Sarah Perry: The Essex Serpent
What an excellent read. Great narrative drive ( I read it very quickly and it was the sort of book where if reading on the bus and then got off would stand in pavement to complete the chapter!).
A super range of very well drawn characters ( details coming) whose relationships were really well delineated and in whose lives we became warmly involved.
Centres on a fossil-fascinated widow who moves to Essex ; and the sense of place btw is very strong... recalled Graham Swifts Waterland in that respect... and her relationship with the local Vicar, his family, a Doctor who nursed her husband and a wealthy couple who in away link many of these.
Widow Cora is released at the start from a very grimly abusive relationship by her husbands death ( and the horrors of this are all the more powerful for being so sparely and sparsely referenced... mention of nails digging into the skin when at a formal public reception, an impression on her neck from a detail of a candlestick that those who see think might b a tattoo...but Cora survives this. Their son ( very ADHD) is also very well drawn and actually plays a significant role in the story. She has a close companion Martha, a passionate Socialist (1893 is the setting with the start of social advances and the birth of socialist/communist ideals) and there are suggestions earlier on that it is something more than an employee relationship and during the marriage at least was a source of passion, relief and strength for both. As suggested above there is a very good balance throughout the whole book of the psicisl and political world and how it affects/is a part of in varying ways of important aspects of all the characters lives. Their individual stories and relationships are centrally important but this social awareness adds much strength and depth to the novel.
There are several other centrally important character groupings. Radical and groundbreaking young surgeon Luke Garrett is central and he carries a torch for Cora but it is not to be but he is supported by a fellow doctor George Spencer a rather more worldly figure who is, wonderfully quietly, of central
Importance to Like. By the end with George having to help look after the injured Luke there is more than a hint that, as was the case with Cora and Martha the relationship is much more than friendship. The subtle and to be honest slightly ambiguous way this is shown is one of the great strengths of the book.
The local Vicar,William Ransome who is central in Coras life, his wife Stella and their children give a wonderful picture of a gloriously happy and supportive marriage even though again he has ' feelings' for Cora which are both acted and not acted upon. There is also the incipient tragedy of Stella who is suffering from consumption ( and how this is shown is superbly done and by the end we know what the final outcome will be...and yet it is sad but not tragic. It also made me realise that the depiction of Violeta in La Traviata and particularly her end, is a superbly medically and dramatically accurate one.
Linking these are the wealthy Ambrose's who by the end are politically involved and making s difference whereas at the start they were somewhat frivolously dilettante ( sorry that's an oxymoron, isn't it!)
So marvellous and rich book and I will seek out her first one too.
