First novel by diRollo paints a beautiful picture of India, but the danger of medical experimentation provides a heavy sense of danger in novel set in 1850s
Reviewed by Gabrielle Pantera.
Rating: 3 Stars
“My PhD thesis was about medical women, and as I researched and wrote it I came across all sorts of unusual information about medical treatments and scientific developments, the status of women, the development of botany, Imperialism, so I chose my favorite bits and wrote a novel which included them,” says A Proper Education for Girls author Elaine diRollo.
“It was not really one specific idea that got me started, but rather a lot of different ones. It took me ages to write the book because of it.”
Elizabeth diRollo’s debut book is set in 1850s England and colonial India. This story traces the lives of two sisters, Alice and Lilian Talbot, born into a wealthy and eccentric British family. The girls are raised by their grandmother and aunts but mostly their widowed father Edwin Talbot, a typical chauvinistic Victorian male. However, his daughters become very well educated as they help with his large collection of curiosities.
The girls’ father collects people as well as curiosities. Dr. Cattermole is one of them. His interest is on women and doing experiments on women’s bodies to see how it affects their emotions.
Lilian gets involved with one of the men who comes to the house to teach to girls about botany and brings shame on their family. She’s married against her will to a missionary and is sent away to India with her new husband, and Alice must cope alone with her father and crazy Dr. Cattermole.
A Proper Education for Girls successfully details Victorian-era obsessions and intrigues, The details of India, which is a large part of this book, are well done. Readers would have gladly taken in even more about India. You’ll wish the rebellious nature of the girls was explored more, given a larger part of the book. That they don’t fit into stereotypes give hope, but the ominous threats posed by Dr. Cattermole are heavy. The dialog becomes mundane, especially when considering these are girls who’ve become so well educated.
“Some of the material, about the attitude of the medical profession towards women, I had come across during my doctoral research,” says diRollo. “Of course, these views about women’s fitness to engage in intellectual activity were not held by everyone, but they were accepted by many.”
diRollo is based in Edinburgh. She was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, England, ‘a small town surrounded by fields of sprouts and spuds’ north of Liverpool. Her website is www.elainedirollo.co.uk and she has Facebook page. diRollo was shortlisted for three literary prizes in the United Kingdom. Her second novel is called Bleakly Hall and is due out on February 11th, 2011. “It’s set in a hydropathic hotel shortly after the First World War.”
A Proper Education for Girls: A Novel by Elaine Dirollo. Trade Paperback, 368 pages, Publisher: Three Rivers Press (April 6, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780307408358
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