This novel, set in London and environs in the 1840s, traces the
parallel paths of two young women, Sue Trinder and Maud
Lilly. Trinder is a serving girl in training at Mrs.
Sucksby's thief's academy; Lilly is a highborn amanuensis for her
rich and eccentric uncle. Both exist in prisons not of their
own making, both are haunted with dark shameful Victorian secrets,
and
both scheme with all their might to change their fates.
Their fates do indeed change, but in ways they never could have
imagined.
To reveal the labyrinthine plot would be the diabolical act of a literary fiend, but suffice to say, before the story's end, the dear reader is treated with a rich portrait of the London petty criminal underground, with a painstakingly-detailed depiction of the true intimacy between maid and mistress, with bone-chilling portraits of Victorian lunatic asylums and places of public execution, and with turns and twists of fate satisfying in their dizzying complexity.
FINGERSMITH is divided into three equal parts, the first and last
in the voice of Sue Trinder, the middle in the voice of Maud
Lilly. One of the book's guilty pleasures is to go through
the same cataclysms twice, from differing perspectives. What
the attentive reader thinks he knows, after Sue's introductory
part, will be engagingly challenged, by Maud's very different
account of the same events.
Dialogue on favorite books with Deane Rink before and during his latest trek to Antarctica, with a note from Bill Ransom and a digression about Frank Herbert (a.k.a Bookbabble 101) -- a very long and rapidly growing document:
Book reviews by Richard Seltzer