It is the late 19th century, and Nancy is a girl from an honest
Whitstable oyster-selling family whose head is turned by a visit to
the local music hall. There she watches, night after night, a song
and dance routine by Kitty Butler, a girl not much older than
herself who dresses as a boy. Her obsession deepens and awakens
sexual feelings she can neither express nor deny, so when Kitty
befriends her and asks her to travel to London with her as her
dresser, she accepts immediately. What follows are the next five
years of Nancy's life her passionate love for Kitty, Kitty's
betrayal of that love, and the slow working through of her despair
and grief. The journey takes Nancy through the lowest depravities
of the London sex scene, where she earns her living for a while as
a rent 'boy', to the luxury of being the private toy of a wealthy
lesbian with outlandish tastes and expensive habits. The pain of
losing Kitty never goes, even as her experiences harden her, and
this is as much a book about the agony of growing out of a lost
first love and finding something to replace it, as it is a
historical picture of the sleaziest aspects of life in Victorian
London. It is erotic and sometimes explicit but Nancy's feelings,
or numb lack of them, are always the point. She eventually finds
both love and work which will use her talents constructively, but
it's a tortuous and sometimes hopeless-seeming route. Sarah Waters
writes without hitting a wrong note. The historical detail and the
outlandish vocabulary are an education in themselves, brought to
life through a variety of convincingly individual characters.
Reading the first sentence, you know you will be captivated until
the very end. It's a gripping and memorable ride. (Kirkus UK)
Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy
limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most
marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.
'Erotic and absorbing . . . Written with startling power' New York
Times Book Review Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the
music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator
extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend
at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally
meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the
two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin
a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and
dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they
admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.
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