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At the Heart of this panoramic, multidimensional narrative is the compelling struggle of a young woman to lift her body and soul out of the gutter. Michel Faber leads us back to 1870s London, where Sugar, a nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, yearns for escape into a better life. Her ascent through the strata of Victorian society offers us intimacy with a host of lovable, maddening, unforgettable characters.
They begin with William Rackham, an egotistical perfume magnate whose ambition is fueled by his lust for Sugar, and whose patronage of her brings her into proximity to his extended family and milieu: his unhinged, child-like wife, Agnes; his mysteriously hidden-away daughter, Sophie; and his pious brother Henry, foiled in his devotional calling by a persistently less-than-chaste love for the Widow Fox, whose efforts on behalf of The Rescue Society lead Henry into ever-more disturbing confrontations with flesh. All this is overseen by assorted preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes and persuasions.
Twenty years in its conception, research, and writing, The Crimson Petal and the White is a singular literary achievement -- a gripping, intoxicating, deeply satisfying Victorian novel written with an immediacy, compassion, and insight that give it a timeless and universal appeal.
Readers...are in for a lasting love affair; the intimate relationship one develops with the characters after reading for 834 pages is much more staisfying than the mere one-night-stand promised by most novels.
More Reviews and RecommendationsSeductive and strange, Michel Faber's work has been compared to that of Dickens, McEwan, Fowles, and other top writers -- and the comparisons are apt, depending on what you're reading. But Faber's accomplishment in novels such as Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White is to create something uniquely, indelibly his own.
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January 11, 2010: This book had me at the opening page. The way the author chose to write it has you fascinated from the very beginning. The entire book is great and I couldn't put it down. The problem comes at the very end. This book doesn't wind down or finish with a happy ending or a neat finish. It just abruptly STOPS. Almost as if the author felt that after having reached 896 pages he was done regardless of where the story was going. When I finished the book I spent the next 25 minutes ranting to my husband about how great this book was but how stunned and upset I was that the book just stopped mid-story! No explanation, no sequel, no nothing!! I was left feeling disappointed, frustrated and like an idiot for having invested that kind of time in a book where I don't have a clue what happens to these characters I'ld come to be fascinated with. I was also left with more questions than answers. This book would would be fantastic if the author wrote a second book to finish this story. I gave this book to my best friend (telling her nothing about it and giving her no warning)to read just so I would have someone to commiserate and rant with me. She read it about a year after me and we can both vent our frustrations to each other now. ;-)
I Also Recommend: The Pillars of the Earth.
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December 28, 2009: Michael Faber knows how to hook the reader from the very first sentence to the very last. The first and last pages are very important to me and Michael Faber seems to know that while every word is important throughout a book one must snare the reader and their imagination from the very beginning. I cannot reccommend this book enough. I went through such a dramatic range of emotions from chapter to chapter that my mind and body would be weary after I put the book down. You not only get a sense of the charactesr Faber has created but of the world around them. The sights, smells, and vibe of the city and places around Sugar can be seen, smelled, and felt by the reader. I dearly hope this book soon becomes a "classic".
Name:
Michel Faber
Current Home:
A remote cottage in Ross-shire, Scottish Highlands
Date of Birth:
1960
Place of Birth:
Netherlands
Education:
Melbourne University
Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them.
Thus Michel Faber lures readers into the Victorian saga of The Crimson Petal and the White, a novel that has earned Faber comparisons to Charles Dickens and delivered on the promise of his first, markedly different novel Under the Skin. Petal is an exhaustively researched chronicle of 1870s London as seen through the eyes of a young prostitute whose ambition carries her (and the reader) to higher levels in society. Faber's come-hither approach to writing the book jives with both his characters and his approach to reading. "I use the metaphor of a novel being like a prostitute, promising the reader a good time, promising intimacy and companionship," he says in a publisher's interview. "Ironically, even though you feel at first that you're being strung along by this beguiling voice, you do end up getting everything it promised you. And more, I hope."
Faber seduced readers with a predatory protagonist in the sci-fi-like Under the Skin. He brings his audience in league with Isserley, an otherworldly character who preys on human men in Scotland for their body parts, then sends the fruits of her labor back to her home territory. Faber's potency as a writer lies in his ability to lead the reader into a story with a number of matter-of-fact details, some sticking out more than others -- things don't get completely strange in Under the Skin until Isserley happens to flick a switch in her car and needles emerge from the passenger seat, sedating the hitchhiker she's picked up.
"The more the writer tries to force the reader to regard something as amazing and special, the more suspicious and bored the reader will become," Faber said in an interview with the Barcelona Review in 2002. "The reader needs to feel that the weirdness or the beauty or the horror in a story has an independent reality from what anyone says about it. That’s an illusion, of course: the writer is responsible. But the illusion is essential." Faber succeeds in crafting these illusions, whether they are the stuff of real life or fantasy. As the New York Times noted in its impressed and bemused review of Under the Skin, "His writing is chaste, dryly humorous and resolutely moral. The fantastic is so nicely played against the day-to-day that one feels the strangeness of both..."
It's evident from these two novels and from the short story collection Some Rain Must Fall, which mixes fantastic and humdrum settings, that Faber knows no bounds when it comes to genre or milieu. Like his protagonists, he can take his strengths into foreign territories, succeeding by coercion if necessary.
The first third of The Crimson Petal and the White was serialized online at the Guardian's web site.
One of Faber's early publisher bios said that "he has worked as a nurse, a pickle-packer, a cleaner, and a guinea pig for medical research."
In 2002, Faber published a novella called The Courage Consort, which has not yet been released in the U.S.
The Barnes & Noble Review
Aptly described by the publisher as "the first great nineteenth-century novel of the twenty-first century," Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White is an authentic evocation of Victorian London that recalls the triple-decker extravaganzas of Eliot, Trollope and, of course, Dickens.
Writing in a clear, seductive voice that draws you effortlessly in, Faber depicts a very real city populated by a deeply credible gallery of flawed, struggling souls. Included among them are Caroline, an ignorant low-class streetwalker; Mrs. Castaway, a vicious brothel keeper; William Rackham, a self-involved perfume magnate; and Sugar, a remarkably well-read teenage prostitute who believes in "the reality of dreams." Sugar's particular dreams -- of escape, of rising above her circumstances -- and her relationships -- with Mrs. Castaway, with Rackham and his peculiar family -- dominate the novel, which illuminates virtually every level of Victorian society, warts and all. Faber, who spent more than 20 years researching and developing his panoramic narrative, writes with absolute confidence and a lively, enthralling attention to detail.
Resolutely modern in its sexual frankness but steeped in the ambiance of an earlier age, The Crimson Petal and the White is unlike anything in recent fiction. Charles Palliser's The Quincunx, which brought a similar breadth of research and imagination to its sprawling portrait of Victorian social inequities, is its closest contemporary literary sibling. Admirers of The Quincunx -- and of the 19th century masterpieces that served as its primary models -- will lose themselves for days at a time in this rich, thoroughly convincing novel. Bill Sheehan
At the Heart of this panoramic, multidimensional narrative is the compelling struggle of a young woman to lift her body and soul out of the gutter. Michel Faber leads us back to 1870s London, where Sugar, a nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, yearns for escape into a better life. Her ascent through the strata of Victorian society offers us intimacy with a host of lovable, maddening, unforgettable characters.
They begin with William Rackham, an egotistical perfume magnate whose ambition is fueled by his lust for Sugar, and whose patronage of her brings her into proximity to his extended family and milieu: his unhinged, child-like wife, Agnes; his mysteriously hidden-away daughter, Sophie; and his pious brother Henry, foiled in his devotional calling by a persistently less-than-chaste love for the Widow Fox, whose efforts on behalf of The Rescue Society lead Henry into ever-more disturbing confrontations with flesh. All this is overseen by assorted preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes and persuasions.
Twenty years in its conception, research, and writing, The Crimson Petal and the White is a singular literary achievement -- a gripping, intoxicating, deeply satisfying Victorian novel written with an immediacy, compassion, and insight that give it a timeless and universal appeal.
Readers...are in for a lasting love affair; the intimate relationship one develops with the characters after reading for 834 pages is much more staisfying than the mere one-night-stand promised by most novels.
Faber's labyrinthine novel of Victorian England features William, the bored, married son of a wealthy perfumer; Sugar, the otherworldly whore he defiantly loves; his odd wife, Agnes; and his puritanical, reformist older brother Henry. There's a feeling of anticipation as the book's narrator leads readers down seedy London streets: "Watch your step," he cautions. "Keep your wits about you; you will need them." Faber is an energetic storyteller, and this book is often as lively as its characters. —Chris Barsanti
Faber's labyrinthine novel of Victorian England features William, the bored, married son of a wealthy perfumer; Sugar, the otherworldly whore he defiantly loves; his odd wife, Agnes; and his puritanical, reformist older brother Henry. There's a feeling of anticipation as the book's narrator leads readers down seedy London streets: "Watch your step," he cautions. "Keep your wits about you; you will need them." Faber is an energetic storyteller, and this book is often as lively as its characters.
"Gorgeous. Capable of rendering the muck of a London street and the delicate humming-bird flights of thought with equal ease."
"Ambitious and accomplished ... Nothing could have prepared readers for the sweep and subtlety of The Crimson Petal and the White."
"Tell[s] a good story grippingly and colorfully ... An old-fashioned page-turner with pleasingly new-fangled twists."
Set in 1870s London, Faber's second novel (after Under the Skin) is a powerful portrayal of a young prostitute named Sugar. Intelligent and ambitious, Sugar yearns to escape from the livelihood forced on her at age 13. Enter William Rackham, a besotted philanderer and idle heir to a family perfume business,who installs Sugar as his secret mistress in a fashionable hideaway. When the incompetent William is forced into managing the family firm, he initially seeks advice from Sugar, who, fearful of losing his affection, schemes to gain closer proximity to the Rackham family. She succeeds by becoming governess to William's only child, young Sophie, who is cruelly ignored by her father and his insane and sickly wife, Agnes. As William's interest in Sugar wanes, she seeks to maintain her position both by earning Sophie's respect and by gaining possession of the intimate diaries that Agnes has foolishly discarded. Faber's mastery of character, evocative descriptions of Victorian England, and rich dialog, together with his weaving of enduring themes throughout a complex plot, creates a remarkable novel. Strongly recommended for most literary and historical fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/02.]-Joseph M. Eagan, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
If you start reading this suspenseful, beautifully written novel, with its compelling characters, subtle psychology, wit and heart, you won't be able to stop.
It's Fowlesian nouveau-roman trickery, pasted onto 19th-century melodrama. The combination works surprisingly well. When he's not rubbing the reader's nose in Victorian sewage and soiled underwear, Faber has the Victorian virtue of telling a good story grippingly and colorfully. The Crimson Petal and the White is an old-fashioned page-turner with pleasingly newfangled twists.
Here's a tale of a true city. London, 1874. Whores, high society, smut-soaked streets, the polished ceilings of Royal Albert Hall. The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber's bulging, bawdy Victorian epic, is a gloves-off kind of novel, one not to be passed along lightly to your grandmother. Cocky and brilliant, amused and angry, the author is rightfully earning comparisons to observer extraordinaire Charles Dickens.
The late-19th-century London setting and mores of the book suggest Victoriana ... the author has revived the spirit of the era's broad, socially conscious narrative tableaus. But this is also a story told in the present tense, alert and teasingly satirical about its characters even as it evokes real compassion for their peculiarly Victorian plights. There is as much "Bonfire of the Vanities" as Dickens here, not to mention a graphic sexual realism that is Mr. Faber's own. Janet Maslin
Michel Faber's previous work ... was certainly ambitious and accomplished, but nothing could have prepared his readers for the sweep and subtlety of The Crimson Petal and the White.... Slowly we find ourselves inside the heroine's head, led there by a rhetoric so skilled and daring, that we hardly know it is operating.
...don't wait for the movie. Read The Crimson Petal and the White now, while it's still a living, laughing, sweating, coruscating mass of gorgeous words.... Ever since last fall readers have been watching for another knockdown, breakout book on the order of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. It's here.... The result is so fresh it makes contemporary novels, however packed with up-to-the-minute pop-culture references, feel dated. And although it's almost 300 pages longer than The Corrections, miraculously it feels shorter.
Imagine a Dickens novel freed of the restraints imposed by Victorian propriety. There's no other way to describe this enthralling melodrama from the British author of Under the Skin (2000). Set in 1870s London, Faber's second outing is a brilliantly plotted chronicle of the collision between high and low, as played out in the complex relationship binding would-be writer William Rackham, heir to a perfume-maker's fortune and an inveterate whoremaster, and a cunning prostitute known as Sugar, whose special erotic talents inflame the smitten Rackham to the extent that he installs her in his home, ostensibly as his young daughter's governess; in fact, as the mistress who distracts his attention from the illnesses and "fits" endured by his frail (and possibly "mad") wife Agnes. Faber tells this story through the voice of a cajoling omniscient narrator implicitly likened to a whore luring her customer on, incidentally providing a thickly detailed panorama of 19th-century urban life. And the characters: not only the egoistic, self-justifying Rackham, the fascinating Agnes (a keen study in what used to be called "female hysteria"), and the calculating Sugar (herself a secret authoress, of "a tale that throws back the sheets from acts never shown and voices never heard")-but also William's priggish brother Henry, who wishes to reform prostitutes but suffers "nightmares of erotic disgrace"; Henry's cohort in benevolence, "Rescue Society" bluestocking Emmeline Fox; the Hogarthian procuress Mrs. Castaway and the ghastly Colonel Leek; "eminent swells" Bodley and Ashwell, William's companions in depravity and the exploitation of women-these and many others leap from Faber's crowded pages, as the whoreSugar's progress clashes with the sanctity of the Rackham hearth, Agnes's runaway manic-depression, William's inexplicable recovery of love for his wife and eventual dismissal of her replacement-and leads to Sugar's horrific climactic revenge. It's hard to imagine that any contemporary novelist could have appropriated with such skill and force the irresistible narrative drive of the Victorian three-decker, or that readers who hunger for story won't devour this like grateful wolves. Riveting, and absolutely unforgettable.
Loading...| Part 1 | The Streets | 1 |
| Part 2 | The House of Ill Repute | 125 |
| Part 3 | The Private Rooms and the Public Haunts | 275 |
| Part 4 | The Bosom of the Family | 495 |
| Part 5 | The World at Large | 669 |
Although the obvious point of comparison is with Charles Dickens, reading groups will be captivated by the sly, seductive narrator, who invites the audience into the lives of the characters with an artfulness that lends an edge of tension to the story that unfolds. As the two Rackham brothers -- pious Henry and dilettante William -- pursue their separate passions, it becomes clear that this is a look at the Victorian world from a distinctly modern perspective, with an uncensored view of the relationships between husbands and wives, as well as the darkly parallel relationship between the world of prostitutes and the upper-class men who seek them out. The novel invites discussions of the way attitudes toward sexuality were a vital, if hidden, element of this outwardly staid society.
The novel's most fascinating character is a much-sought-after young prostitute who becomes the obsession of William Rackham. "Sugar," as she is known, is the inspiration for William's decision to follow in his father's footsteps and become a successful businessman. As it turns out, Sugar is much more than merely a fascinating muse; self-educated and deeply intelligent, she recognizes in William an opportunity to leave behind a life that she despises. Ultimately, the novel centers around her struggle to make a new life, and reinvent herself entirely. Reading groups will find in Sugar a focal point for discussion, as her wit, cunning, and rage draw a portrait that is dazzling in its complexity and originality. It is matched by the rendering of figures such as William's wife, Agnes, whose illness causes her to live as a parody of a delicate gentlewoman, and his brother, Henry, a religious soul who is consumed by his own unexpressed desires.
Sugar's attempt to transform herself by attaching to William means that she must commit to an existence of perpetual deception, since her lover must believe that she is devoted to him. It is a grand-scale version of the false love she has previously bestowed on individual clients -- yet the irony in Faber's tale is that this wholesale deception brings Sugar into a relationship with William's daughter, a chance for her to experience real love. Readers of The Crimson Petal and the White will find the book strewn with such paradoxes, as the author investigates how it is possible for many of us to build a life -- almost an entire world -- out of an illusion so carefully maintained that it is easily mistaken for reality. This tour de force of a novel will have reading groups talking about Faber's characters, and their destinies, for many beguiling hours. Bill Tipper
Discussion Questions from the Publisher
1. The novel's title implies the distinction between virtue and immorality. In your opinion, who are the sinister characters in the book? Who are the heroes and heroines?
2. What makes the late nineteenth century such an appropriate time period for this narrative? How might the storyline have played out in the twenty-first century?
3. Temptation and cravings fuel much of the novel's plot. By your own standards, are the characters shockingly lacking in self-control? Or do you feel they cope well in the circumstances?
4. Do you detect any common denominator among the novel's female characters (especially Sugar, Agnes, Mrs. Fox, and Mrs. Castaway) in spite of their seemingly disparate motivations?
5. William receives nearly constant assistance from various hired women. In what way is Sugar's subservience different from that of the other servants, both before and after she becomes Sophie's governess?
6. The Crimson Petal and the White contains dozens of religious references, including Sugar's being mistaken for an angel, Agnes's superstitious hunger for Catholicism, The Rescue Society's moral mission, the radical proposals in The Efficacy of Prayer, and debates about creationism. Is religion harmful or beneficial to the characters in this novel?
7. The theme of cleanliness versus filth pervades the novel, with William's products nearly comprising an additional character. Considering the fact that even the upper-crust residents of Notting Hill had to do without indoor plumbing, what is the effect of these details about ablutions?
8. Critics have compared Michel Faber to many literary lions, ranging from Charles Dickens to Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Franzen. In what ways does literature appear to have evolved over the past two centuries?
9. How does Michel Faber keep the reader hooked and entertained throughout a lengthy epic? Did the devices work for you?
10. Does any authentic love occur in the novel? Are Sugar and William in love?
11. William's pious brother is the extreme opposite of Ashwell and Bodley. Do these minor male characters in any way reflect aspects of William's persona? Do you believe that Ashwell and Bodley were merely included for comic relief? Discuss the irony of Henry's death.
12. The characters in The Crimson Petal and the White live under the shroud of considerable misinformation, including Doctor Curlew's inability to diagnose Agnes's brain tumor and Sugar's rudimentary birth-control methods. Would modern medicine have kept their lives trouble-free?
13. Discuss Sugar's transformation from no-nonsense prostitute to maternal romantic. What role did the ironically named Priory Close location play in this transformation? What choices would you have made had you been born into Sugar's circumstances?
14. For all its Victorian trappings, The Crimson Petal and the White also showcases some expert postmodern features, such as a narrator who frequently reminds us that we are reading a novel-his novel-and that he will decide which point of view we receive in each scene. In what way does this narrator act as a kind of literary seducer, luring us to follow him to the very end? How do the novels within the novel (Sugar's sadistic bodice-ripper, and Agnes's imaginative diaries) affect your reading experience?
15. The novel ends by posing a terrific "what if." Speculate about the futures of Sophie and Sugar. Why do you suppose the author chose to give the closing line to Caroline? What might this suggest about William's fate?
Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them. This city I am bringing you to is vast and intricate, and you have not been here before. You may imagine, from other stories you've read, that you know it well, but those stories flattered you, welcoming you as a friend, treating you as if you belonged. The truth is that you are an alien from another time and place altogether.
When I first caught your eye and you decided to come with me, you were probably thinking you would simply arrive and make yourself at home. Now that you're actually here, the air is bitterly cold, and you find yourself being led along in complete darkness, stumbling on uneven ground, recognising nothing. Looking left and right, blinking against an icy wind, you realise you have entered an unknown street of unlit houses full of unknown people.
And yet you did not choose me blindly. Certain expectations were aroused. Let's not be coy: you were hoping I would satisfy all the desires you're too shy to name, or at least show you a good time. Now you hesitate, still holding on to me, but tempted to let me go. When you first picked me up, you didn't fully appreciate the size of me, nor did you expect I would grip you so tightly, so fast. Sleet stings your cheeks, sharp little spits of it so cold they feel hot, like fiery cinders in the wind. Your ears begin to hurt. But you've allowed yourself to be led astray, and it's too late to turn back now.
It's an ashen hour of night, blackish-grey and almost readable like undisturbed pages of burnt manuscript. You blunder forward into the haze of your own spent breath, still following me. The cobblestones beneath your feet are wet andmucky, the air is frigid and smells of sour spirits and slowly dissolving dung. You hear muffled drunken voices from somewhere nearby, but what little you can understand doesn't sound like the carefully chosen opening speeches of a grand romantic drama; instead, you find yourself hoping to God that the voices come no closer.
The main characters in this story, with whom you want to become intimate, are nowhere near here. They aren't expecting you; you mean nothing to them. If you think they're going to get out of their warm beds and travel miles to meet you, you are mistaken.
You may wonder, then: why did I bring you here? Why this delay in meeting the people you thought you were going to meet? The answer is simple: their servants wouldn't have let you in the door.
What you lack is the right connections, and that is what I've brought you here to make: connections. A person who is worth nothing must introduce you to a person worth next-to-nothing, and that person to another, and so on and so forth until finally you can step across the threshold, almost one of the family.
That is why I've brought you here to Church Lane, St Giles: I've found just the right person for you.
I must warn you, though, that I'm introducing you at the very bottom: the lowest of the low. The opulence of Bedford Square and the British Museum may be only a few hundred yards away, but New Oxford Street runs between there and here like a river too wide to swim, and you are on the wrong side. The Prince of Wales has never, I assure you, shaken the hand of any of the residents of this street, or even nodded in passing at anyone here, nor even, under cover of night, sampled the prostitutes. For although Church Lane has more whores living in it than almost any other street in London, they are not of the calibre suitable for gentlemen. To connoisseurs, a woman is more than a carcass after all, and you can't expect them to forgive the fact that the beds here are dirty, the décor is mean, the hearths are cold and there are no cabs waiting outside.
In short, this is another world altogether, where prosperity is an exotic dream as distant as the stars. Church Lane is the sort of street where even the cats are thin and hollow-eyed for want of meat, the sort of street where men who profess to be labourers never seem to labour and so-called washer- women rarely wash. Do-gooders can do no good here, and are sent on their way with despair in their hearts and shit on their shoes. A model lodging-house for the deserving poor, opened with great philanthropic fanfare twenty years ago, has already fallen into the hands of disreputables, and has aged terribly. The other, more antiquated houses, despite being two or even three storeys high, exude a subterranean atmosphere, as if they have been excavated from a great pit, the decomposing archaeology of a lost civilisation. Centuries-old buildings support themselves on crutches of iron piping, their wounds and infirmities poulticed with stucco, slung with clothes-lines, patched up with rotting wood. The roofs are a crazy jumble, the upper windows cracked and black as the brickwork, and the sky above seems more solid than air, a vaulted ceiling like the glass roof of a factory or a railway station: once upon a time bright and transparent, now overcast with filth.
However, since you've arrived at ten to three in the middle of a freezing November night, you're not inclined to admire the view. Your immediate concern is how to get out of the cold and the dark, so that you can become what you'd thought you could be just by laying your hand on me: an insider.
Apart from the pale gas-light of the street-lamps at the far corners, you can't see any light in Church Lane, but that's because your eyes are accustomed to stronger signs of human wakefulness than the feeble glow of two candles behind a smutty windowpane. You come from a world where darkness is swept aside at the snap of a switch, but that is not the only balance of power that life allows. Much shakier bargains are possible.
Come up with me to the room where that feeble light is shining. Let me pull you in through the back door of this house, let me lead you through a claustrophobic corridor that smells of slowly percolating carpet and soiled linen. Let me rescue you from the cold. I know the way.
Watch your step on these stairs; some of them are rotten. I know which ones; trust me. You have come this far, why not go just a little farther? Patience is a virtue, and will be amply rewarded.
Of course - didn't I mention this? - I'm about to leave you. Yes, sadly so. But I'll leave you in good hands, excellent hands. Here, in this tiny upstairs room where the feeble light is shining, you are about to make your first connection.
She's a sweet soul; you'll like her. And if you don't, it hardly matters: as soon as she's set you on the right path, you can abandon her without fuss. In the five years since she's been making her own way in the world, she has never got within shouting distance of the sorts of ladies and gentlemen among whom you'll be moving later; she works, lives and will certainly die in Church Lane, tethered securely to this rookery.
Like many common women, prostitutes especially, her name is Caroline, and you find her squatting over a large ceramic bowl filled with a tepid mixture of water, alum and sulphate of zinc. Using a plunger improvised from a wooden spoon and old bandage, she attempts to poison, suck out or otherwise destroy what was put inside her only minutes before by a man you've just missed meeting. As Caroline repeatedly saturates the plunger, the water becomes dirtier - a sure sign, she believes, that the man's seed is swirling around in it rather than in her.
Drying herself with the hem of her shift, she notes that her two candles are dimming; one of them is already a guttering stub. Will she light new ones?
Well, that depends on what time of night it is, and Caroline has no clock. Few people in Church Lane do. Few know what year it is, or even that eighteen and a half centuries are supposed to have passed since a Jewish troublemaker was hauled away to the gallows for disturbing the pea
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