| Title | : | Laura Blundy |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0007202962 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780007202966 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | - |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2000 |
On a humid, thundery afternoon, Laura commits an appalling act – the murder of her husband. But is it so appalling to free yourself, to run after the only passion you’ve ever known? It is Billy who has to find an answer – Billy, fifteen years younger than her and already a father of five. But what he doesn’t know yet is that Laura also had a child, a child she gave up to the Foundling Hospital and whose memory will shape their future together in unimaginable ways.
Julie Myerson’s new novel moves through a Victorian London which is tender, murky and unsettling. A spectacularly eerie and unforgettable love story.
Laura Blundy Reviews
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What a strange and memorable character is Laura Blundy, and what a remarkable novel!
We join our antiheroine in the febrile, stinking murk of Victorian London (the sewer system not yet built, the streets awash with filth and disease). And what an introduction it is: the first thing Laura tells us is that she has murdered her husband, Ewan. ‘It takes several goes. But I have surprise on my side.’ The beginning of the second chapter is no less arresting: ‘My name is Laura Blundy and Ewan was the man who took off my leg.’ Such is the way of this book. It’s propelled by Laura’s voice, at once blunt and sly.I’m not dangerous, I said with as serious a face as I could manage and he laughed, but it wasn’t that funny because I was lying. I was dangerous.
Laura’s story is told in non-chronological order. Each part of her life – the gilded childhood from which she is abruptly cast into poverty; the years spent walking the streets and scratching a living; the accident in which she loses a leg; her marriage to Ewan; her meetings with lover Billy – is broken up into small chunks, and all of them are scattered piecemeal throughout the book. Think of it like this: it’s a completed jigsaw that’s been flipped onto the floor (perhaps in the struggle that ensues when a woman aims a dog-shaped paperweight at her husband’s flame-haired head), and you have to crawl around gathering up the pieces to reassemble it. There are tantalising glimpses of the bigger picture, but what it really depicts is not clear until it’s complete. And at the end you quite want to upset the table yourself and put it back together all over again.
There is an irresistibly horrible charge to much of the narrative due to a possible connection between Laura and Billy, one that’s hinted at from the start. It was (partly) this that kept me turning the pages, even as I feared the outcome. Does she know what we (think we) know? Which is worse: the idea that she does, and has engineered all this deliberately, or that she doesn’t, and we’re going to have to watch her realise? The thing is, I was so caught up in wondering about that, I didn’t see the real revelation coming. When it hit, I was stunned.
Not only did the ending of Laura Blundy make me want to reread the whole book immediately, but the more I think about it, the more I love it. It’s both a brilliantly effective piece of historical fiction and an uncanny triumph of ventriloquism. Atmosphere, character, voice, plot, structure – every element is strong; they all work together perfectly and to powerful effect. Read if you enjoy transgressive fiction and unreliable narrators.
TinyLetter |
Linktree -
This is a dark tale set amongst the poverty of Victorian England and begins with a grisly murder. The plot unfolds in a series of flashbacks and on reaching the end unfortunately I now have more questions than answers?? The writing evokes so well the smells, sights and descriptions of daily life in the slums and our narrator Laura Blundy cannot be trusted to tell the truth. A great read but be warned this is not for the squeamish
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Laura Blundy is a Victorian woman who loses her leg in an accident and marries the surgeon who saved her life. But she has secrets she can't reveal and then she meets Billy, a man 15 years her junior. The novel starts with her murdering her husband and then skips back and forth to different points in her life.It was a little strange but oddly worked. It was just the ending that had me confused.
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Oh miserable book. It was good enough to read to the end, but in a way I wish I hadn't wasted my time. I think I'm done with Myerson. I enjoyed her non-fiction Home, but this is the second of her fiction books I've read (Me and The Fat Man A LOT of years ago) and I just get this feeling of gritty perversion and hard times for everyone in the name of literary wisdom. Apparently. I don't know. She's just not my thing.
This one is set in the 1800s in London and is about a messed up woman called Laura Blundy. It dots about to various points in her downtrodden life: sleeping rough, losing a leg, marrying and later murdering the surgeon who lopped her leg off, giving up her baby as a teenage mother, having an affair with a man 15 years her junior (was he supposed to be her abandonded son, or only that she believed so?). Laura seems to have some kind of pyschopath side to her personality, in that she easily murders without any sense of guilt, in fact a lot of what she does, she doesn't really bat an eyelid at. It's all just, I don't know... life was hard on her so she was hard straight back. -
A creepy look at the underbelly of 19th century London as seen through the eyes of Laura Blundy. Ms. Blundy is a fiercely independent amputee, who marries her surgeon then proceeds to murder him. Or does she? This book will keep you up nights. I loved it.
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For all the talk of the mystery and suspense, I found this book just oppressively slow and predictable. The writer's style of switching from one point in the story was cute but nothing more, and the sense of period was completely lost. Okay, but nothing more.
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loved the terse style and sickness of subject. very well written and i savoured it.
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I enjoyed the story but I have no idea what the ending meant.
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A dark and detailed book about a woman who marries the man who amputates her leg. The time where the book takes place in (1800s) is very well described and you can really understand in what conditions the people had to live in.
But it is difficult to tell when laura is telling the truth and when she is lying, she uses everything to her advantage and is a cleverly woman who knows how to present herself to others but she has also experienced great pain and is still suffering from these events. The ending was surprising and not what I expected it to be but I really liked the book and all of the characters. -
Julie Myerson has produced an astonishing characterisation in Laura Blundy. A convincing recreation of the filthy underbelly of Victorian London. An unsettling read, and an uncompromising, complicated narrator: a haunting, unromantic love story. Not a pleasant read but a very powerful one.
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Fairly nonsensical Victorian tale, v atmospheric and engaging, and well-written, but may be too gory for some. And, as other people have said, it didn't hang together very well or make any actual sense!!
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Another little dark, victorian tale. I liked it.
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Disturbing. Unique writing style/narrative. Although Laura is a selfish chracter - it is the lack of education that motivates it and compels compassion.
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mysterious, suspenseful and too confusing.
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Loved it, slightly creepy, a little obvious but nonetheless I enjoyed it.
