Review by New York Times Review
IN THE OPENING CHAPTER of Imogen Hermes Gowar's first novel, "The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock," we meet a merchant in 18th-century London, Jonah Hancock, anxiously awaiting the ship full of trade goods that will cement his fortune. The somewhat timid Hancock wonders if he can now call himself a gentleman, without realizing that if you have to wonder, then you're not. He "sees no benefit in questioning how things are, and avoids the society of what he calls 'clever men.'" His chief measure of all things is money. Meanwhile, in a parallel story, a beautiful courtesan named Angelica Neal, penniless after the death of her aristocratic patron, has decided to abandon the protection of the madam whose top attraction she once was. Her bawd, Mrs. Chappell, is a gloriously grotesque "abbess" whose whores are "nuns" and whose "nunnery" is one of London's most exclusive brothels. She's the sort of buttery tyrant who chides her girls for not offering her a seat and orders one to recite a sonnet while another rubs her feet. As for Angelica, the question that comes to haunt her is: At the age of 27, am I over the hill? Readers who think we're in the familiar territory of books like Michael Faber's "The Crimson Petal and the White" or Emma Donogue's "Slammerkin" - or even of Masterpiece Theater's upstairsdownstairs chestnuts - may be surprised when the first actual gentlemen who show up turn out to be hilarious caricatures speaking to one another in baby talk. They may even balk when Mrs. Chappell stages an orgy that would make the sleaziest servant on "Downton Abbey" blush. Gowar's lens focuses not so much on the high and low as on the middle: on country girls ensnared by prostitution and merchants waiting for their ships to come in. And the world she describes is one whose sexual license is an 18th-century given. Mr. Hancock's vessel never arrives. Instead, he learns that it's been sold for something supposedly more valuable, a dead mermaid, and at first he's indignant. But the "wizened freak" with sharp claws and teeth turns out to be a moneymaker when displayed for admission at a local coffeehouse, and customers bewitched by the attraction of repulsion make Hancock a wealthy man. Initially, this mermaid is the novel's MacGuffin; it figures in most turns of the plot and will strike savvy readers as a sly joke: The emblem of beauty and sexual temptation is a "malevolent little beast." In a vivid set piece, after Mrs. Chappell rents it for display she orchestrates a Busby Berkeley-style bacchanal with priapic sailors dancing in lines, whores whose pubic hair has been dyed green and a servant offering a marble dish of condoms soaked in milk. Gowar's mermaid is this vividly realistic novel's touch of magic realism, and its genuineness is teasingly ambiguous. It is said to be stuffed, but then actual fauna are routinely stuffed. Later in the novel, the live mermaid who shows up is "not a solid creature" but a sort of semi-dissolved being that can be removed from its vat of water only in separate parts, with buckets. One of the delights of this knowingly preposterous story is the dialectic it constructs between the real and the fantastic. Its period details - de rigueur in historical novels - dutifully create the ambience of a different time and place for tourist readers, and do so beautifully, with, for example, a variety of foodstuffs described with linguistic abundance and with other striking touches, like gold wires glinting behind a woman's teeth, moth holes in a man's wig, papered windows, "barley-sugar glass sconces," walnut ketchup and a bourdaloue, a portable chamber pot used by the incontinent Mrs. Chappell when she rides in her carriage. The effect is that each quality, the real and the fantastic, infects the other: The real world of 18th-century London seems both lavish and perishable, and the fantastic world of mermaids feels deadly real, especially when the live mermaid pollutes everyone in her vicinity with anxiety and melancholy. Other recurring themes in this splendid novel, which was a best seller in Britain, are handled with skill and broaden its scope. Is a woman's subjection, her second-class status in society, more evident in a brothel or in a marriage? Is love compatible with the practical strategies of survival that drive some women to prostitution? The strongest theme, however, is perhaps the most subtle. Nature is the strange other in "The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock" - the "live" mermaid turns out to be viciously hostile to the novel's urban dwellers. Repeatedly, Gowar tames common nature with descriptions that rely on human terms, like the grasshoppers that leap as if they were popped buttons, while her mermaids are identified with raw nature, with "gray seawater, its surface leaping, its depth incomparable." Mermaid lore doesn't merely emphasize the temptation of their hybrid and highly sexualized bodies, as in the age-old identification of women with nature; it also includes sunken ships and barren marriages for those who try to capture the creatures. Accordingly, the safest mermaid in this novel appears in the decorations of a mussel-shell grotto. In other words, Gowar, as an ingenious artificer herself, locates her most authentic reality in artifice and art. JOHN VERNON'S novels include "La Salle," "Peter Doyle" and "The Last Canyon." This 'wizened freak' bewitches with the attraction of repulsion.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Jonah Hancock, a widowed, middle-aged merchant, is aghast when he discovers that one of the sea captains in his employ, Captain Jones, has sold the Calliope and purchased a small, shriveled mermaid. Though, in 1785 London, the dead creature is a lucrative commodity. Dubious, but anxious to recoup his costs, Mr. Hancock decides to display it, which eventually introduces him to a brothel keeper and her courtesans. Among them is the gorgeous Angelica Neal, who seeks a new protector. Bawdy high jinks ensue the title predicts the protagonists' unlikely match along with serious ramifications. The characters wrestle with their ambitions versus being content with what they have. Leisurely told and leavened with a knowing wit, Gowar's debut, a UK best-seller much anticipated stateside, brims with colorful period vernacular and delicious phrasings: one woman is built like an armchair, more upholstered than clothed; another has a mouth like low tide. Concerned with the issue of women's freedom, Gowar offers a panoramic view of Georgian society, from its coffeehouses and street life to class distinctions and multicultural populace. Recommended for fans of Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist (2014), this is a sumptuous historical feast.--Sarah Johnson Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When a sedate, middle-aged London merchant falls in love with a beautiful prostitute, anything can happen-and does-in Gowar's delightful debut set in the late 18th century. The mermaid of the title is a dubious specimen delivered to Jonah Hancock by the master of one of his ships that ply the high seas. After the creature causes a sensation in London, Angelica Neal, a gorgeous, narcissistic courtesan, is enlisted by her former mentor, Mrs. Chapell, the proprietress of a high-class brothel, to "entertain" Hancock so he'll agree to bring his exhibit to Mrs. Chapell's celebrated institution. Smitten and lovelorn, Hancock is rebuffed by Angelica, who is in the midst of another love affair and jokingly dares Hancock to bring her another mermaid. It's only after she's abandoned and left destitute by her feckless love that Angelica realizes there might be something to Hancock after all, especially since he does deliver the required second mermaid. That purported sea creature brings an element of mystery to a novel alive with wit and humor. Gowar has a marvelous gift for the felicitous phrase and for Dickensian characters (Mrs. Chappell "is built like an armchair, more upholstered than clothed") and excels in astute social commentary, especially in descriptions of the lavish household goods, clothing, and food that money can buy-in contrast with the mean lives of the poor in Deptford, where Hancock's shipping office is located. Angelica's gradual perception of the shallowness of her hermetic world is counterpointed by the blossoming of Hancock's niece, a shy 14-year-old, who comes into her own as his housekeeper. This is, indeed, a kind of fairy tale, one whose splendid combination of myth and reality testifies to Gowar's imagination and talent. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Merchant Jonah Hancock, who's been haunting his counting house and waiting uneasily in Deptford, London, for news of his lost ship, learns that his captain has returned alone, bearing what appears to be a mummified mermaid, for which he has sold the ship and its contents. Gazing at the oddity, Jonah can have no idea at the changes this creature will bring to his fortune. When her protector dies, courtesan Angelica Neal is left without resources until the mermaid brings her and Jonah together, transforming their lives in the most unexpected fashion. The world is turned upside down as the creature exerts its mysterious power until Angelica boldly takes back their lives, working her own transformative magic on those around her. Brilliantly written and redolent with evocative historical detail, this debut novel is as much a portrait of Georgian London as it is of the characters inhabiting it. VERDICT For those enamoured of the 18th century and all things London. [Library marketing.]-Cynthia Johnson, formerly with Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In this rollicking Georgian romp, a courtesan and a merchant make an unlikely pair as they navigate the grand palaces and back alleys of London society.Jonah Hancock, the "merchant son of a merchant's son," has made his fortune by being sensible. But when the captain of one of his vessels trades everything for a mermaid specimen, "brown and wizened like an apple forgotten at the bottom of the barrel," Hancock fears his fortune is lost forever. His luck changes when the mermaid piques the interest of Mrs. Chappell, the elderly madam of London's "celebrated Temple of Venus." Well-versed in the appetites of rich men, Mrs. Chappell debuts the mermaid in a pornographic burlesque show that would make HBO executives blush. There, Hancock is brought into the orbit of Angelica Neal, a beautiful but capricious courtesan teetering on the edge of financial ruin. The two make an unlikely couple, but Angelica's debts require payment, so a marriage is at last proposed. Gowar's debut is rich in detail, with a plot that unfolds like a luxurious carriage ride through the country. Though the story is set in the 1780s, during the reign of King George III, the novel calls to mind 19th-century masters like Dickens and Eliot, who relished the way character can drive and reverse plot. And there are so many characters to follow: Mrs. Chappell's simpering brood of high-society prostitutes; Simeon Stanley, a footman and former slave from the American Colonies; George Rockingham, a rakish law student and dandy; Eliza Frost, a spinster who serves as Angelica's controlling friend and manager; Sukie, Hancock's young and impressionable niece; and, through it all, the ghostly mermaid, whose grief, anger, and playfulness serve as a backdrop to the social drama unfolding around her. Behind the window trimmings of Gowar's epic romance lies an astute novel about class, race, and fate that will delight fans of Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent and Sarah Hall's The Electric Michelangelo.An ambitious debut with enough romance, intrigue, and social climbing to fill a mermaid's grotto to the brim. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
