Slammerkin
I have to say that Slammerkin was a bit of a disappointment. It wasn't bad, and by the end I even mostly enjoyed it. But after Room and Frog Music, I was expecting a more compelling story, and it was just lacking. I suppose that's the risk of reading an author's works backwards.
It didn't help that parts of the book were reminiscent of Alias Grace, another book that a lot of people liked that never quite grabbed me. Maybe it's the genre - murderous maids in the 1700s might just not be my thing. At least this one leaned into the guilt of the maid in question, rather than playing a coy game about whether or not she committed the crime she was accused of.
Slammerkin started slow and bleak. Everything that could go wrong for Mary does. Growing up poor, she longs for a better life, and she has the brains to achieve it if she only lived in a different time and place. Instead her desire for a pretty red ribbon ends in the peddlar raping her. When her mom discovers that she's pregnant she throws her out of the house. A night spent shivering in the gutter followed by a morning being gang-raped doesn't even result in a miscarriage, and Mary turns to prostitution to pay for a horrific abortion. Things don't really get better after that.
Donaghue has some interesting things to say about prostitution itself, especially when Mary compares herself to a wet nurse. And she paints a rich picture of life in 18th century London, followed by the quieter and much more boring Monmouth. But the story was ultimately to sensationalist for me to really love.
It didn't help that parts of the book were reminiscent of Alias Grace, another book that a lot of people liked that never quite grabbed me. Maybe it's the genre - murderous maids in the 1700s might just not be my thing. At least this one leaned into the guilt of the maid in question, rather than playing a coy game about whether or not she committed the crime she was accused of.
Slammerkin started slow and bleak. Everything that could go wrong for Mary does. Growing up poor, she longs for a better life, and she has the brains to achieve it if she only lived in a different time and place. Instead her desire for a pretty red ribbon ends in the peddlar raping her. When her mom discovers that she's pregnant she throws her out of the house. A night spent shivering in the gutter followed by a morning being gang-raped doesn't even result in a miscarriage, and Mary turns to prostitution to pay for a horrific abortion. Things don't really get better after that.
Donaghue has some interesting things to say about prostitution itself, especially when Mary compares herself to a wet nurse. And she paints a rich picture of life in 18th century London, followed by the quieter and much more boring Monmouth. But the story was ultimately to sensationalist for me to really love.
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