Lucy SussexRezensionen

Fascinating semi-autobiography of Fergus Hume and a full biography of his blockbuster crime novel, "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab". A huge amount of research has obviously gone into this book.

This is a wonderful collection of historical personal writings, although I must say that I find (at a few weeks remove) it difficult to match the pieces themselves with the descriptors from the back:

"...including: a bride of 16; one of the first men to play Australian Rules football; a woman running away from a brutal husband; another staving off a breakdown with drugs; a family fleeing imprisonment for debt; and her own great-grandmother, who was lucky to survive the first white settlement in the Kimberleys."

In each chapter, the writing itself is bookended at front with the description of a contemporary item (possibly all from Sussex's family possessions) and some other context providing information, and at the end with what follow up Sussex has gleaned about the writers themselves. Each piece is related to some aspect of sea travel in the mid 1800s, from wealthy individuals in 'first class' to those in steerage.

It was a fascinating read, and I was finding every spare moment to come back to it. Even though the writings themselves implied that the ships did not founder on the trip in question, there were certainly moments when this was in no way convincing. Thoroughly recommended.½

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, written in the mid 1880s, was a world-wide publishing phenomenon. The story of its publication deserves a book like Blockbuster!. Reviewed at Newtown Review of Books.

why am I reading this book?

This is another book for the Australian Women's Writers Challenge. This brilliant challenge maybe found at www.goodreads.com/group/show/59176, https://www.facebook.com/AustralianWomenWriters?sk=wall.Australian_Women_Writers..., and http://www.australianwomenwriters.com/p/australian-women-writers-book-challenge_.... It's not too late to get involved. Get reading.

about this book

This is part of a series of novella size books which is currently being by published Twelfth Planet Press (http://www.twelfthplanetpress.com/). These books are short story collections. This book is a series of fairly unrelated stories;

Alchemy
Fountain of Justice
The Story of O
Thief of Lives

What I thought

This book is an interesting introduction to the work of an interesting writer. I will definitely read more from this author.

Thief of Lives is a collection of four short stories without common setting. I have to admit, this collection was closer to literary realism than I usually read. Thematically, women are central to all the stories in a variety of different ways. Karen Joy Fowler eloquently explains what Sussex writes about in the introduction:

"Fantasy, history, crime. The relationship of women to men. The relationship of women to women. The relationship of the writer to her subject."

Alchemy

The first story in this collection is set in ancient Babylon. It’s about the best perfumier in the city, one of the first chemists in the world. She is watched, throughout her life by an immortal who has singled her out the smartest person in Babylon and is fascinated by her mind.

The Fountain of Justice

This story can be most accurately described as crime. It’s set around underworld shootings in an Australian city (I would guess Melbourne, but I don’t think it ever said), and told from the point of view of a legal aid.

The Subject of O

This story is about the main character’s understanding of her sexual experiences, when she starts to see them in a new light.

Thief of Lives

The titular story was my favourite of the bunch. The main character is PA to a successful urban fantasy novelist who has been sent to Bristol to conduct some research. While there she discovers a psychic vampire preying on the town; a creature who sucks the life out of its victims before committing their lives to paper. It’s a fascinating exploration of writers drawing inspiration from their surroundings that interweaves reality and fantasy.

~

4 / 5 stars

Rediscovery is exactly the word that needs to be applied to this small, but incredibly packed offering from renowned Senior Research Fellow Lucy Sussex.

Sussex has to be one of the greatest proponents of the discovery and telling of the tales of the earliest female writers - having now bought Mary Fortune to light, she has turned her hand to exploring not just the origins, but much of the history of early Women Writers and Detectives. Proving once and for all that the crime genre was not just founded by a well-known group of men, many of the women in this book (characters and authors) really deserve the accolades due to them from current day readers.

Densely packed with information, this isn't a book that I sat down and read in a few settings, but rather one I've been dipping into and out of since it arrived here. It was particularly interesting to see where Mary Fortune fitted into this role call of writers, and it was also most interesting to come across Anna Katherine Green's name - a woman whose book The Leavenworth Case is a book that I remember from my early exposure to crime fiction in all its forms.

Despite having dipped into and out of this book from start to finish, it will be a book that I know I'll be returning to - the subject matter deserves a re-read over and over again.

Two Poems: “Alnta” and “Mandina” from Women of the Sun · Hyllus Maris
The Master Builder’s Wife · Lisa Jacobson
The Goddess Wakes · Jane Routley
Widow Wilberforce and the Lyrebird · Nadia Wheatley
The Pumpkin-Eater · Isobelle Carmody
Aubade [from Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow] · M. Barnard Eldershaw
One Last Picture of Ruby-Rose (a letter to Kevin Arnett) · Carmel Bird
Angel Thing · Petrina Smith ·
from The Sea People · Maurilia Meehan
Entropy · Leanne Frahm
Science Fiction · Sarah Carmela Helen Endacott
Possum Lover · Yvonne Rousseau
The Blinding of Bellevue Hearn · Alison Goodman
from SAW · Berni M. Janssen
Angel Jacko · Gabrielle Lord
A Sky Full of Ravens · Sue Isle
from A Few Hours in a Far-Off Age · Henrietta Dugdale
A Tour Guide in Utopia · Lucy Sussex
The Know-All · Rosaleen Love
Not with Love · Philippa C. Maddern
The Padwan Affair · Tess Williams
Our Mother Land · Daisy Utemorrah