Slammerkin

Rating:
Summary: Rags to rags
Review: Mary Saunders lives in genteel poverty in London, raised by her widowed mother and forced to defer to a boorish stepfather. She is in her early teens, an age when most of her peers are learning a trade, but Mary's late father had insisted that Mary be educated above and beyond the usual schooling of a girl in those times. And so Mary has no job skills, and hates the idea of becoming a seamstress like her mother. No, Mary wants to be A Lady. She wants to wear bright clothes, go to the theater, and never have to drudge.

Her longing for bright clothes leads her to trade a kiss to a peddler for a bright red ribbon--but the peddler basically rapes her, leaving her disgraced and pregnant as the price for the ornament. Mary's mother kicks her out of the house, and she is taken in by a slightly older woman, a prostitute, whose clothes Mary had admired in the street many a time. Mary doesn't want to follow her friend's trade--but remember, she has no job skills. So she becomes a prostitute.

Months later, when disaster strikes, Mary can no longer stay in London. Desperate, she concocts a fake life story and travels to the home of her mother's childhood best friend, Mrs. Jones, also a seamstress. She tells the woman that her mother is dead, and so is given a servant's position out of pity. Mary finds love for the first time in this new life, but she can never reconcile herself to being a maid. The most heartbreaking thing about _Slammerkin_ is that we understand completely why Mary gets so upset whenever anyone scolds her to "mind her station", and yet we also know her life would be so much easier if she didn't struggle against her destined position. And so the book marches on to the inevitable tragic ending, as Mary is conflicted between love for her mistress and hatred for being a servant, and between falling in innocent love with a local boy and knowing that she is a diseased prostitute rather than a virginal village maiden. Frustrated, she turns to her old trade in order to finance her way out of town. And nothing can help her now. A true tragedy, as Mary is defeated by her ambition.

For a less depressing read, you might also want to read _Forever Amber_ by Kathleen Winsor. In her ambition, connivery, and impulsiveness, Amber is very similar to Mary--but gets away with most of her schemes. _Slammerkin_ is more realistic, but quite dark.

Rating:
Summary: Mary Saunders and Jane Jones will touch your heart!
Review: Some readers might be a bit squeamish about a thirteen-year-old prostitute selling herself during the beginning of George III's reign. But Mary Saunders leads such a drab life that when she trades a kiss for a red ribbon (and gets more than she bargains for), you can't help but fall in love with her.
Some of the descriptions are graphic, but if they weren't, the story wouldn't be as believable. As is, Donoghue puts us right there in stinking, squalid 1760 London.
Mary's mother throws her out of the house, and Mary is immediately raped by a troop of soldiers. And that's when the second fascinating character shows up; Doll Higgins, a twenty-something prostitute, saves Mary from the gutter and teachers her how to attract cullies (customers).
Later on, Mary contracts a cold. Doll convinces her she should get herself admitted to Magdalen Hospital for wayward girls. When she gets out, she finds Doll dead in an alley and her landlady wants the rent. Mary is forced to run for her life. She runs to Monmouth, her mother's home town, with a forged letter for her mother's friend Jane Jones, a dress maker. Everybody loves Jane Jones, her only flaw being that she's too bound by convention. There's a hint of that right off when she insists Mary call her ma'am (but only in company). They gossip like school girls otherwise.
Mary Saunders is simply a wonderful character. She's naive and wise, mean and kind, covetous and generous. Her cheekiness gets her in trouble with some of Mrs. Jones's clients. Mary has the life she's always wanted, but she's not satisfied. She wants to go back to London in style and there's only one way to earn the money.
Just as you're thinking what a great character Mary is, Jane Jones touches your heart. And her husband, Thomas, a one-legged stays maker, is almost as endearing. The minor characters are great as well. There's the black maid of all work, Ami, whom Mary thoroughly corrupts when she realizes that she's her own person and should get wages. And there's Daffy, Thomas's apprentice, who develops a crush on Mary. The boy is always reading, always plotting for a way to better himself. And he realizes he needs a good woman if he expects to make it!
And just when you think this is a character study, Mary's penchant for self-destruction reaches up and bites her in the behind. There are so many twists and turns in the last thirty pages you'll be gasping for breath when you finish. But you won't want to finish.

Rating:
Summary: I hope you have a strong stomach...
Review: The book started out interesting but after a while just became depressing. This has to be the most dark and disturbing book I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: gripping; brings the past to life
Review: I dare you to put this novel down after you've started it.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic read!
Review: I read Slammerkin on the recommendation of a friend. She'd said she couldn't put it down; I had the same experience. The setting is incredibly vivid as is the character of Mary. One of the things that particularly impressed me was how Donoghue was able to create a protagonist who was in many ways very unlikeable--and yet made her somehow sympathetic. Maybe the sympathy arises from a realization of how straitened her circumstances were. Even if Mary had followed all the virtues taught to her, her adult life wouldn't have been very appealing. I also really enjoyed feeling like I was getting into the mind of someone who lived centuries ago. A lot of historical fiction seems to put contemporary values and ideas into the minds of the characters. For example, Mary's behavior at the public execution is hardly lofty, hardly behavior a modern person would approve of (no worrying about capital punishment or humaneness for Mary!) It really felt like I'd been transported to another time.

I've recommended this one to all my friends and I am looking forward to reading more by this author.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Riveting
Review: Slammerkin makes us feel great compassion for the decisions made by the protaganist, Mary, while giving a realistic view of what her decisions led to in the 18th Century. One can sense Mary's inner life quite well, and see clearly the canvas on which her life was painted. I found this book to be a real page turner, although it is also heart breaking, for there must have been many young women like Mary whose stories we will never know. I would have liked to omitt the study questions that appeared in the back of my edition. I accidentally flipped to the questions, and ended up knowing something about the plot that I would have preferred to find out on my own. Marketing books with study questions is quite annoying, as a majority of readers are probably not in book groups, and if they are, I am sure that people interested in discussing books can think up their own questions without being spoon fed. But that's minor, the book is terrific, and well worth reading for its observations on 18th century life, and its plausible and compassionate telling of Mary's story.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss It!!
Review: When I find a great book I take a LONG time to read it because I don't want it to end. This book took 5 weeks. Spectacular!
Emma's writing is exceptional.......I felt as if I was actually in the time period. Her website shows the "Seven Dials". Most everything in the book is authentic. Would love to see it made into a movie. Are you listening Hollywood?

Rating:
Summary: The Slippery Slope
Review: What a discouraging message this well-written book doth send! Innocence once lost means doom, even lucky breaks will do no good for this stubborn girl.

Our heroine, a young girl living in poverty during the 1700's in the slums of London lives a life that is predictable and drab. She goes to school for an inexplicably long time (given her gender and the family's poverty in those times). At 13, when other girls would be working or wed, she hasn't learned a bit of her mother's trade (piecework seamstress).

Mary keeps going to school, though she does sneak over and watch the streetwalkers, one of whom has a beautiful bright red ribbon tied in her hair. Mary has no intent of being a prostitute, but she does expect to have a better life than that of her mother, step dad or baby half-brother. She daydreams about someday returning to this sad part of London with fine clothes and a well-to-do husband, though like most very young people, her ideas on how to attain her goal are are unset, vague and dreamy.

In her longing for some color in her life (everything is so gray and drab) she asks an old peddler what the cost of a red ribbon is -- it costs more money than her family could ever spare, for they live on the edge of survival. Eventually the peddler convinces her she can have it for a kiss, and here is her undoing, for he takes from her much more than a kiss and leaves her with less than she'd asked for, plus STD and a pregnancy to boot, all at age of 13.

As her mother is packing all of the girl's belongings into a shawl and wrapping it up, she tells her "We only get one chance in this life, Mary Saunders, and you've just tossed yours away."

One less mouth to feed for the family -- two if you count the babe. Mary finds herself suddenly alone, cold and on the streets. She is taken in by a prostitute who helps her as best she can, by teaching her the trade. Mary intends to just make enough to get her on her feet, but of course that is not the way it goes.

The story traces her slide into the very unglamorous life of prostitution. She works hard, saving to buy better clothing -- for in her business, the clothes make the woman, and better clothes may be what she needs to get that better life she thinks she deserves.

Despite her mother's claim of just one chance, Mary does get two more. The first is her feeble attempt to go straight, as she becomes a temporary Penitent in a Home for Wayward Women and learns a trade -- ironically, as a seamstress, for which she has a real gift.

The thought of a long and bland life doesn't keep her for long. She leaves the home, returns to the streets and ends up in more trouble. She escapes to the small rural community her parents escaped from years ago. Her next big chance at redemption comes when she uses her skills as a seamstress and her quick talking to obtain a service job in the home of a childhood friend of her mother's, who has a child, husband and is a dressmaker.

She develops a warm relationship with her mistress. A young male servant is enamoured of her. She makes friends with another servant and the work she is doing, though it will not pay until the end of the year, is something she is skilled at and enjoys.

But Mary is in a hurry to get that better life. She does not see herself as a lesser being (her mistress' customers treat her like... a servant, something Mary can hardly bear). The young man will never amount to much, and money she learns the ways he knows best is more important to her than building friendships.

Mary is still young and very short sighted. Her fall is painful to read, her story both predictable and a mystery -- will she turn her life around, become a talented seamstress and marry well? The questions soon become, how did she get into such a mess, why did she do what she did (the story is based on a true tale of a young girl who murdered her mistress for a dress) and how will young Mary be rescued?

This book would be well read by a discussion group, and at the end of the novel, discussion topic questions are offered. How much of Mary's life was inescapable, given the conditions of people in the time she lived in? What would have had to happen to save her (it seems she had many opportunities)? Was the murder about a dress, or was there more?

Don't read it if you are easily depressed or discouraged unless you're reading with a discussion group! If you like the topic, but would prefer an optomistic outlook, I'd suggest you read Moll Flanders instead.

Rating:
Summary: Struggles and struggles and struggles and ...
Review: I heard a review on the radio and thought the concept was interesting. Then, I was on jury duty with this as my only book. I read it all. You don't need to.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, brooding, heart-wrenching
Review: "Slammerkin" is going to become a classic. Bravo to Emma Donoghue for this fine novel. This book reminded me of "Tess of the D'Ubervilles" in many ways. The writing is so vivid-- the reader is drawn into 18th century England. The characters are so complex and well-developed. Of course, some characters are more complex than others, but that is only a natural reflection of human beings-- Some people have more depth than others. I appreciated how the author did not insult the reader's intelligence by explaining too much. The author simply tells the story and lets the reader do the rest. I predict that as time goes on, this novel will age very well and become a piece of literature and a work of art.