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A Net For Small Fishes - spoilery
Mar. 28th, 2021 01:40 pmI did some fairly random book shopping recently, after being pointed towards Fox Lane Books as a good place to buy.
One of the books that caught my eye was A Net For Small Fishes by Lucy Jago, which tells the story of the Overbury Scandal of the early 1600s, which saw Countess Frankie Howard and her friend, Anne Turner, accused of being involved in the death of a male courtier.
The story is told in first person from the point of view of Anne (with some shenanigans around the tense that allow for some manipulation of the reader's expectations), and the book paints her as a complex and largely sympathetic character. She and Frankie experience the condemnation of the public eye at a time when women were expected to be obedient to their menfolk and suffer indignities and worse without complaint. The messages about the way in which women are treated differently to men in the eyes of society, for actions that are only designed to promote their own welfare and that of others, are clear and very much still true today.
My biggest annoyance at the book was the three lines quoted on the back cover, which reveal two important plot points that don't occur until page 315 of 327 - but that is the fault of the marketing team and not the author.
I also wasn't sure what to make of the story to a certain extent, since I was certainly invested in the fate of Frankie and Anne by the end, and had some sympathy towards their situation - but all the accusations made against Anne at her trial were true - though perhaps we are meant to see her actions as those of desperation and difficult circumstance rather than malice.
The Author's Note helped me in reconciling my feelings about how the book turned out - and I think her intention of shedding more light on a story steeped in misogyny are admirable, especially since she says she did not mean to whitewash her protagonist's actions.
So, overall, a well-written, involving and informative book about an interesting period of history, which makes comments about our own society and the difficulties still faced by women who find themselves in the public eye.
One of the books that caught my eye was A Net For Small Fishes by Lucy Jago, which tells the story of the Overbury Scandal of the early 1600s, which saw Countess Frankie Howard and her friend, Anne Turner, accused of being involved in the death of a male courtier.
The story is told in first person from the point of view of Anne (with some shenanigans around the tense that allow for some manipulation of the reader's expectations), and the book paints her as a complex and largely sympathetic character. She and Frankie experience the condemnation of the public eye at a time when women were expected to be obedient to their menfolk and suffer indignities and worse without complaint. The messages about the way in which women are treated differently to men in the eyes of society, for actions that are only designed to promote their own welfare and that of others, are clear and very much still true today.
My biggest annoyance at the book was the three lines quoted on the back cover, which reveal two important plot points that don't occur until page 315 of 327 - but that is the fault of the marketing team and not the author.
I also wasn't sure what to make of the story to a certain extent, since I was certainly invested in the fate of Frankie and Anne by the end, and had some sympathy towards their situation - but all the accusations made against Anne at her trial were true - though perhaps we are meant to see her actions as those of desperation and difficult circumstance rather than malice.
The Author's Note helped me in reconciling my feelings about how the book turned out - and I think her intention of shedding more light on a story steeped in misogyny are admirable, especially since she says she did not mean to whitewash her protagonist's actions.
So, overall, a well-written, involving and informative book about an interesting period of history, which makes comments about our own society and the difficulties still faced by women who find themselves in the public eye.
