Book Review 2024 #7 - Sarah Waters's Affinity
Affinity by Sarah Waters
Published by: Riverhead
Publication Date: June 5th, 2000
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
There are secrets in everyone's lives. Everyone knows that Margaret Prior hasn't been the same since the death of her father. Only a few know that she tried to kill herself. And only one other knows that the death of her father was only the first domino to fall. His death confined Margaret to Cheyne Walk. Her dreams of Italy and a life with Helen were crushed. Helen subsequently married Margaret's brother and bore him a child. Helen, Italy, her father, all of it lost forever. Her future being nothing more than her mother's dogsbody will eventually break her. But first a kind friend of her father's tries to help. Mr. Shillitoe has asked Margaret if she would be interested in becoming a "Lady Visitor" to Millbank Prison. The scheme is that Margaret, being from a well-respected upper-class family, will be a good influence on the female prisoners. Her manners and comportment will encourage the women to emulate her. During her first visit she's uncertain if she will ever return. The despair and drudgery. The claustrophobic air. Everything combines to sap the will to live out of you. But then she sees one prisoner remarkably holding a flower. In this is a place where nothing grows. It is a mystery. One that will take over Margaret's life. Because the prisoner is none other than the famous, some may say infamous, medium Selina Dawes. Selina is in prison because her patroness died after Selina conducted a private session with a young American, Miss Madeleine Silvester, who went into a fit after Selina's spirit guide, Peter Quick, manifested himself and was rough with the her. All of this Margaret learns over time. Some from her too short visits with Selina, some from the matrons, and some from the outside world. Because that's what has happened to Margaret. She believes that her world is the prison. That she is there with Selina. And yet she cannot show how desperate she is to see Selina. Her mother has already threatened to stop her visiting the prisoners. She thinks Margaret just gets too worked up. Also Margaret cannot let the matrons suspect her partiality for the medium or they too could stop her visits. She must spread her "good work" to other inmates, hiding her true feelings and desires. But Selina understands all. Selina has manifested miracles for Margaret, flowers in the bleakest of nights. Now it is up to Margaret to get ready for another miracle, Selina's escape. The two of them will forge a new life together. The spirits just have to be willing.
Until now I didn't know that Sarah Waters had reached her full potential and written a perfect book. I should have known given how beloved she is, but of her six books I've only read half of them so I only had half the picture. I felt that The Little Stranger left much to be desired despite having a lasting influence on me and Fingersmith overstayed its welcome. So much like Goldilocks it took until I read Affinity to find something just right. The problems I had with Fingersmith in particular highlight why this book is perfection. With the story of Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly we essentially had two novels. The first half was Sue's story and the second half was Maud's story, or, if I'm being honest, just the entire story of Sue rehashed once the "twist" was revealed. The book should have ended at the twist. Leave your audience wanting more with shock and awe, with a visceral gut punch that they will never recover from. Which, ironically, is exactly what Sarah Waters did with Affinity, the book she wrote before Fingersmith. I wonder if it's because this book left questions and in some places was open to interpretation that there were critics out there who said she should work on that and then she did and it made her work less than. I would rather be left wanting more than grow to dislike a novel. Sarah Waters does an amazing job with worldbuilding. People have rightfully compared her to Dickens. She brings Victorian London to life. You feel the oppression of the air on your skin, the din of the streets in your ears. But what I found astonishing here is that she brought an overlooked part of Victorian London to life in Margaret's visits to Millbank Prison. I felt like I was there, in Millbank. The chalky walls, the confining routines, the itchy clothes, the loneliness, the dark, I was there. I was a prisoner in Millbank. And oh how it mirrors the prison of Margaret's own life. She has her own jailor in the form of her mother, her own torment in seeing her lover married to her brother, her prison is just far more luxurious. And every time I picked up this book I was taken away from my world and lived in theirs. I was there with Margaret, I was there with Selina. I WAS THERE. For a little less than a week I lived in another world. A world where a skilled Spiritualist made a desperate and lonely woman believe in supernatural powers. Believe that there was a life they could make together. A world that was someone else's. And I so believed. As George R.R. Martin said "[a] reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." But not every book gives you that lived in experience. Affinity did. Sarah Waters let me live another life. A truly unforgettable one.
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