Fair Exchange - Softcover

Roberts, Michele

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860497640 ISBN 13: 9781860497643

Publisher: Virago, 2000

Synopsis

In the early 1800s, Louise, a French peasant woman, fearing she is about to die, calls for her priest. She has a secret to confess. Though the priest is impatient, she wants to tell her tale from the beginning. The story opens in Stoke Newington, London, in the 1780s, with Jemima Boote, arriving at Miss Mary Wollstonecraft's school. Jemima follows her beloved teacher to Paris wanting to be part of the erupting revolution and then - six months pregnant - retreats to the tiny village of Louise's youth. Her arrival coincides with that of another young mother-to-be, Annette, who has been sent by her parents to the country to hide her disgraceful pregnancy and to get over her infatuation with William, a young English poet. In an abandoned convent they take up their waiting: waiting for their babies, waiting for their men.
While drawing hints and facts from the lives and secret affairs of two of the most famous and passionate figures of the late 18th century - Mary Wollstonecraft and William Wordworth - the intriguing mystery surrounding these two women, is Michèle Roberts own fascinating creation.

About this title

Review

Michele Roberts' ninth novel manipulates episodes from the lives of the 18th-century pioneer of women's rights, Mary Wollstonecraft, and her contemporary, William Wordsworth. Both are known to have had secret affairs in Paris during the French Revolution, and Roberts uses these 'indiscretions' as the backbone for an historical romance with a feminist agenda.

She places her story in rural France in the early 1800s. Louise, a peasant woman, fearing she is about to die, summons her priest; she has a secret to confess. And so the novel begins. We are taken back to 1780, when Jemima Boote arrives at Mary Wollstonecraft's school in London. When Mary departs for revolutionary Paris, Jemima follows. Six months later, pregnant and defiantly in love, she retreats to a tiny village where she meets another mother-to-be, Annette, who is recovering from her infatuation with a young English poet, William. But it is Louise who emerges as the real heroine; the servant's rituals of food preparation and potato harvesting are described with a compelling poetic flair which illustrates that life cannot be lived by utopian principles alone. It is about the business of survival, and Roberts' empathy for the natural world is ingrained in every sentence she writes.--Lilian Pizzichini

Review

One of Britain's best novelists (INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY)

Roberts is at her best when she writes about food and sex, about feelings and desires that cut across boundaries of time and class (SUNDAY TIMES)

Michele Robert s' ninth novel manipulates episodes from the lives of the 18th-century pioneer of women's rights, Mary Wollstonecraft, and her contemporary, William Wordsworth. Both are known to have had secret affairs in Paris during the French Revolution, and Roberts uses these 'indiscretion s' as the backbone for an historical romance with a feminist agenda. (She places her story in rural France in the early 1800s. Louise, a peasant woman, fearing she is about to die, summons her priest; she has a secret to confess. And so the novel begins. We are taken back to 1780, when Jemima Boote arrives at Mary Wollstone)

Lilian Pizzichini, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW ('Michèle Roberts has written a memorable, glowing fantasy, a deftly tapestried fable’)

About this edition

• Publisher: Virago
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1860497640
• ISBN 13: 9781860497643
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256