AUTHOR’S NOTE: I can’t tell you how much I regret allowing Mary and the rest of them to see this manuscript while I was writing it. First they started commenting on what I had written, and then they insisted I make changes in response to their comments. Well, I’m not going to. I’m going to leave their comments in the narrative itself. ... It will be a new way of writing a novel, and why not? This is the ’90s, as Mary pointed out. It’s time we developed new ways of writing for the new century. We are no longer in the age of Charles Dickens or George Eliot, after all. We are modern. And, of course, monstrous . . .[p. 20]
Mary Jekyll's father died fourteen years ago (it was rumoured to be a suicide) and her mother has just passed away after years of madness. Mary is destitute, and quite alone in the world save for her redoubtable housekeeper Mrs Poole: but, investigating her mother's affairs, she finds a regular payment for the upkeep of one Diana Hyde, who turns out to be all that Mary is not -- emotional, savage and unconcerned with Victorian morality.
Together the two young women discover a disturbing network of scientists -- all male, of course -- known as the Société des Alchimistes. And they also encounter the daughters (by blood or otherwise) of some of these men: the beautiful scientific researcher Beatrice Rappacini, the lithe and dangerous Catherine Moreau, and the tragically youthful-looking Justine Frankenstein. ('That book is a pack of lies. If Mrs. Shelley were here, I would slap her for all the trouble she caused,' says Mary crossly on page 4.)
With the help of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick, the women investigate the Whitechapel murders, and their own diverse natures. Each bears -- each is -- the legacy of her father's experimentation: each is dealing with her own monstrousness in different ways.
This is an entertaining and cleverly-constructed work of what I like to term literary fanfiction: a transformative work exploring and experimenting with canon texts. In her afterword, Goss describes the genesis of the novel: "This novel began as a question I asked myself while writing my doctoral dissertation: Why did so many of the mad scientists in nineteenth-century narratives create, or start creating but then destroy, female monsters?" [p. 401] In The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter these experimental monsters are given dimension and personality. Catherine, presented as the author of the work we are reading, is vexed by (but includes) the interjections of her companions, each of whom has a distinctive voice and a unique agenda: this gives the narrative a nicely post-modern flavour. All the women are young (mentally if not physically) and, though they have led very different lives, are united by their sense of being outsiders. They are not always sensible, but they are determined. And though their experiences have not been typical of the lives of young Victorian gentlewomen, they are perfectly capable of playing that role.
I could have done with slightly less Holmes (though he does facilitate their adventures and enquiries) and slightly more Mrs Poole (though she seems confused as to whether she's ever been married). But I am looking forward to reading the next in the series.
"With pockets, women could conquer the world!" [p. 191]
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