false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1233949378m/56373.jpg 56373 16 The heroine of <i>Sarah Waters's</i> audacious first novel knows her destiny, and seems content with it. Her place is in her father's seaside restaurant, shucking shellfish and stirring soup, singing all the while. "Although I didn't long believe the story told to me by Mother - that they had found me as a baby in an oyster-shell, and a greedy customer had almost eaten me for lunch - for eighteen years I never doubted my own oysterish sympathies, never looked far beyond my father's kitchen for occupation, or for love." At night Nancy Astley often ventures to the nearby music hall, not that she has illusions of being more than an audience member. But the moment she spies a new male impersonator - still something of a curiosity in England circa 1888 - her years of innocence come to an end and a life of transformations begins. <I>Tipping the Velvet</I>, all 472 pages of it, is as saucy, as tantalizing, and as touching as the narrator's first encounter with the seductive but shame-ridden Miss Kitty Butler. And at first even Nancy's family is thrilled with her gender-bending pal, all but her sister, best friend, and bedmate, Alice, "her eyes shining cold and dull, with starlight and suspicion." Not to worry. Soon Nancy and Kitty are off to London, their relationship close though (alas for our heroine) sisterly. We know that bliss will come, and it does, in an exceptionally charged moment. A lesser author would have been content to stop her story there, but Waters has much more in mind for her buttonholing heroine, and for us. In brief, her Everywoman with a sexual difference goes from success onstage to heartbreak to a stint as a male prostitute (necessity truly is the mother of invention) to keeping house for a brother and sister in the Labour movement. And did I mention her long stint as a plaything in the pleasure palace of a rich Sapphist extraordinaire? Diana Lethaby is as cruel as she is carnal, and even the well-concealed Cavendish Ladies' Club isn't <I>outré</I> enough for her. Kitting Nancy out in full, elegant drag, she dares the front desk to turn them away. "We are here," she mocks, "for the sake of the irregular." Only after some seven years of hard twists and sensual turns does Nancy conclude that a life of sensation is not enough. Still, <I>Tipping the Velvet</I> is so entertaining that readers will wish her sentimental - and hedonistic - education had taken twice as long. <I>--Kerry Fried</I> 1013794 book 1998 Tipping the Velvet total:3545|5:43|4:63|3:26|2:7|1:2| 3545 14222 5002 438 2 3 false false Sun Apr 27 08:29:09 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 05:28:14 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 27 08:28:46 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Jun 08 15:49:40 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 08 15:51:12 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 15:42:12 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 10 08:26:31 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 3 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sun Apr 27 08:42:47 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 27 09:22:31 -0700 2008
Ultimately this is a lo...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Mar 04 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 30 14:35:52 -0700 2008 Sun Mar 30 14:39:50 -0700 2008 From the publisher: This delicious, steamy debut novel chronicles the adventures of Nan King, who begins life as an oyster-girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable and whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler....more...]]> 4 2 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Tue Jul 17 15:31:34 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 22 08:39:09 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false true Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Jun 06 22:07:56 -0700 2007 Wed Feb 13 10:30:16 -0800 2008
This story is of love, coming of age, maybe a little gender-be...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Wed Jun 06 06:38:54 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 06 06:44:04 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Fri Dec 05 15:46:45 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 05 15:58:59 -0800 2008 1
Lots of red velvet, grime, squalor and lust. Perfect. I love when Nancy's smoking on the little balcony off her room, just thinking, and looking over London. Profound. The characters are fabulous, and the Victorian backdrop ...more...]]> 1 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 12:05:54 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 04 13:51:53 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Sep 23 15:24:26 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 30 06:05:07 -0700 2007
This Moll Flanders style novel takes readers to the life of a girl in late 19th century Engla...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Aug 26 14:48:02 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 26 14:51:40 -0700 2007
I bought it at a car boot sale, because an old granny type recommended it to me and called it ’saucy’! I had to know what she thought saucy!

It wasn’t ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Fri Mar 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Feb 03 14:34:25 -0800 2009 Fri Apr 03 13:19:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 3 false false Fri Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 13:42:17 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 23 13:50:15 -0700 2009
This was that book. I felt as though ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 15:32:56 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 16:09:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Feb 19 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 16 06:25:38 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 20 05:51:47 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Nov 20 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 18 12:28:57 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 17:35:41 -0800 2008
Nancy Astley narrates her life for the reader with candor and abandon. We can smell the oysters in Wh...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Oct 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 20 06:45:07 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 27 13:05:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jul 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 05:04:54 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 12:28:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false true Thu Sep 17 03:59:20 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 11:55:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=56373