live in a rundown lodging, owned by a shady man named Whilky Robinson, who is also her pimp. He has the help of an old hag known as The Eye, who literally can only see through one eye. She is hideous and can strike fear into anyone that sees her. She cannot speak, but follows Gustine at night wherever she goes, making sure Gustine earns the money Whilky has hired her for.

The story starts with a narrative, an omnipresent narrator that points out Gustine to the reader. She is known for her blue dress, which from afar makes her look like a lady of upper class standing. Upon closer inspection one will know she is a prostitute, and she is working her shift. The Eye is always behind her, keeping watch. While Gustine is servicing her latest customer outside near the wharf, she spies a body near the water. It is a dead body, to Gustine's delight. She then searches out the Doctor, Dr Henry Chivers, who the reader soon finds out is looking for fresh dead bodies to help teach his anatomy class. Dr Chivers believes that a good doctor needs to practice on a real body, and that classroom lessons on paper are not enough. Gustine has volunteered to find bodies for him.

And so starts the intricate novel THE DRESS LODGER. It is full of interesting characters, two-dimensional yet serving the purpose, to tell a story. What makes this book not quite the winner it could be is the writing style and the structure. Holman apparently tried to emulate Dickens and other contemporaries of that time. However, she falls short of her goal. I would give this book A+ for effort, but the story definitely needed to be re-written and fixed up. The ending was also somewhat sloppy, although again I applaud the effort. If it were not for the fascinating story of the cholera epidemic and reading about 1800's England, I would not have wanted to finish this book. It was difficult to read, especially the first few chapters, and it wasn't until I got past that point that I really was able to get into the story. This book is getting 3.5 stars from me, 4 stars based on Amazon's rankings.

Rating:
Summary: Grim, Sad and Weird
Review: The plot description on the flyleaf of this book promised a fascinating story. It certainly was um...different. None of the characters was especially likeable. Certainly not Dr. Henry Chiver the body snatching anatomist plagued by his primal instincts and personal demons. He was, in a word, creepy. I couldn't help feeling sorry for his innocent bride-to-be, Audrey, who really, really didn't know this man! Gustine, the young prostitute who made a "deal with the Devil" helping Dr. Chiver procure bodies for autopsy in hopes he might one day learn enough from his studies of anatomy to cure her beloved son's birth defect was a pitiful creature. You couldn't help but sympathize with her miserable life circumstances yet the life itself gave her a contempt for human beings that was as chilling as Dr. Chivers'. I thought the wrap up of the story a little too pat and consequently disappointing. Did ALL of the subsidiary characters have to die of cholera? On the plus side I found Ms. Holman to be a very talented writer and think it's safe to say that future stories from her won't be cookie cutter tales we've all read before. If you like a walk on the darker, seamier side of human nature this one's for you.

Rating:
Summary: Grave robbery to advance medical science. Good story.
Review: This historical novel is set in 1831 in England and the voice reminds me a bit of Dickens, especially in the use of a narrator addressing "dear reader". However, it is written through modern eyes inasmuch as it describes the horrors of the industrial revolution, the cholera epidemic and the medical conditions of the time.

I was swept into the story and the deeply developed main characters and found I understood each one of their internal conflicts. This was a time of great poverty contrasted with great wealth. The poor labored under inhumane conditions. And the art of medical science depended upon cadavers to study. Hence, the doctors were turned into grave robbers, sometimes employing murderers to bring them bodies with no questions asked.

Lodging houses were awful places where people slept 30 to a room on beds of straw. Gustine is one of the lodgers. She is 15 years old and labors all day in a pottery factory. Later, she comes home and puts on a rented blue dress and goes on to the streets to sell her body in the world's oldest profession. Another lodger, an ancient old crone, is employed to shadow Gustine's every step, to make sure she doesn't run off with the dress. Dr. Henry Chiver is questing for knowledge of the human body that will ultimately serve humanity. When he meets Gustine, the plot thickens as she helps him in his quest. She doesn't want money from him though. She has something else on her mind.

There are many other characters too, all drawn with the expertise of a writer who really knows her craft. There are the other lodgers, the fiance of the doctor, the woman who runs the local pawnshop which doubles as a morgue, the patrons of a bar called Labour in Vain. We get to experience the filth and the rats and the frogs and the disease. This is not a comfortable book to read as this is all described in excruciating detail.

And yet the story moved along with lightning speed and often surprised me as something new seemed to happen on every page to change my perceptions of the characters. But yet there was not a wasted word. The book wasn't perfect of course. It certainly was very morbid. And the maudlin ending was definitely contrived. But yet, it was good read.