Affinity

Product Information

When I started this book, I had no idea how sad Affinity would make me. Because it does, and it has, for at least two days even after finishing the book. It won a 1999 Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday / John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. [8] An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work. Amongst Millbank’s murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by on apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a séance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed. Although initially skeptical of Selina’s gifts, Margaret is soon drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina’s freedom, and her own.

Affinity is about a spinster (an older, unmarried woman) named Margaret Prior and, boy, has life really messed her up. Her father (whom she loved dearly) is dead, her mom is overbearing and protective and a Bible away from being the mom in Carrie, her former (female) lover is married to her brother and they have a child together. She takes chloral every day for her emotional instability/insomnia, eventually using it to aid in her suicide after the death of her father. Her suicide failed, obviously, so she decided to be a Lady Visitor at Millbank prison, spending her days speaking with convicts. Set in the mid-1870s, Affinity is the story of lonely Margaret Prior. Nearing thirty, unmarried, and recovering from a series of difficult and upsetting events including the death of her beloved father, she takes up the duties of a 'lady visitor' at London's Millbank prison. Assigned to visit, speak with and offer companionship to the female prisoners, she finds herself developing a particular affection for one inmate - Selina Dawes, an alleged medium imprisoned for fraud and assault. At first, Margaret's visits are focused on exploring the unfamiliar environment of the prison and meeting the women incarcerated there, as a distraction from her dull and unhappy home life. However, as her friendship with Selina blossoms and she begins to feel increasingly alienated elsewhere, Millbank becomes the centre of Margaret's world, a growing obsession. Her diary makes up the majority of the narrative, intercut with extracts from Selina's earlier journal recounting the events that led to her imprisonment.

Narrated in alternating chapters by the two very different women, this dark, moody story incites fear, melancholy, and terrible pity. As always, with this author's work comes a thoroughly researched story and a compelling look at women in oppressive circumstances, as well as how their limited choices often lead to desperate attempts to control their own destinies. There's also an erotic undercurrent of forbidden attraction running deep in this novel as Margaret finds herself increasingly drawn to the mysterious Selina Dawes, who has been imprisoned for a spiritualist reading gone horribly wrong. Their subtly blooming attraction is heightened by the misery of the contrast with Selina's living conditions at Millbank Prison (an actual London prison, by the way), and it's a certainty that in Margaret's desire to save Selina, she is also desperate to save herself.

Sarah Waters: 'Is there a poltergeist within me?' ". The Independent. London. 29 May 2009 . Retrieved 27 July 2012. University, Lancaster. "Grizedale College | Lancaster University". lancaster.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 28 June 2017 . Retrieved 19 July 2017. Set in the early 1870s in London, Margaret Prior, recovering from a suicide attempt after the death of her father, starts visiting the female prisoners in Milbank prison and becomes obsessed with one, Selina Dawes. Selina is a young spirit medium given a four year sentence after a seance went wrong, leaving her patron, Mrs Brink, dead. Affinity by Sarah Waters". Chasing Bawa. 17 April 2010. Archived from the original on 24 April 2010 . Retrieved 26 April 2010.Affinity is told from both Selina's and Margaret's perspectives. The reader feels as fascinated by Selina as Margaret is. Yet, she still remains an enigma, a mystery throughout the book. The story unfolds slowly, with each chapter pulling you in completely. Afinidad’, de la galesa Sarah Waters, está ambientada en el siglo XIX victoriano, y explora el oscuro y opresivo mundo de una cárcel de mujeres, a la vez que nos muestra cómo era el ambiente del espiritismo en aquella época. Igualmente, el amor lésbico está presente, y, aunque no explícitamente, sí se trata con naturalidad, algo que en la narrativa victoriana sólo podía ser leído entre líneas. This novel unfolds very, very, very slowly. It's way shorter than the other book I have read by Sarah Waters, Fingersmith, but it doesn't contain as many plot twists as that one does. Affinity feels a lot slower. I didn't mind that much, because I happen to love the historical period, and I can easily be entertained by the gloomy mood. Still, after a while I started to wish for the end, because about ninety percent of this novel is build-up. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Mr Vincy, the owner of a spiritualist boarding house and Selina's landlord in Holborn prior to her moving in with Mrs. Brink.

The novel is less light-hearted than the ones that preceded and followed it. Waters found it less enjoyable to write. [17] "It was a very gloomy world to have to go into every day", she said. [19] Affinity (DVD)". Dooyoo.co.uk. 12 January 2009. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011 . Retrieved 26 April 2010.Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. I had more or less to figure the book out as I went along – a very time-consuming and unnerving experience for me, as I tried out scenes and chapters in lots of different ways. I ended up with a pile of rejected scenes about three feet high. It was satisfying in the end, realising just what should go where; but a lot of the time it felt like a wrestling match. [4]