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Summary
Summary
Not since the Brontës have we seen the likes of the Talbot sisters, plucky peach growers with a peculiar upbringing and a flair for subversion. Set in England and India in the mutinous year of 1857,A Proper Education for Girlstells the story of Alice and Lilian Talbot, twins separated for the first time in their lives by their martinet father. After an affair comes to a tragic end, Lilian is banished from the Talbot mansion and married off to a sickly missionary in India. Unwilling to play the part of the demure missionary wife, beautiful, tomboyish Lilian quickly takes advantage of her husband's hypochondria and her newfound freedom as a British expatriate, tramping off into the jungle to paint pictures of the indigenous flora and secretly learning the language and customs of her adopted homeland. Meanwhile, the plain but sharp-witted Alice remains on her father's isolated estate, serving as curator to his strange and vast Collection under the watchful eye of the malevolent Dr. Cattermole. The Collection, which has taken over every inch of the rambling estate, is the essence of Victorian England--antiquated and ingen- ious, austere and excessive. Twelve perfectly synchronized grandfather clocks stand at attention at the bottom of a staircase. Botanical specimens have overrun the conservatory, turning the room into a tropical greenhouse. Forgotten houseguests roam amid fossilized sea creatures, display cases of Greek pottery, and mechanical contraptions. A peach tree, inherited from their mother and planted in a wheelbarrow for portability, is a constant reminder of Lilian's absence. Though Mr. Talbot has cut off all commun- ication between the sisters, a cryptic letter from Lilian manages to slip through, and hidden in the envelope is a puzzling photograph of a tiger hunt. Alice sets about cracking the code in the letter, finding an unlikely ally in Mr. Blake, the photographer hired to document the Collection. While Mr. Talbot is absorbed in the eccentric but seemingly benign Society for the Propagation of Useful and Interesting Knowledge, Alice plots her escape from both her oppressive father and Dr. Cattermole's unspeakable plans for her future. Intrigue is rife in India as well, where Lilian continues to defy convention. Playing her many admirers off one another, she quietly works toward the goal of reuniting with her sister. But the violent onset of the Indian rebellion against British rule threatens to derail her plans. And back at the Talbot estate, the Society's experiments are taking a menacing turn. Will the sisters' resourcefulness and profound devotion to each other be enough to save them? Capturing the Victorian era in all of its whimsy and horror,A Proper Education for Girlsis a superb debut novel about the power of sisterhood. From the Hardcover edition.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
British novelist diRollo's mixed debut, set in 1850s England and colonial India, tells the story of twin sisters Alice and Lilian Talbot, who were born into an aristocratic but eccentric English family and raised by their widowed father among his collected curiosities and creepy acquaintances. One of those acquaintances, closet pornographer Dr. Cattermole, assists the Talbots in their curatorial obsessions. Their quiet existence is thrown into upheaval when Lilian is married off against her will to a missionary and forced to move to India with him. The sisters struggle and rebel against their suffocating situations-Lilian slogging through the subcontinent, Alice under the cruel and exploitative manipulations of Dr. Cattermole-until Lilian sends her sister a coded letter and a photograph, setting events in motion to bring them together. The vivid and sometimes graphic details of Victorian-era obsessions are intriguing, though the prose quality is spotty and the dialogue is often wooden ("Å'Release me!' cried Alice. 'You are committing a grave and punishable crime to hold me in this way'Å"). The premise is wonderful, but the execution doesn't do it justice. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Two unconventional Victorian sisters try to break free from the oppressive society in which they were born. Growing up motherless in the chaotic midst of their father's massive collection of antiques and oddities, Lilian and Alice Talbot always knew they could look to each other for comfort and companionship. But that all changes after a seduced and abandoned Lilian is forced to hastily marry a dour missionary and move to India. Forbidden by her father to even write to her sister, Alice all but resigns herself to a lonely life as glorified housekeeper. Things get a bit interesting, though, with the arrival of Mr. Blake, a young photographer assigned the job of shooting Mr. Talbot's Collection. He takes a shine to the tall and athletic Alice, who discovers several piquant photos in Mr. Blake's possessionthe worst of which feature Dr. Cattermole, an oily quack who has gained her father's confidence. For some reason the odious doctor has become obsessed with Alice, believing her frank manner and boyish figure to be signs of a serious medical condition. He conspires with her father to "cure" her surgically without her consent. Lilian, meanwhile, has fallen in love with her exotic new home, if not her husband, and hatches a scheme to summon Alice to her side. Revenge also plays into Lilian's plans after she is reacquainted with the dashing Mr. Hunter, the same adventurer who ruined her reputation and broke her heart. He claims he has changed, but can Lilian ever trust him again? Does she even want to? Thousands of miles apart, the girls must use their considerable resourcefulness to get out of some sticky predicaments, including a native revolt, ether addiction and various acts of astonishing misogyny, all in the hopes of seeing each other again. Not surprisingly, the male characters in this spirited debut fare badly, but Alice and Lilian are fabulous, quirky characters, gifted with an engrossing plot. Here's hoping we will meet them again. A rollicking good time that does not take itself too seriously. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
DiRollo's delightfully original debut simultaneously mocks and colorfully depicts British imperialism and the Victorians' obsessive pursuit of scientific progress. It is 1857, and the daughters of noted eccentric Edwin Talbot are about to fight back against the strictures of their repressive circumstances. Plain Alice remains at home, charged with overseeing her chauvinist father's huge collection of antiquities and oddball artifacts. Beautiful Lilian, forced into wedlock after an indiscretion, travels to India with her priggish missionary husband and endures the company of xenophobic military officers and society wives. As one would expect of any sensible heroine in modern historical fiction, these intelligent, independent-minded sisters have a rebellious streak. Embracing the native customs and language, Lilian journeys into the Indian countryside to paint pictures of local flora, while Alice sees an escape route in the sex-starved photographer hired by her father. Their candid thoughts on the walking stereotypes surrounding them are hilarious, but the novel resists fully indulging in parody. The sisters' wacky adventures aside, the threats posed by Mr. Talbot's evil doctor friend are disturbingly real.--Johnson, Sarah Copyright 2009 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Set in 1857, diRollo's first novel labors in its efforts to infuse our conventional view of Victorian sexual politics with a ribald modern knowingness. Shuttling between a grand English manor and the wilds of colonial India, she depicts two whip-smart sisters trying to free themselves of patriarchal shackles. Reeling from a furtive dalliance gone sour, the beauteous Lilian has been sentenced to a joyless marriage with a priggish missionary in the remote outpost of Kushpur, where she plots vengeance on the handsome botanist who absconded and left her in the family way. Meanwhile mannish Alice holds the fort back home with her elderly great-aunts and overbearing father, a dilettante who has relegated her to curating his vast collection of artifacts and scientific curiosities. Herself a Ph.D. in the social history of medicine, diRollo revels in such 19th-century thingamabobs, as well as the sillier theories spun by the chauvinist medics of the day. But her pastiche narrative vaults between ham-handed whimsy and grotesquerie, allowing scarcely any room for nuance. (All the men are tyrants, cads or ninnies.) It's quaintly retro, albeit in a doctrinaire 1970s mode: Victorian manners as filtered by a mischievous feminist who seems to be pining for the glory days on the commune. Jan Stuart is the author of "The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman's Masterpiece."
Library Journal Review
In 1857, twins Alice and Lilian are the only surviving daughters of Edwin Talbot, an extremely eccentric, self-centered man whose pride and joy is The Collection, a jumbled mix of anthropological pieces, naturalist objects, and progressive machines that has taken over the family's large estate. The story begins after Lilian is married off in disgrace to a missionary heading to India, leaving Alice the sole caretaker of The Collection, Mr. Talbot, and the elderly aunts. Told from the sisters' perspective in alternating segments, the story shows each facing challenges to her physical and emotional safety as they work toward their reunion. Seeing English society transplanted in rural India through Lilian's unconventional viewpoint and battling Mr. Talbot's unpredictable, focused mania through Alice's independent nature results in a complete and complex story. This debut is ideal for readers who enjoy unconventional historical fiction peppered with interesting, intelligent characters.-Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.