Author: Ann-Marie McDonald Publisher: Tramp Press Paperback Staff Pick! So says… If you’re looking for that sat-on-the-sofa-putting-Celebrations-in-your-face (slash delayed on an 8 hour train ride) all-absorbing Christmas hamper of a novel, then this is it. It’s twenty-seven years since Ann-Marie McDonald broke and mended readers’ hearts with her Canadian epic Fall On Your Knees, and she’s back at it. We’re in nineteenth-century Scotland this time, where she and her playful protagonist take on the whole canonical bookshelf, from Darwin to Orlando via James, the Brontës, Dickens, Scott and more… it really is quality street. There’s bogs, tutors, castles, American ingenues, an asylum, unlikely siblings, mean aunts, and above all a queer joie de vivre that keeps you utterly compelled, even through the worst of what the Victorian era could do to people of marginalised genders. A joy.
