This collection of stories offers another glimpse of the much-loved characters of Faber’s Victorian novel The Crimson Petal and the White.

In that novel, the fates of main character Sugar and her charge Sophie were inconclusive and many fans of the novel hoped for a sequel. However, Faber ruled out that possibility, perhaps in an effort to preserve the definitive status of that sprawling novel.

The Sugar that appears in two of the stories in this collection, including the titular story... (show more)

This collection of stories offers another glimpse of the much-loved characters of Faber’s Victorian novel The Crimson Petal and the White.

In that novel, the fates of main character Sugar and her charge Sophie were inconclusive and many fans of the novel hoped for a sequel. However, Faber ruled out that possibility, perhaps in an effort to preserve the definitive status of that sprawling novel.

The Sugar that appears in two of the stories in this collection, including the titular story, is still in her heyday at Mrs Castaways’. They present the finer qualities of a whore with heart that has endeared her to most readers.

Other interesting nuggets include what happens to other characters like Clara, formerly a maid at Rackhams’, in one of the more haunting stories ‘Clara and the Rat Man’. Less satisfying for me, though most revealing of Sugar and Sophie’s fates, is the novella of sorts, ‘A Mighty Horde of Women in Very Big Hats, Advancing’.

But even the less enjoyable of Faber’s stories bear his trademark style, which is always in clear and lively prose. (show less)

Written in three sections in reverse chronology, the story traces four individuals (three women and a man) whose lives are as much shaped by the ravages of WWII as well as their intertwined personal histories and shared desire for intimacy.

Waters’s backwards narrative and reticence as a narrator are quite a risky techniques to employ, whetting the reader’s appetite for more insight into each character in their backstory, but also threatening to frustrate less patient readers. By starting... (show more)

Written in three sections in reverse chronology, the story traces four individuals (three women and a man) whose lives are as much shaped by the ravages of WWII as well as their intertwined personal histories and shared desire for intimacy.

Waters’s backwards narrative and reticence as a narrator are quite a risky techniques to employ, whetting the reader’s appetite for more insight into each character in their backstory, but also threatening to frustrate less patient readers. By starting at the end in 1947, and ending at the beginning in 1941, the reader wonders at the awkwardness of the characters when they confront each other and the underlying trauma they display in the first section. The characters’ dialogues also draw a blank as the reader struggles to piece together the significance of what they say.

Waters’ strength is in painting a vivid picture of time and place. Wartime London and it survivors are realistically portrayed and never superfluous to the plot. There is also subtlety and much tenderness when she deals with the tricky subject of romance between women. The frustrations of love and its trappings are examined convincingly, and best summed up by one of its key characters, “But isn’t it funny – we never seem to love the people we ought to, I can’t think why…’.
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