Pearl’s started to do this every night: take out the carpet bag and sit waiting for bravery to possess her, like the ghosts do, so she can put on the boy’s clothes and follow the map. But it turns out bravery is the hardest spirit of them all to catch. She calls and calls, yet it doesn’t come. [loc. 3106]
1854: the ominously named Agnes Darken lives in Bath, ekeing out a living as a silhouette artist. She worries that she won't be able to earn enough to support her widowed mother and her dead sister Constance's child; and she's recovering from a bout of pneumonia that nearly killed her. Luckily she has the support of her brother-in-law, Simon, a respected physician. When one of Agnes' clients is found dead, Simon takes charge and protects Agnes from the ordeal of being questioned by the police. Of course, he reassures her, it's mere coincidence. But then another client dies ... Tormented by the notion that the deaths are somehow tied to the silhouettes she's made, Agnes seeks out a young medium named Pearl, who lives with her sister Myrtle and her father, who is dying of 'phossy jaw' -- phosphorus necrosis -- caused by working in a match factory. Pearl is an albino, and has never left the house: Myrtle organises the seances, and has in the past had Pearl masquerade as a spirit herself. Agnes is drawn to Pearl, who's terrified of disappointing her sister: and only Pearl can communicate with Agnes' dead clients and discover the secret of their deaths.
It was refreshing to read a novel set in Bath that was about middle- and working-class women trying to make ends meet, rather than pretty young debutantes agonising over marriage proposals. I did find The Shape of Darkness a rather depressing read, though: not because Purcell's prose is dull -- quite the opposite! -- but because of the chronic illnesses, the darkness of the city as winter draws in, and Agnes' quiet despair. Years earlier, she lost her fiance, a naval captain, in circumstances that only gradually become clear but are connected with her sister; there are also hints that Constance was not an especially pleasant person. Both Agnes and Pearl are bound by familial obligation: both feel trapped by circumstance, and perhaps by their sisters.
A Gothic novel with an interesting focus and a twist that I didn't expect. (Well, there are two twists: one of them I saw coming.)
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