Lead Review
- Book: The Girl in the Letter
- Location: Sussex
- Author: Emily Gunnis
2.75*
Many readers will be familiar with the mother and baby homes that were run by the Catholic Church in Ireland (Philomena, the film, certainly highlighted the dreadful circumstances) and the plight of the women who lived there. These units also existed in England and the author has set her story around St Margaret’s in the village of Preston, Sussex. It is an austere, Victorian edifice that exudes menace and heartbreak, and legacy of mistreatment and cruelty permeates the very fabric right up to the present day. Unmarried pregnant women were sent there to atone for their sins of the flesh and basically run a laundry from early morning until late into the evening. Rations were meagre and treatment by the nuns was utterly cruel. This was par for the course and meted out upon these women as they ‘deserved’ such treatment. Society just didn’t accept unmarried mothers, generally right up until the 1960s.
The storyline has an edginess to it because there are secrets and mysteries still to be uncovered before the building is due to be demolished, any day now.
2017 and Samantha is an investigative journalist who is currently living with her Nana (an aged woman in knitted garments, surrounded by swirly carpets, and frankly all she just needs now is a pince-nez and bonnet to complete the outdated image of a woman aged 60!). Sam is living there with her small daughter Emma and she discovers early on, in her Nana’s possession, some correspondence from a young woman called Ivy, written in 1959, detailing the utter horror of her incarceration at St Margaret’s. Sam immediately sniffs out a story and she is keen to find the news item that will forge her career as a journalist.
As she races against time (remember that the home is due to be demolished), she discovers all kinds of intrigue and several deaths along the way. It seems too much of a coincidence for them not to be linked.
The book has been billed as the talk of the Frankfurt Book Fair / the hottest debut of 2019… there are accolades aplenty. The subject is certainly a very strong choice and the author does a great job of conveying the utter desolation and cruelty endured by women in this fictional home, based on true and documented events. For me however, I felt the author got in quite a tangle with all the threads that she introduced into the story. Essentially this is a dual timeline story, the plot jumps back and forth (with further periods sliding in) that felt at times quite confusing.
Early on in her investigations, Sam visits Sister Mary Francis in her care home and upbraids her in no uncertain terms about the cruelty and beatings she dished out at St Margaret’s. At this point, however, the author hasn’t really laid out the substantive punishing nature of the home, so it felt like an odd non-sequitur.
Sam manages to inveigle her way into the lives of all kinds of people who might be helpful to her – she encounters initial hostility but soon she has entry to the homes of those who, she just knows, have the answers she seeks. She may be a talented reporter who has her door-stepping honed but it’s all a bit glib.
At times there are ghosts from the past who prey upon the remaining carers and on those involved in the running of St Margaret’s. A convoluted plot development and a further race against time soon leads to a rather theatrical ending.
I guess it really wasn’t for me.
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