Messenger Boy

By Cat Perry, 4/7/2010

Wandering the bookstores a few months back, I got tingle somewhere in the back of my mind that begged to read just one more historical fiction, one that could pull me into some distant alley and then in front of a roaring fire with each line. It was winter; I needed something to forget the long, frigid nights here in New York City. So I picked up a copy of Tipping the Velvet (Virago Press, 1998). This was Sarah Waters’ debut novel, set in Victorian England in the 1890s, and has come to be regarded, by my standards and beyond, as an indisputably accomplished story of uncontainable love, fame, and falls from grace.

A young oyster girl, Nan, living in the charming and simple seaside town of Whistable, England, takes flight from her family, but it’s not to chase the city lights. Instead she just wants to be near one thing in particular that fills her with a mysterious happiness she’s never felt before: Kitty Butler, a charming “masher,” or male impersonator, performing at a theater a few hours’ train ride away.

Waters’ women take chances and follow their hearts to places they may not be ready for. And the themes of living without abandon and holding the heart in choking constraint prick through the novel. But Tipping the Velvet gently grabs readers’ collars, pulling our imaginations closer as fame is born and dies, hearts are soft in hardened in the foggy cobbled streets of London.

A recommended read, this one. With moments so vivid, so right on your lips  you won’t want to put it down.

Cat Perry

© Cat Perry 2010