Story of ‘Half-Hanged’ Maggie Dickson is really remarkable
This week two of the featured novels are based on fact and on the lives of real characters. The other two, a novel and a non-fiction book, explore from different angles the consequences of drinking more of the divil’s bathwater than is good for us.
The Mourning Necklace, Kate Foster, Pan, €12.99
There’s a pub in Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s, that almost every tourist gets taken to, built as it is close to the site of the city’s gallows where their convicted criminals were hanged. All such places have their stories, yarns that you couldn’t make up, but the story of ‘Half-Hanged’ Maggie Dickson is really remarkable. ln 1724 Maggie Dickson was hanged for infanticide, a crime she likely didn’t commit. But she survived the hanging.
Her family were given her body to bury, and Maggie woke up while she was being transported to the graveyard. The authorities were informed, but the law was clear; she couldn’t be hanged twice for the same crime. Maggie Dickson lived for another 40 years, bearing permanently the scar of the hanging rope, a scar that became known as her ‘mourning necklace’.
This is a re-imagining of Maggie’s life before, during and after her imprisonment, from her days as a fishmonger on the docks to her marrying a ne’er-do-well ‘merchant’, a smuggler who eventually disappeared.
Longlisted for the Women’s Fiction Prize with her previous novel, The Maiden, Foster writes with admirable authenticity in depicting 18th century living conditions; cramped and wretched even for middle-income families, one can only imagine what they were like for the poor.
While Foster depicts a spirited young woman, morally sound and wise beyond her years, she also gives the reader an authentic, immersive experience of life in Maggie’s times. It’s an exceptional novel in all sorts of ways and not one that you’ll forget.
Why We Drink Too Much, Dr Charles Knowles, Macmillan, €22
The month of January always sees a surge in demand for what’s known as ‘quit lit’ books, encouraging readers to give up the booze, fags, horses, heroin, whatever. But few of them are as comprehensive, not to mention as brutally honest, as Knowles’s book.
Through a study of the social impact (the public health spend on alcohol-related problems in the western world is staggering, no pun intended), and in relating his own personal account of drinking too much, Knowles manages to translate mountains of scientific data on alcohol misuse into layman’s language. And in page after page, the reader’s jaw might need rescuing from the floor.
Apart from its harmful effects on society, ethyl alcohol (the active ingredient in most abrasive cleaning products) has profound negative impacts on the body, mind and soul. Knowles moves with surprising ease from the big social ills to the small, intimate emotional ills, something he knows about, being a sober alcoholic as well as a renowned consultant surgeon and Professor of Medicine in Queen Mary University and the Cleveland Clinic.
The book opens with Knowles describing a scene from his past. He was alone in a room in a friend’s house in Florida, with a bottle of Bacardi to hand along with a handgun. To say more would be to spoil, but if you’re interested in getting sober, or are questioning your own drinking habits or those of someone close to you, this book is an imperative, balancing hard medical evidence and even harder personal experience with compassion, humour and a huge dollop of hope.
The Sky is Not Enough, June O’Sullivan, Poolbeg, €17.99
This is the second book from the author whose excellent debut novel, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife, received widespread acclaim. Like her previous novel, this story is based on fact.
In this case, it’s the story of early aviator, world-class athlete, aeronautical mechanic and poet Lady Mary Heath, born in Limerick as Sophie Peirce-Evans. She has somehow slipped through the history books although in her time was as well-known as Amelia Earhart.
She was also the first person to fly 10,000 miles from Cape Town to London in a two-seater open plane, the first woman ever to parachute from a plane and, in the late 1920s, was one of the most celebrated women in the world.
But her private life was something different and it’s that part of her life that is mined for the novel. How did a poor little orphan, whose daddy was jailed for killing her mother, make such magnificent strides in a fiercely patriarchal society? O’Sullivan’s novel is as good and as meticulously researched as her first, and highly recommended.
The Future Saints, Ashley Winstead, Head of Zeus, €14.50
The novel’s title refers to the name of a Californian rock band whose lead singer Hannah Cortland seems to be driving their once-successful career into the ground. The band’s previous manager has died, and record executive Theo has been sent to California as his replacement, a job that turns out to be akin to herding cats.
The story is told from Theo’s and Hannah’s perspective, through alternating chapters. It’s in those chapters that we learn of Hannah’s descent into alcoholism following the death by drowning of her sister Ginny (whose ghost also plays a part in the story).
Theo has his work cut out for him as his lead singer continues to fall off concert stages, blind drunk and loaded, while playing to her ever-decreasing numbers of fans. It’s all further complicated by the fact that Theo is falling for Hannah (while she’s busy falling off everything!) and you know what they say about mixing business and romance. A clever story and an authentic peek into the music business in America, it will be hoovered up by fans of Daisy Jones and The Six.
Footnotes
Did you know that the humble St Brigid, once a mere nun, is now a Goddess? Yeah, right. But there’s more money to be made from goddesses than saints, and two festivals next weekend are set to cash in on her… er… ‘promotion’. Kildare’s The Spirit of Brigid runs from February 29 to 2. Details are on spiritofbrigid.ie and in Dublin there’s the more exotically spelled Brigit: Dublin City Celebrating Women, running from the 30th to the 2nd. Details on dublin.ie.