Gulliver's Wife in Aussie Readers

Mar 25, 2020 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-on-kindle, net-galley, 2020-release, own-read, historical-fiction, arc

London in 1702 was not a good place for the poor and destitute, but Mary Gulliver’s life since her husband Lemuel had been lost at sea had slowly improved through her careful watch on her pennies. Mary was a highly respected midwife, taught by Anne Clifford who had known Mary’s mother and was a good friend of Mary’s. Mary hoped that her fourteen-year-old daughter Bess would follow in her footsteps. Bess missed her father badly; his fanciful tales and attention to her, so Bess found herself resen ...more

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Apr 06, 2020 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it really liked it

Shelves: provided-by-publisher, aussie-author, arc-are

Gulliver’s Wife is an inventive tale that imagines the life of Mary Gulliver, the wife of Lemuel Gulliver whose fictional adventures are authored by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels.

Lauren Chater opens her story in London during the year of 1702. With her husband lost at sea and declared deceased, Mary Gulliver has fought hard to keep body and soul together. Left with crippling debts run up by her feckless husband and two young children to raise, it has taken her three years of hard work as Gulliver’s Wife is an inventive tale that imagines the life of Mary Gulliver, the wife of Lemuel Gulliver whose fictional adventures are authored by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels.

Lauren Chater opens her story in London during the year of 1702. With her husband lost at sea and declared deceased, Mary Gulliver has fought hard to keep body and soul together. Left with crippling debts run up by her feckless husband and two young children to raise, it has taken her three years of hard work as a midwife in Wapping to rescue her family from penury, but all that is cruelly jeopardised when her husband unexpectedly returns. Clearly ill, restless and raving about little people, Mary can only hope that when her husband recovers his health, he will be a better man than the one who left. But it soon becomes clear that Lemuel has bought nothing but trouble home with him.

“Only yesterday she was a widow of independent means. Now she is some monstrous hybrid, a creature who has tasted freedom and knows too well how things might be otherwise.”

Life three centuries ago was challenging for women, and in Gulliver’s Wife, Chater explores the myriad of ways in women‘s agency was curtailed by men. As a wife Mary is beholden to her husband and his selfish and abusive treatment, but as a widow Mary had discovered a modicum of independence. Luckier than most, her work as a midwife provides her with respectability and income, but Mary is still at the mercy of men - to permit her to ply her trade, to educate her son, even to see her home safely at night. With her husband’s return, Mary is powerless as his behaviour threatens to destroy her reputation, their tenuous financial stability, and even their daughter’s future.

Mary attempts to hide the worst of her husband’s behaviour from their daughter Bess, a headstrong, naive girl who was crushed by her adored father’s reported death, and is thrilled by his return. Bess compares her mother’s ordered life unfavourably to her father’s adventures, failing to understand the realities of a woman’s lot in the early 18th century. Chater’s exploration of the fraught relationship between mother and daughter, as Bess rebels and Mary tries to protect her without wholly disillusioning her, is relatable even now.

The risks Bess take are even more frightening for Mary as a violent, serial rapist is stalking the lanes of Wapping, illustrating yet another way in which men assert control over women, as it is the women who are forced to change their behaviour to accomodate the rapist, and his victims who are ruined in men’s eyes.

All this oppression tends to make Gulliver’s Wife a rather bleak read, though it does end with a note of hope.

Rich in historical detail, offering vivid description, and complex characterisation, Gulliver’s Wife is an engrossing, literary read.
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May 29, 2020 Michael Livingston rated it really liked it

An immersive historical novel that imagines the story of the wife of Lemuel Gulliver, at home in London while Gulliver travels and then coping with the chaos when he returns. It's a well told story, brilliantly researched, although maybe a smidgen too long. ...more

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Apr 07, 2020 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, historical-fiction, aww2020

This is a really excellently researched book. Set in very early 1700s London, Mary is a midwife who has struggled to eke out a living. Her husband was often away at sea and when he’s believed lost, he left her with piles of debts. She’s worked hard to pay them off and earn enough for her and her children to live. She helps the local women birth their babies but it’s a dangerous time to be a midwife. There are doctors, surgeons (men) who think they know better and want to be included in births. M This is a really excellently researched book. Set in very early 1700s London, Mary is a midwife who has struggled to eke out a living. Her husband was often away at sea and when he’s believed lost, he left her with piles of debts. She’s worked hard to pay them off and earn enough for her and her children to live. She helps the local women birth their babies but it’s a dangerous time to be a midwife. There are doctors, surgeons (men) who think they know better and want to be included in births. Maybe even see midwives stamped out entirely.

Then her husband is returned to her but it’s not a joyous reunion. He’s borderline raving, feverish and Mary fears that his strange talk will bring suspicion down upon them and ruin all the good work she has done to carve out a life. And then there’s their teen daughter Bess, who has always idolised her father and resents Mary, believing her to be trying to drive a wedge between them. At every turn, Bess is resentful of her mother, even as Mary seeks to do everything to protect her.

I’ve read a few books that focus on the art of midwifery but most have taken place later than this one. Mary lost her mother young, her father encouraged her in a match that was a mistake. Her husband was a dreamer, unable to keep a penny and with his death came a sort of freedom, even as Mary struggled to pay off his every debt. His return is only filled with problems and Mary has enough of those already. I felt that this area of 1700s London, rife with poverty and crime, came to life vividly. Women are often abused, with few options other than endless cycles of pregnancy and mouths to feed. Mary seeks to protect her young daughter Bess, who is 14 but desiring of a freedom far beyond her age. Bess is difficult, strong willed and headstrong…stubborn. She’s a resentful teenage girl without the benefit of the clarity that will come with age, that will enable her to see how much her mother has sacrificed, how hard she has worked, what she has done in terms of raising her and her younger brother. At the moment Bess can only see her father, who comes and goes, always filled with stories and fantasies. For Bess, her mother is an obstacle, something in the way of her being able to live her dreams. She seeks to escape at every opportunity, even after her first few attempts don’t exactly go well. Not going to lie, Bess was a trying character for a large portion of this book. She’s so combative and resentful, but it’s not to say that it isn’t an accurate portrayal of a fractured mother/daughter relationship.

This book focuses on the wife of Gulliver, of Gulliver’s Travels, but I have to admit, that part of the story wasn’t at all what drew me in, perhaps because I’ve not read it and have only the most passing of familiarity with it. It was about Mary herself, the midwifery and the relationships she forged with other women within the narrative – specifically her teacher Anne Clifford, her servant/maid Alice, her daughter Bess and even her clients, the women she helped through their births to both good result and not so. Particularly the relationship between Mary and Alice. Alice lives with them and assists doing pretty much everything – she helps shop for and prepare food, clean, take care of Bess when Mary is out seeing women during their pregnancies or helping with a delivery. She’s the only one left, after the other staff left when Mary could not pay them. Alice has her own reasons for staying on and the friendship they have developed transcends their roles.

I enjoyed this but at times I did find the denseness of the story and the pacing a bit of a struggle. It does feel like quite a lot of the book passes without a lot of actual happenings, it’s all just mostly Mary going about life and her struggles with her relationship with her daughter Bess – and given I found Bess quite a tough character to really read about a lot of the time, because she was so hideously bratty, it occasionally meant this was heavy going for me. But towards the end, as everything pulled together and I felt more settled into the story and the way it was being told, it felt like it had more to say and it resonated with me more. It does feel like an excellently portrayed snippet of this time period, encompassing a lot of the struggles of poverty, inequality, gender roles, crime and the struggle to survive.

***A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for the purpose of an honest review*** ...more

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