In a regular new feature, Waterstones Bookstore at intu Milton Keynes will be exploring the best new books on the shelves, and sharing what makes them essential reading material with Total MK readers.
This time we probe The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar (Paperback, £8.99)
Power and power imbalances due to gender, race or social inequality are themes that run through ‘The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock’, a wonderful, historical fiction combining myth and legend with the harsh realities of the past, in our Cluster Manager’s ‘February Fiction Pick of the Month’ for WaterstonesMK.
This book introduces the characters of rich rising-star merchant Jonah Hancock, besotted with intelligent courtesan Angelica Neal, the most “haughty whore of the first water” in Georgian London.
Angelica falls for an aristocrat, but on her protector’s death cannot pay her bills, so she is persuaded to marry Jonah, who has enterprisingly made his money and position in society by exhibiting a ‘mermaid’ carcass brought back on one of his ships. Following their marriage, Jonah sends a ship to look for another mermaid at Angelica’s bidding, and is surprised when his captain unexpectedly returns with a living mermaid in the hold.
This melancholy mermaid is ensconced in an underground grotto in their Greenwich mansion, feeding off the emotions of those who visit… Angelica and Jonah are both ambitious in their own ways. What will be the cost of their ambitions? And will they be able to escape the legendary destructive power a mermaid is said to possess?
Imogen Gowar’s wonderful writing is full of beautiful prose, and her passive-aggressive dialogue of polite society is worthy of Jane Austen herself, but this ‘comfortable’ marriage gives no guarantee of a routine happy ending.
Instead Gower highlights the calculations and compromises that women have to live with, through harsh economic necessity – think the playful, indulgent sensuousness of Sarah Waters crossed with the searing social commentary of Charles Dickens.
This mermaid is a metaphor for the sorrows of women who are trapped by economic and social status in any unequal society; rather than being a desirable, mystical fantasy, the mermaid that these characters seek becomes “A thing that tells us what we really want is out of reach.”
Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018, ‘The Mermaid And Mrs Hancock’ is now out in paperback and is your new MUST-READ book!
Get your wordy fix: Visit Waterstones at 72 Midsummer Blvd, Milton Keynes MK9 3GA
Never miss leisure news in Milton Keynes - Follow us on www.twitter.com/thisistotalmk
And on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thisistotalmk
