4.5 Stars
The book opens with the friendship between two girls. Marie Antoine is the spoiled daughter of the owner of a sugar factory. She lives on the Golden Mile, home to the wealthiest and most powerful families in late 19th-century Montreal. In 1873, Marie meets Sadie Arnett when her status-conscious family moves into the neighbourhood. Though opposites in appearance, the two girls immediately form such a passionate, intense friendship that they become obsessed with each other. They engage in daring behaviour often instigated by Sadie who is fascinated with death and the darker aspects of life and is introduced as “strange” and “different” and “devilish.” A tragic event leads to their being separated during most of their teenage years, but it is inevitable that they will be reunited. It is also inevitable that their reunion will be consequential.
The friendship between the girls is complicated. An observation is made that “Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in the tea. It makes it addictive.” This seems to be true because though the two love each other, as soon as they met, they experience jealousy. Sadie comments, “It was a strange feeling, jealousy. When she saw the way her parents treated Marie, she was jealous. Once this feeling had been awoken in her, it was impossible to make it dormant again.” When Marie meets Sadie who is as intelligent and talented as she, “It planted the seed of jealousy in her. And that seed began to grow and it bore thoughts that were like tendrils.” When the two are reunited, Sadie believes, “Their characters were both too strong. There was just no way they would ever be able to coexist peacefully. They could either resume their explosive love affair that would somehow bring down everyone around them or they ought to be on opposite sides of the Atlantic.” There is suspense as the reader wonders what mayhem the two will cause.
The reader will definitely have an emotional reaction to Marie and Sadie. They possess lavish personalities: they are intelligent, ambitious, determined, and manipulative. I was fascinated, just as I was also often repelled. I certainly don’t agree with all their decisions and actions, but their motivations are always clear and understandable. This is also true for secondary characters like Mary, George, and Jeanne-Pauline.
I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the names of characters in the book and important figures in the French Revolution: Louis Antoine (Louis XVI); Marie Antoine (Marie Antoinette); Sadie (Marquis de Sade); Mary Robespierre (Maximilien Robespierre); Jeanne-Pauline Marat (Jean-Paul Marat); and George Danton (Georges Danton). Since the novel includes more than one type of revolution and an uprising of the lower classes, these parallels are appropriate.
A major focus is gender roles. Again and again, statements about the expectations of female behaviour are mentioned: “Ladies were supposed to moderate their physical behavior. They were supposed to speak in an articulate and reserved fashion. They were not supposed to act as though they were transported by their emotions.” And “There was a pervasive idea that girls were all on the brink of madness. It took much less than anyone previously believed to push a girl over the edge. A single novel could do it. A complicated idea could do it. Having ambition and wanting to have an occupation could definitely do it. It was too taxing on the female brain. They had to be monitored carefully to make sure they stuck to exclusively feminine subjects. It was disturbing and unnatural for women to engage in male endeavors.” And women had to learn the basics of history “so they could follow men’s conversation. They were not, however, to form an opinion on anything. It was up to men to do that. Women would simply marvel at their ideas.” And “A woman ought to be pleasing to others, even when they were at their most miserable.”
Women were expected to marry because “being aligned with a real man brought a woman so much social standing in the world.” Of course, once married, they were expected to live in “a state of humbled servility,” and to be subjected to abuse: “It was usual for women to suffer abuse at home. There were no laws against it. It wasn’t exactly socially acceptable, but everybody did it.” Women were not allowed to be idle: “Women never got to be alone. That was too much of a luxury. Women always had someone to take care of.”
Particular attention is given to women and sexual desire. The Madonna-whore dichotomy is mentioned: “Women are either one thing or the other . . . indisputably wicked and terrifying, [or] . . . sheltered and pure.” If a woman were the former, “they would have her committed. The most socially approved way of ruining a girl. She would never be heard from again.” Women’s sexual pleasure was secondary to a man’s: “There were no guidebooks for women’s pleasures. There were only guidebooks that instructed a woman on how to give other people pleasure.” But since the female orgasm has no reproductive function and no other purpose other than enjoyment, “All the strict matrimonial laws were put in place because men didn’t want to have to stake their future on female desire.” In fact, a man could use a woman’s orgasm against her: “It could never be considered rape if the girls had an orgasm. He turned their orgasms against them. He considered their orgasm to be a form of consent.” If raped, a woman “was not allowed to talk about what had happened to her.” If an unmarried woman became pregnant, “what had happened to her was her own fault. She had spoiled herself. She was a whore.” One of the most crushing statements is, “[Women] were so surprised by their own ruin, as though it had hit them like lightning and not through an inevitable path the world had set out for them.”
Another focus is the radical disparity between the upper and lower classes, the rich and the poor, those who live on the Golden Mile and those who shelter on the Squalid Mile. Sometimes the disparity is mentioned in statements like, “When you were that rich, you didn’t have to be angry with your child. You hired a governess to do it.” But then there are detailed descriptions of conditions for workers. Marie thinks “’Working at a sugar factory is quite wonderful. We have the world’s most splendid machines. And what’s more, you inhale and sugar gets in your lungs and stays there. And when you cough, you cough sugar,’” but in reality accidents and mutilations occur on a regular basis. Children are hired because they can be paid less, and women are “underpaid, overworked, sexually vulnerable.”
The lyrical language is noteworthy. There are many poetic descriptions of writing: “The tip of her pen made the flight pattern of neurotic birds mating. The looping words on the page were like knots in a girl’s hair that had formed after she’s been standing in the wind. They were like the tendrils of a plant if spring happened all in one moment.” And “Sadie moved the tip of her pen like a sailboat over the waves on a most perfectly windy day. Her editing pen was making notes and slashes like a seabird dipping for fish.” And “the ink words turned into black goldfish, and swam off the page.”
There is so much in this novel that a second reading would be useful. O’Neill has written a raw and gritty novel about women who behave boldly and unapologetically; it reminded me of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen in which a woman who does not conform to societal norms is branded a witch. I think this book will cause a real stir – and deservedly so.
Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley. Quotations may not be exactly as they appear in the final copy.
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