Jude Starling

In ‘The Right of the Subjects’, historical novelist Starling sets her tale in the women’s suffrage movement in England. The early 1900s was a politically volatile time in Great Britain; it was not only women who could not vote but many men of the poorer classes couldn’t, either. It was also the time of the rise of labor unions fighting for decent wages and working conditions. It’s out of the working class of northern England that Evanna Bailie- Evie- comes; she goes to a suffragist protest as a lark with her sister Amie and the movement becomes a major part of her life. The sixteen year old woman meets Annie Kenney and other avid members of the suffrage movement and she sees a possible way out of her tedious, back breaking life as a weaver in a cotton mill. And she’s right; joining the movement has her traveling, having time to develop her artistic talent, and exploring sex. It also means going to prison regularly for protesting, going on hunger strikes and being violently force fed, and even rejecting water for so long that kidney problems arose in those that did so.

While I know a little bit about the British Woman’s Suffrage movement- mainly about upper class women such as Mrs. Pankhurst- I was completely ignorant about the role working class women played. I should have known that there would have to be a lot of less well off women to create the mobs that were willing to be arrested, beaten, sexually assaulted, and have their health and lives risked in prison!

Evie is an interesting and, as the story goes on, a sympathetic, protagonist; she undergoes a lot of growth in the story and has the good luck to find out who she truly wants to be. There is a strong cast of varied characters both historical and fictional; the movement brought different classes of women together as allies for the first time, and same sex relationships became quietly accepted. Told from Evie’s point of view, the story engages and satisfies.

Starling researches her books thoroughly, and with this book she includes ‘extras’, rather like a DVD; essays about things she found out about the suffrage movement. While certainly not necessary to understand the story, they add depth and make the reader appreciate the movement and the women who created it more.… (mehr)

Set in northwest England in the year 1866, this heartbreaking novel is of a woman put into a mental institution by her husband- a husband she never wanted. Ivy Squire, nee Greenlake (having to change her name was an irritation to her) was married by her parents to Benjamin Squire as a social and economic move; Squire’s mother, who made the match, only wanted someone decorative and fertile. Ivy was not consulted at all- not at all unusual for that time. Ivy, an avid reader and devoted to her invalid sister, had no interest in leaving home. But her odd ways had always been an embarrassment to her mother, and this marriage offer was a good arrangement in her eyes.

Sadly, her odd ways make her less than satisfactory to her new spouse and mother-in-law, and Ivy is revolted by her husband and his demands. When she finds secret ways to maintain some autonomy, her happiness proves short lived.

Ivy’s odd ways are simply Asperger’s syndrome, unheard of in the Victorian age. In our day, people with Asperger’s are just beginning to be accepted as normal (whatever that is); imagine how much worse it would have been back then, when every inconvenient female was considered to have a mental illness, as was every one who did not adhere closely to the prevailing way of life.

Problems at the institute make Ivy’s – and the other patient’s- situation worse. Enoch Gale, founder of Goldcord and Medical Superintendent, has secrets that would ruin him were they known. To add to Gale’s problems, the Commission in Lunacy, which oversees mental hospitals, is starting to frown on the fact that very few patients are released as cured. Dr. Ballard, new to Goldcord, and the new nurse, Tilly Swann, show promise of making humane changes, but can they do this before a panicked Gale destroys lives?

While told in the third person and weaving together the stories of Ivy, Ballard, Swann, Gale, and the Matron, Eugenia Harvey, the heart of the story is Ivy’s, told to Tilly Swann. Ivy comes through as a determined person who may not always make choices that everyone would but has to be admired for her strength, loving nature, and intellect. The characters all come to life on the page, but I felt I knew Ivy as a living, breathing person. A lot of research went into this book and the historical aspects are spot on. I very, very rarely do this, but I cried at the end of this story. I highly recommend this book.… (mehr)