Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

It is 1862. Sue is an orphan, her mother hanged for murder, who has been brought up by Mrs Sucksby and her little gang of thieves. She’s a “fingersmith”, a pickpocket. One of the gang “Gentleman” has a plan to marry a lady, Maud Lilly – the niece of a man he is binding prints for, who is the heiress to a great fortune. Sue is employed as a maid to Maud Lilly, to help Gentleman elope with her and, when the time comes, leave her in a madhouse and take her inheritance. For this Sue is promised £2,000.

Engaged as Maud’s maid, Sue comes to feel a certain sympathy for poor Maud – a frail, poor sensitive girl, who has barely seen beyond the manor she lives in, assisting her uncle to catalogue and index his vast collection of books. As she suffers from nightmares, Sue sleeps in the same bed as Maud to keep her company and a mild sexual relationship develops. Nevertheless, in spite of her feelings for her mistress, she thinks of the money she will earn and helps Gentleman escape with Maud and quickly marry her. Maud’s sensitivity seems to be unable to deal with the strange situation she finds herself in and becomes quite ill. They eventually bring her to a madhouse, but there is a surprise in store there for Sue.

In Part 2 of the book, we get Maud’s story. Her mother dies during childbirth and she is brought up in an asylum until her uncle is ready to have her as his assistant to catalogue and index what turns out to be a large collection of pornographic prints and literature. Knowing that she is no innocent that he can easily dupe, rather than operate the plan he has told Sue, Gentleman instead forms an agreement with Maud. He will remove her from the unsavoury surroundings of her uncle’s manor, marrying her in name only for a share of her inheritance. Maud has little other alternative than to go along with the nefarious plot that Gentleman has hatched.

Needless to say, it turns out that Gentleman has fooled them both. But it is not even Gentleman who has engineered the plot, it is Mrs Sucksby who is behind it all. And this is where it gets complicated! Fingersmith starts off like a cross between Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre and sudden outbursts of strong language come as a bit of a shock. However, with the appearance of a tasteful lesbian episode, graphic depictions of grim Victorian asylums and then the discovery of the collection of erotica it all becomes very like the Marquis de Sade movie Quills.  There is a real feeling for the dark, narrow, filthy streets of London of the period and of the fetid swill of the Thames. Dealing in the milieu of seedy bookshops and erotic literature, lends the book a further sleazy aspect.

The second part of the novel covers the same ground a the first, only from a fresh perspective. Both girls seem to have a similar background, and despite the bond that grows between them, they both seem willing to go through with the plan that they think will be the end of the other. If the plot is unconvincing, it is the author’s assurance in the handling of the characters that carries it off and makes you want to believe it. Both female characters are playing a role and each fails to comprehend the motivations of the other, misinterpreting words and gestures – and that is quite believable.

The character-types are a little stereotypical, Dickensian villains and heiresses swapped at birth with beggar girls – but the characters themselves are well-developed. No-one is an out and out villain – each person has their own personal motivations and these change as circumstances change. We see characters differently as the novel progresses and come to sympathise with their predicaments.

It’s not exactly a conventional plot, or a romantic bodice-ripper as might have been expected – or rather it is quite conventional, but it’s just the twist that the female protagonist couldn’t care less about the handsome rogue of a male suitor but fancies her maid instead, that makes Fingersmith a little bit different. The sharing of a bed that awakens desires that were unsuspected, the “switched at birth” plot-twist – finding out that you are not who you thought you were – it’s all very much a metaphor for a gay person coming to terms with their sexuality. So, it didn’t come as a surprise when, after checking out the details of Sarah Waters’ other novels on Amazon.co.uk (both of which look very interesting incidentally), I find that she is a well-known lesbian writer, and one whose books are well-liked because they have such an affinity for the feelings of gay women. And is it just me, or does the title of the book take on a more suggestive connotation when you know this?

Thankfully however, it’s not a novel exclusively directed at a feminist or lesbian audience. Although it will no doubt it will please both those groups of readers (she certainly seems to have her fans, judging by the Amazon comments page), there’s nothing here that wouldn’t be enjoyed by a wider audience. It is well-written, an enjoyable Victorian adventure, a page-turner with a ludicrously convoluted and frankly, improbable plot that twists and turns just when you think you know where it’s going and keeps you hanging in there for the resolution to the terrible predicament that both main characters find themselves in.