Much-praised, “beautiful” historical novel tells a #MeToo tale of Victorian Women looking for independence.
From multi-award-winning author, J.L. Crozier, ‘What Empty Things Are These’ is about a woman and her maid in 1860s Britain, who attempt to find their voice and influence in a heavily patriarchal society. It’s a story that has won praise from around the world and shows how women’s stories then were so often about finding a way for themselves against the odds.
It’s a theme that still resonates today.
In 1860’s Britain there is nothing unusual in a man beating his wife. When George Hadley’s aggression triggers his own stroke and coma, his wife discovers all she thinks of as hers is to pass to her young son Toby. Adelaide seems as powerless as her ladies’ maid, Sobriety.
Beyond the strictures of domestic and social expectation, these two women of different class remake the rules to discover what lies beneath the drapes and tassels of Victorian Britain. Life, they find, is urgent, exciting… but cheap. Even as they adventure into alleyways, a tunnel and a séance, their innocence is gone.
What Empty Things Are These is about what happens to women who look into the face of this newly industrialised and still patriarchal age. Change is everywhere, exhilarating, corrupt, terrifying.
Fraud and farce abound. Spiritualists prey on the confused; women are encased in clothing that imply both modesty and sexuality; the powerful prey upon the weak. Adelaide and Sobriety, in their way, show us that every era has secrets that must be uncovered for real social progress.
But the truth of the age is encapsulated for them in the underlying tale of the vulnerable urchin girl, the nameless victim of this pitiless society.
“This book slots very well into the #MeToo movement,” explains the author. “In giving my Victorian characters their voice, I became aware in my researches of just how similar their world was to ours. The past is a different place – the saying goes – but this one is also very familiar. There were great discoveries and great corruption, and also the beginnings of a consciousness among women we can all recognise.”
Reviews have been glowing. New York Times Bestselling Author, Alison Goodman, writes, “What Empty Things Are These is an exquisite story of friendship across class, the realisation of self worth, and the delicate emergence of female solidarity in the face of society’s disdain. Crozier has created a glorious Victorian London that creaks and groans and gasps in its smoky, damp darkness and stifling corsetry. A stunning debut and a triumph of imagination and historical voice.”
Joan Brennon adds, “Loved the evocation of Victorian London and the revelations of the repressive life suffered by women in middle class households. A bold story with repercussions for today’s liberal society.”
‘What Empty Things Are These’ is available now at Amazon and can be ordered from bookshops in Australia and the US, as well as from https://regalhousepublishing.com