Fingersmith
Author: Sarah Waters
Publication Date: 10/1/02
Publisher: Riverhead Books

Blurb (GR): Growing up as a foster child among a family of thieves, orphan Sue Trinder hopes to pay back that kindness by playing a key role in a swindle scheme devised by their leader, Gentleman, who is planning to con a fortune out of the naive Maud Lily, but Sue's growing pity for their helpless victim could destroy the plot.

Review:
Fingersmith packs quite a few twists and surprises.

At first, after reading the book's plot summary, I expected it to be a rompish, Les Liaisons Dangereuses-like adventure. 17-year old Susan Trinder, a foster kid in a family of fingersmiths (thieves), is recruited to act as a lady's maid to equally young and wealthy Maud Lilly. Susan's role in the devious scheme is to gently push this naive and simple-minded girl into the arms of Mr. Rivers, strip Ms. Lilly of her inheritance and then dump her in a madhouse.

Needless to say, the story didn't quite turn out to be about a man seducing an innocent girl out of her knickers and money. Like every other reviewer, I will refrain from revealing anything more of the plot. Let's just say, Fingersmith becomes a much, much darker tale full of violence, abuse, betrayal, dark secrets and a little bit of girl love (not explicit like in Tipping the Velvet). Nothing in this novel is what it appears to be on the surface.

Very few modern authors manage to write historical fiction that sounds authentic. Sarah Waters is one of the few that can do it exceptionally. I haven't read much Dickens to enter a flowery comparison here, but Waters' prose is very much on par with the best 19th century writers, only slightly more explicit and touching on the subject hushed out in the mainstream fiction of that era (I am talking porn and reprehensible way of treating wealthy women behind closed doors and in houses for crazies).

Knocked down a star for the not long enough ending and necessary to the plot, but nevertheless often redundant, middle part.

4/5 stars

Affinity
Author: Sarah Waters
Publication Date: 1/8/02
Publisher: Riverhead Books

Blurb (GR): An upper-class woman, recovering from a suicide attempt, visits the women's ward of Millbank prison as part of her rehabilitation. There she meets Selina, an enigmatic spiritualist-and becomes drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina's freedom, and her own.

Review:
It is almost impossible to say anything about the plot of Affinity without spoiling something, so I'll refrain from recapping. A wealthy, depressed old maid starts visiting a women's prison and quickly finds herself taken by an inmate, a young spiritualist - that's all you need to know.

Let's talk about feelings instead. This sense of emptiness and despair I am left with is so overwhelming right now, that it leads me to believe I might have liked Affinity even more than Fingersmith. I would go as far as to say what I feel now is pretty close to what I felt after finishing The Blind Assassin.

This novel is very strong as a horror-laden/supernatural mystery - the level of suspense and foreboding is very high, but what it conveys even better is the suffocating atmosphere of oppression, repressed sexuality and thinly veiled eroticism and longing for the forbidden. As a woman of the now I have never experienced such a feeling of being completely powerless first hand, but Sarah Waters made me feel all of this for her Victorian heroines.

Not many contemporary writers can portray this very time- and class-specific environment. It's hard to top Edith Wharton. But Waters accomplishes it marvelously.

4/5 stars

Tipping the Velvet
Author: Sarah Waters
Publication Date: 5/1/00
Publisher: Riverhead Books

Blurb (GR): "Lavishly crammed with the songs, smells, and costumes of late Victorian England" (The Daily Telegraph), this delicious, steamy debut novel chronicles the adventures of Nan King, who begins life as an oyster girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable and whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler.

When Kitty is called up to London for an engagement on "Grease Paint Avenue", Nan follows as her dresser and secret lover, and, soon after, dons trousers herself and joins the act. In time, Kitty breaks her heart, and Nan assumes the guise of butch roue to commence her own thrilling and varied sexual education - a sort of Moll Flanders in drag - finally finding friendship and true love in the most unexpected places.

Drawing comparison to the work of Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters's novel is a feast for the senses - an erotic, lushly detailed historical novel that bursts with life and dazzlingly casts the turn of the century in a different light.

Review:
Well, I definitely have never read anything like this before. I dare you to read this book's synopsis and not get curious at least a little bit. The moment I set my eyes on a short description of Tipping the Velvet on the 1001 Must Read Before You Die Books list, I knew I had to read it. Cross-dressing lesbians, kept women, music hall singers, renter "boys" - I mean, what's not to like?

First and foremost, this is a book about lesbians (my first!) and written by one at that, so as far as the relationships in this novel are concerned, they are authentic in my mind. (I don't know about you, but I just hate it when straight authors write "gay books," particularly erotica. What can they possibly know?) I found myself quite ignorant of how such relationships work. Lesbian relationships, contrary to my uneducated beliefs, can be as abusive and destructive as the heterosexual ones. And, of course, there is lesbian sex. A few fairly explicit scenes (with "equipment"!), but the book doesn't turn into an overly gratuitous trashfest.

Second, in spite of its scandalous premise, the book is historically accurate. It comes as a shock to find out that there was a whole strata of women exploring their (homo)sexuality so freely in 1890s. After reading Edith Wharton's novels where women are too afraid to even get a divorce, it is a revelation to know that there were society women who kept female lovers and organized orgies. This, however, doesn't mean that in this book women go around doing whatever they please. Waters accompanies Nan's erotic adventures with a solid social context - same-sex relationships have to be secret, women known as "toms" are stigmatized, there is a legal punishment even.

I personally found this book very interesting. An imperfect, but strong debut. It is erotic without being vulgar, well researched but entertaining, well written without being boring. The only negative thing I have to say about it is that it takes a while for the story to pick up steam. The first 130 pages are a little dull, but after that the novel is impossible to put down. Needless to say, Tipping the Velvet won't be my last Sarah Waters novel.

P.S. Due to the naked women on the cover this edition is a little challenging to read in public.

4/5 stars