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Book Review, Dublin, Michelle Lovric, The True & Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters, Venice, Victorian set fiction
Story, character, setting and language as ebullient as those flowing tresses
Michelle Lovric’s ‘The True and Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters’ is a book which almost appropriates the adjective ‘fecund’ to itself by way of description, so much does its language teem with rich, sappy, loamy, fruitfulness, even to a glorious abandon of excess.
Set in the mid 1860’s, starting in rural Southern Ireland, then moving mainly between Dublin and Venice, the Harristown seven Swiney sisters are impoverished young girls with a particular gift – each has a seductive, ostentatious, over-abundant cascade of twisty, tumbling, seductive Pre-Raphaelite tresses, reaching, when loose to between 4 and 5 feet long.
This is at a time when women’s hair was bound, confined, and kept private and well-controlled. But, unbound, that hair was the repository of lust and desire, fetishism and secret libido.
Lady Lilith. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The sisters can also sing. Their lustrous hair and their performance skills are a potential exit from the world of poverty, And also a potential route for them to both exploit and, mainly, be the ones exploited. The sisters are wonderfully named, and wonderfully, richly, characterised. They are the raven haired, dark hearted Darcy, twins Berenice and Enda, violent enemies to each other, Pertilly who would have been happy to stay a homebody in the kitchen, limpid blonde Oona, Idolatry (Ida) the youngest, a little simple and disturbed, with a feel for the violin, and the lustrous, creative, flame haired Manticory, who narrates this rollicking tale and is the writer of the shows they are forced into performing.
This forcing comes initially from Darcy, who rules her sisters with cruel words, slaps and punches and has a fierce quest for riches and power, but also, there are a little cluster of men who find ways, both sexual and financial, to exploit the sisters.
This is a Gothic, operatic book by virtue of the intensity of feeling and opulence, sumptuousness of language, the reaching of heights of ecstasy, the plummeting the darkness of jealousy, violence, betrayal and murder. But the whole is delivered with such vivacity, such joyousness and juicy humour and playfulness of language that it becomes a wild, frolicsome read, despite the savage undercurrents.
And lest the term ‘Gothic’ should fret potential readers who might fear the pages may romp with werewolves vampires zombies and such other silly company – fear not, the ‘Gothic’ relates to the architecture of the language, full of delicious crenellations and furbelows. There ARE monsters within these pages, and they are all of a very human kind, with no need for the agency of magic.
It is (particularly in the earlier part of the book, before the sisters attempt to raise themselves – or Darcy whips them into raising themselves – into society) the richness of Irish rhythms and vernacular, the daily heightened delight in turn of phrase, the lovely wicked language which grabbed me into this book.
Here is the devilish (but caustically FUNNY) Darcy, in a typical insult for insult match with the archest of all her arch enemies, ‘the Eileen O’Reilly, the butcher’s runt’
May the fishes eat you, you dirty little spalpeen! And then the worms eat the fishes. And the worms wither their guts on the nastiness of your bits inside of them’
‘Here’s at you! A burning and a scorching on ye!’ was the runt’s retort
‘I will plant a tree in your dirty ear’ shouted Darcy’and slap you in its shade’
‘It is yerself that filthied me ear wid the great black tongue on ye, so it is.’
‘Stones on your meaty bones!’
Then the runt wished black sorrow of Darcy’s guardian angel ‘all red-eyed from shame at havin’ to do wid ye!’
I’m afraid I was snorting and chuckling out loud with periodic bouts of such inventive insulting
The book was inspired by an American group of fabulously haired sisters, at the tail end of the nineteeth century, who had a similar rags to riches and fall from grace journey, linked with exploitation, by men who saw they could be manipulated into being cash cows. They too were clearly eccentric, individual, fascinating, tragic, and lived operatically.
The Seven Sutherland Sisters
Lovric is a crafted storyteller to her bones, and I thoroughly enjoyed this effervescent read
I received this from the Amazon Vine UK programme, as an ARC. Sláinte , Vine!
This is released now in the UK, Statesiders have to wait till August, but it WILL be worth it!
The True & Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters Amazon UK
The True & Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters Amazon USA
Lady Fancifull 
This sounds like a wonderful read. I need more fecundity in my books!
It’s a rambunctious sort of read with all that hair. Made me regret my long lost tresses except that just being able to wash and leave to try beats hours and hours wielding a blow drier!
Goodness! Sakes alive! Where are the scissors?
Oh there are some. And it’s terrible
Well there were some in the book, but they were…..problematic. And, if you mean The Sullivans, I suspect once MONEY enters the field hair loss means REVENUE loss and any Delilahs taking the earning power away from those female Samsons – not to mention their male managers – would have been kept at bay!
But I want to know what happened to those real sisters! That hair! Those poses! I want the real thing. And who is that dour, dumpy man surrounded by those women who would have made Medusa rage in jealousy?
Web searches will lead to some interesting hair blogs. Lovric gives some details of them – though she transposes to an Irish setting, certainly some of the individual sister history has parallels. The real sisters also were a little operatic in their lives. As to the dull Mr in the Sullivan picture, I suspect he might be a manager. Or the real sisters may have had a brother. Or the manager may have been also a husband of one sister. Or…he could be their hair consultant, or…come on Jilanne, you’re the writer, story please..who IS that man? – cue for a song
Oh, if I were to write the story, I’d have to make him the suicidal brother who’s going bald and is trying to compensate by growing a beard—which turns out to be merely a mediocre and lackluster cry for attention. He will soon be found dead after setting fire to his beard with one of his sister’s overheated hair waving irons.
Very enjoyable review especially the opening paragraph which sets up the review and the book nicely. Do you think the author was also alluding to the Sirens of Greek mythology? When portrayed in paintings the Sirens are usually depicted with very long hair and of course their singing attracts and exploits men.
Oh yes, there are lots of references to the myths of hair and women and their luring wiles, from mythology. You can tell, I had huge fun in the reading, and that certainly spilled over into the writing of my review