The True and Splendid History of The Harristown Sisters by Michelle Lovric
My rating: 4/5 cats
who knew that a book about hair would be so dang good? we’re not talking about everyday run-of-the-mill hair here – this book is inspired by the sutherland sisters, seven women who were part of the barnum and bailey circus in 1882, who would perform musical numbers and then, for their finale, dramatically unpin their collective 36 1/2 feet of hair to the delight of the crowd. they supplemented their income by producing a line of hair tonics and dyes and became very wealthy and successful, but they were also a wildly eccentric bunch who experienced a series of nearly gothic tragedies before the end of their run.
lovric takes these sisters and transplants them to ireland just after the famine, and during the pre-raphaelite movement in art, where long hair had taken on a deeply erotic resonance.
the seven swiney sisters: darcy, the twins berenice and enda, pertilly, oona, ida and manticory grow up incredibly poor – the lowest of the low in county kildare, where their only chance for advancement lies in their enviably luxurious hair and the black ambition of darcy, the eldest. their mother annora is raising them alone, and her mysterious husband – a mariner and rumored fenian – comes secretly under cover of night once a year, nine months after which a new sister is born. none of his daughters have ever seen him, and his only legacies to them are their names, and their spectacular and variously-hued spectrum of hair, which causes gossip and insinuations over their paternity and legitimacy.
the conditions under which the girls come of age are bleak:
The Hunger had taken one in three in County Kildare. All around houses stood empty, except of rumoured bones. Certainly no Swineys but ourselves had survived the cull. The poorest children of Harristown were born with Famine’s imprint, like a bruise from a fist dark under their cheekbones and a startled look as if they’d just been kicked from behind towards their graves. Their mothers carried baby corpses around, begging for coffin money even at our poor door. Older children starved quickly and quietly; we came to know the pitiful signs of it and turned our heads from the sight of a boy or a girl who we’d not see the next day. The adults went about it in wilder ways. You would not want to go to nearby Naas, the priest warned us, for fear of the mob that might lynch you for the meat on your bones, and its street lined with those who’d delivered themselves to town just so someone could witness them dying. They lay down in the street so they must be walked over.
this is not a story of a group of loving sisters overcoming poverty and adversity – far from being a tight-knit sorority, the sisters have divided themselves into constantly bickering factions, none more virulently antagonistic than the twins, and they are all presided over by the cruel figure of darcy, with her barbed tongue and quick hands, who maintains the home of all the profanity in Ireland . there is also an eighth ghostly sister – ‘the eileen o’reilly’, the butcher’s daughter who is fascinated by the sisters and watches them constantly through the cracks in their door or hidden away in the bushes.
but darcy is cunning and she has a vision – a way for the sisters to rise above their station and make use of what they have and what they are willing to display. she bullies her sisters into taking the stage – singing and dancing and acting out a combination of hair-centric figures such as medusa and pope’s Rape of the Lock, and original material written by the redheaded manticory, the narrator of this story.
Annora raised us in the True Faith, the true faith of poverty and Irishness and oppression, not to mention illiteracy.
but manticory overcomes her illiteracy and comes to love the power of words, even when she is being made to write the foolish stage-pieces darcy desires.
manticory is the most clear-eyed and intelligent of all the sisters, with a keen sensibility and perspective on the world around her
You may be thinking now that my words are very and too much like the rain, pelting down on you without particularity or mercy. And I shall say that perhaps it is the rain forever scribbling on our roofs and our faces that teaches the Irish our unstinting verbosity. It’s what we have, instead of food or luck. Think of it as a generosity of syllables, a wishful giving of words when we have nothing else to offer by way of hospitality: we lay great mouthfuls of language on you to round your bellies and comfort your thoughts like so many boileds and roasts, or even a lick of Finn MacCool’s finger dipped in the milk that simmered the Salmon of Wisdom.
but even so, she is powerless to oppose darcy, who has a cruel secret to hold over her. the sisters are enjoying a measure of success in their performances, which then escalates when darcy is approached by a man named augustus rainfleury, who recognizes the potential for creating a line of dolls in the likenesses of the swiney godivas, and a man named tristan stoker, who conceives of a line of hair tonics and other unguents to capitalize on their fame.
and they become immeasurably successful, touring cities from dublin to venice. but – mo’ money, mo’ problems, and they run up against many many problems.
the abundance and spectacle of their hair is what leads them out of poverty, but it is also what leads them into trouble, as the men begin to take advantage of them and they become objectified, fetishized commodities, coupled with the internal problems stemming from darcy’s greed, ida’s instability, berenice’s jealousy, manticory’s discomfort, and several jealous attacks from the outskirts.
it’s a beautiful, densely-written story that is successful both in its historical detail and in creating vivid and realistic characters, with these wonderfully lyrical turns of phrase:
Pertilly’s was one of those Irish smiles that’s never more than an acknowledgment of hopeless adversity.
and a small scatter of magical-realism that pops in unexpectedly. or not unexpectedly – it’s ireland, after all.
one more small noteworthy comment – i have always found sexxy-scenes to be so boring to read, but there is one in this, towards the end, that i thought was really lovely and tasteful and evocative. i am putting it in a spoiler-tag, because of the names involved, but i will let you decide whether to click it or not.
View Spoiler »i loved this book for its sprawl and its darkness and its intricacy. beautifully done, and highly recommended.
