If it’s voice as a narrative tool that you’re after, there aren’t many better contemporary practitioners than Jill Dawson. Over nine previous novels, although distinct and varied in subject, certain preferences have emerged in several of them: an historical setting; a protagonist drawn from reality; and a distinctive narrative voice that flavours the story while relating it. Fred & Edie(2000) and Lucky Bunny (2011) are particular favourites of mine, while Dawson has also shown (in 2006’s Watch Me Disappear) that she can ignore all the above preferences and still produce something exceptional: in that case, a bold study of childhood sexuality.
Dawson’s new novel The Bewitching is her most historical yet, being set from 1589–91 in her usual stamping ground of Cambridgeshire. The subject matter is witchcraft and the suspicion of it, told to us by Martha, the deaf young maid of a household. She is one of Dawson’s more plain-spoken narrators, to be sure, but the language remains vivid (a bat is “like a bundle of knitted twigs in your hand”) and the characters full.
The action and suspicion begins with a girl, Jane, suffering from fits, which Doctor Butler — an expert in “the ways in which women’s bodies and spirits affect their already weak chamber of wisdom” — assures them are not due to “frenzy of the womb”.
Jane has an explanation of her own, but nobody is interested in that when there’s sorcery afoot, or at least someone local they can blame for it. That someone is Alice Samuel, a “low-bred, rude and loud” old woman who provides the perfect scapegoat. And the fingers may not be satisfied with pointing only at her.
The general trend of the plot may not surprise (three of the sections of the novel are titled The Accusation, The Confession and The Trial) but Dawson keeps things interesting. Of course, a story about false suspicions, conspiracy theories and trial by gossip is not so much timely as timeless, and what we end up with is a superior example of solid literary fiction, that oft-derided genre. Dawson’s ability to maintain an interesting voice and tell a story at the same time is a lesson to any novelist. She shows that, contrary to Batuman’s belief, it doesn’t have to be either/or.
ORDER FROM AMAZON HERE
ORDER FROM TOPPINGS HERE
ORDER FROM FOYLES HERE
ORDER FROM WATERSTONES HERE
ORDER FROM BOOKSHOP.ORG.UK HERE
ORDER FROM BLACKWELLS HERE