Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Brontës Went to Woolworths

by Rachel Ferguson

How I loathe that kind of novel which is about a lot of sisters. It is usually called They Were Seven, or Three-Not Out, and one spends one’s entire time trying to sort them all, and muttering, “Was it Isobel who drank, or Gertie? And which was it who ran away with the gigolo, Amy or Pauline? And which of their separated husbands was Lionel, Isobel’s or Amy’s?”

So begins the tale of the Carne sisters: Deirdre, Katrine, and Sheil. They live in London in the 1930s. Deirdre is a journalist, Katrine is a fledgling actress, and Sheil is still young enough to have a governess.

Despite their age and career differences, the sisters stay connected by their imagination. Their shared imagination. Let me explain: the sisters and their mother love to make up stories. They give human qualities to their dolls, and they make up all sorts of stories about actual famous people. They pretend to know these people and talk about them constantly. This behavior has driven away several governesses.

Reality intervenes when Deirdre meets one of their favorite characters, Judge Toddington, or Toddy, as the sisters refer to him. All of a sudden, Toddy is right there in front of their very eyes, not just a character mentioned at the dinner table. He and his wife become a real presence in the sisters’ lives.

Will this be the end of the Carne sisters’ whimsical imaginings? How will the Toddingtons react to the sisters and the fictitious lives they’ve created for the couple?

Read and find out, if you dare.

This is one strange novel. It takes a while to settle into the madness of the sisters Carne. But it is different from the typical contemporary novel, and some of Ferguson’s writing is wonderful.

8/2/11

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