Conjuror Girl – Stephen Palmer visits the Guest Blog to talk about his new trilogy
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Professor Higgins sings in My Fair Lady. “Men are so honest, so thoroughly…” Hmm, let’s stop the record there and change that opening line.
Why can’t a man be more like a woman? What is it that’s stopping them? Do they believe they have more to lose than to gain by ditching traditional masculinity? Are they frightened by or disgusted by women? Are they too immature to see the damage they’re doing to women and to themselves? All three of those thing, I think.
In my new Conjuror Girl trilogy, set in 1899/1900, I wanted to portray a scenario in which the main character, Monique, possesses a talent only men are supposed to have. This being a version of Victorian Britain, men are in charge and women lack many of the rights they now have. Monique therefore faces an immediate and pressing dilemma: should she conceal her gift in order to survive in a milieu hostile to women, or should she be true to herself and accept, or even use her talent?
I use art as a metaphor in these books. One of Monique’s true friends is Henri Manguin, a real French painter, who recognises Monique’s artistic gift. But women artists struggled to be seen in the nineteenth century, and Monique has no expectations of success, as with sullen obstinacy she observes: Whoever heard of a woman artist? It’s ridiculous. There’s a marvellous line in the film Portrait Of A Lady On Fire in which Noemie Merlant’s painter character remarks on women not being allowed to paint male nudes so that any talent they might have remains out of sight. Henri Manguin however is not going to allow Monique to remain invisible. He has plans for her.
But the main drama plays out inside Monique’s mind. Her best friend Lily considers the prime task of a young woman to be finding a husband – even orphans, for such are Monique and Lily, may acquire husbands. Monique however is not so sure:
She shook her head. “I’m a freak. I should’ve been born a boy.”
Lily eyed her. “Then you would be stuck in men’s world.”
“But, wouldn’t you rather be there too? Somewhere with control, with influence, where you can do things that people actually notice… and not have to bear children, year after year after year?”
Lily paused for thought. “I want something different,” she said, “but not the men’s world. That’s all fighting, wars and duty.”
“And finer things, like art, and science.”
“Perhaps. Yet if a woman is a scientist she is mocked as an anomaly. Look at Madame Curie, who discovered the miracle of radium yet is treated as a one-of-a-kind. Is that fair?”
Monique shook her head. “Nothing’s fair in this world.”
Monique, being young, is of the age when fairness is the determining factor in ethical decision. She feels depressed at the ways of her world: inimical to women, and indeed to children. Yet the gift burns inside her, and she knows she has to come to terms with it at some level.
I am a man, and thus not qualified to speak from the inside on women’s worlds. Yet I can from the outside. Moreover, because I’m so far from being a traditional man, and because I reject all the tropes and fantasies of traditional masculinity, the position of women in patriarchal society resonates with me. In my youth I was on occasion treated as something less than a man because of my long hair and propensity for enjoying reading and art. I say this only by way of background, not to justify my position. But in the fight against oppression, violence and cultural ignorance, as many hands as possible are needed. In particular men who see the truth of patriarchy need to speak out, especially to their fellow men, in an attempt to steer society towards a more humane future. Such I do in my real life, and as an author.
Why shouldn’t a man be more like a woman?
Stephen Palmer is the author of seventeen genre works: Memory Seed (Orbit 1996), Glass (Orbit 1997), Flowercrash (Wildside 2002), Muezzinland (Wildside 2003), Hallucinating (Wildside 2004) and The Rat And The Serpent (Prime Books 2005). In 2010 PS Publishing published the far-future Urbis Morpheos. In 2014 Infinity Plus Books published his surreal slipstream steampunk novel Hairy London, and in 2015 his Beautiful Intelligence and short novel No Grave For A Fox. Ebooks of Muezzinland, Hallucinating and The Rat And The Serpent are available from Infinity Plus, who have also published the ebooks of Memory Seed, Glass and Flowercrash. In 2016, Infinity Plus published his alternate-world steampunk Factory Girl trilogy; The Girl With Two Souls / The Girl With One Friend / The Girl With No Soul, with another alternate historical work, Tommy Catkins, out in summer 2018. In 2019 IP published a return to themes of AI, The Autist. Following the relaunch of the Factory Girl trilogy later in 2019 with new Tom Brown covers, IP published a fourth work in the same world, The Conscientious Objector. Woodland Revolution, a mythic prose-poem, came out in 2020. His short stories have been published by Wildside Press, Spectrum SF, Newcon Press, Infinity Plus, Mutation Press, Eibonvale Press, Solaris, TFQ, Unspoken Water, Doghorn Publishing, Kraxon, Tickety Boo Press, The Manchester Speculative Fiction Group, Boo Books, Wayward Plants, Woodbridge Press, the FCC charity, and PS Publishing (forthcoming). In 2019, Newcon Press published a collection of short stories, Tales From The Spired Inn, set in the world of Memory Seed. @ipebooks
Stephen lives and works in Shropshire, UK.
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