Jess Kidd
Autore di Things in Jars
Sull'Autore
Fonte dell'immagine: Jess Kidd
Serie
Opere di Jess Kidd
Dirty Little Fishes 1 copia
Opere correlate
The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights (2021) — Collaboratore — 205 copie, 9 recensioni
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1973
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di nascita
- Richmond, Surrey, England, UK
- Luogo di residenza
- London, England, UK
- Istruzione
- Open University
- Attività lavorative
- creative writing teacher
- Agente
- Susan Armstrong (C+W)
- Breve biografia
- Jess completed her first degree in Literature with The Open University after leaving college to have her daughter. She continued to work and study part-time, finally gaining a PhD in the field of creative writing studies. Jess’s dissertation focused on the ways in which disparate modes and genres can be brought into correspondence to create new hybrid forms in crime fiction. Her research covered several key crime fiction and magical realist texts, along with the work of John Millington Synge and Dylan Thomas. Jess has taught creative writing at undergraduate level and to adult learners. She has also worked as a support worker specialising in acquired brain injury, a PA to a Rector, and an administrator at a local community centre.
Jess was brought up in London as part of a large family from Mayo, and plans to settle somewhere along the west coast of Ireland in the next few years. Until then, she lives in London with her daughter.
Utenti
Recensioni
We follow Detective Bridie Devine as she searches for a missing child. but finds so much more than she bargained for. Bridie is no stranger to the seedy underworld of Victorian London. As an accomplished detective with medical training, she sometimes helps the police by examining bodies to determine the cause of death. Bridie recently had failed to find a lost child, so when she’s approached about another missing child, this one not just ANY lost child but the daughter of Sir Edmund Berwick. She isn’t really enthusiastic about taking on the case. However, Christabel Berwick is no ordinary child. Sir Edmund has hidden Christabel away her whole life but yet wants Bridie to believe that this is just an ordinary kidnapping. Bridie starts asking questions and learns that Christabel isn’t so much Sir Edmund's daughter but much more like his "prized procession". He fully believes that Christabel is a “merrow,” which is a darker version of a mermaid. Bridie of course, is skeptical, but there are reports that Christabel has some strange characteristics like sharp teeth, color-changing eyes, and the ability to drown people on dry land. Bridie is without some "strange" herself as newest companion is a ghost who refuses to tell her why he’s following her around. There’s a lot going on in this story and it's NOT PRETTY! London in Birdies time is soaked with mud and blood, and her own past is a nightmare at best. The author, Jess Kidd is an expert at giving us a supernatural mood that any ghost or merrow would be happy to call home... and her human villains would not be the exception. The story has so much detail and so many clever characters. I think Bridie deserves her own series of oh maybe a hundred or so books. This one is creepy, dark, and sometimes violent...but what an adventure!… (altro)
What an amazing, cool, well-written book that fits so many different genres. It was loaned to me by a friend who read it quickly; I had to take it in batches because the panoramas that the language paints are so very rich and full. This story has an Irish waif grown to adulthood on the streets of London; well-to-do families of physicians; Victorian carnivals and their creatures; and an undercurrent of both malice and wonder.
The book opens with Bridie (Brigit) Devine in her widow's cap approached by a well-muscled ghost with tattoos who encounters her in a church graveyard. Bridie is not enamored of Ruby, though she is curious about him, especially because she is investigating the skeletons/corpses of a woman and her child, both with very sharp teeth and other strange anomalies, walled up in the church basement.
Who Bridie is becomes part of the story in chapters that start 20 years before, where she is an orphan from 1840's pre-Famine Ireland taken in by her Gan while he introduces her to anatomy and studies of the human form. The adult Bridie walks the streets of London with her pipe and her mind and her memories, and assisting in the recovery of a very strange, missing child that seems to be more myth than real.
The missing child is the daughter of Sir Edmund and the playfellow of Dr. Harbin, who was sent to hire her for the search. But things are not as they seem, and her new-found friend (and ghost) Ruby is assisting her in her efforts even if no one else can see him. Or his various tattoos that shift and move and communicate his thoughts without words.
There are some cautions in this tale: death is very prevalent, and there is an incident of animal cruelty as well as Victorian operating procedures pre-anesthesia. Most of them take place in the household were Bridie is raised, that of prominent physician Dr. Eames and his psychopathic (also well-described) wife and son, during the Before passages.
How this tale is woven, how language is used, and Bridie herself are quite memorable and it is definitely a book I am glad I read.… (altro)
The book opens with Bridie (Brigit) Devine in her widow's cap approached by a well-muscled ghost with tattoos who encounters her in a church graveyard. Bridie is not enamored of Ruby, though she is curious about him, especially because she is investigating the skeletons/corpses of a woman and her child, both with very sharp teeth and other strange anomalies, walled up in the church basement.
Who Bridie is becomes part of the story in chapters that start 20 years before, where she is an orphan from 1840's pre-Famine Ireland taken in by her Gan while he introduces her to anatomy and studies of the human form. The adult Bridie walks the streets of London with her pipe and her mind and her memories, and assisting in the recovery of a very strange, missing child that seems to be more myth than real.
The missing child is the daughter of Sir Edmund and the playfellow of Dr. Harbin, who was sent to hire her for the search. But things are not as they seem, and her new-found friend (and ghost) Ruby is assisting her in her efforts even if no one else can see him. Or his various tattoos that shift and move and communicate his thoughts without words.
There are some cautions in this tale: death is very prevalent, and there is an incident of animal cruelty as well as Victorian operating procedures pre-anesthesia. Most of them take place in the household were Bridie is raised, that of prominent physician Dr. Eames and his psychopathic (also well-described) wife and son, during the Before passages.
How this tale is woven, how language is used, and Bridie herself are quite memorable and it is definitely a book I am glad I read.… (altro)
This is a dual timeline historical fiction based around the true events of the 1700s Batavia shipwreck and mutiny off the Western Australian coast. The first story involves Mayken, a 9 year old Dutch girl, on her way to Batavia in 1628, to live with her father after the death of her mother. The second storyline features lonely 9 year old boy Gil who is taken to the Abrolhos Islands 300 years later to live with his crusty old grandfather Joss, a cray fisherman, after his mother has passed away.
I have always been intrigued by the story about the Batavia, which was shipwrecked in 1629, on the Abrolhos Islands, while on its maiden voyage to Batavia (Jakarta). The ship was commanded by two men: upper merchant, Francisco Pelsaert and skipper Ariaen Jacobsz, both of whom already hated each other prior to the voyage. Mutiny was brewing prior to the fatal shipwreck. After running aground many of the passengers were offloaded onto small islands nearby, others had to be left on the ship and were drowned. Francisco Pelsaert made the decision to take a group of 48 people in an open long boat and make their way 3,200km to Batavia to get help. Amazingly this was successful, but by the time the rescue boat returned the remote islands had turned into a scene of brutal massacre and carnage. Jeronimus Cornelisz, the Under merchant, took charge, and with a group of thugs set themselves up on Batavia’s Graveyard (now Beacon Island) and began to systematically eliminate the survivors, including the children, to reduce competition for food and the chance of being hung for mutiny if the rescue ship returned. Some of the women were kept alive as sex slaves. Cornelisz and his men disarmed and marooned the loyalist soldiers in the group on nearby West Wallabi island. Instead of perishing, this group found water, and under the leadership of Wiebbe Haijes, withstood attacks on them, and were able to intercept the rescue ship Sardam first and tell their version of the gruesome events. Pelsaert executed Cornelisz and some of the mutineers on the islands, two men were left on the coast of Western Australia, and the rest sailed to Batavia. Of the original 341 ship inhabitants only 122 made it back to Batavia with at least 125 having been murdered on the Abrolhos, others having drowned or perished.
Jess Kidd’s version is beautifully written and atmospheric but some of the events are lost in the childish recount of the story. I felt too much time was spent following Mayken’s search for an eel monster, the Bullebak, instead of helping us understand the mutiny and events. Gil faces a similar fearsome monster, the Bunyip, based on local Indigenous folklore. Both children face terrible tragedy and heartbreak. Gil is considered weird by the rough islanders and persecuted by both adults and children. His only solace is his pet tortoise Enkidu (named for the Gilgamesh epic).
This was a well-written atmospheric story but probably got itself overly caught up with monster stories, which may not have been entirely necessary given the monstrous reality actually occurring.… (altro)
I have always been intrigued by the story about the Batavia, which was shipwrecked in 1629, on the Abrolhos Islands, while on its maiden voyage to Batavia (Jakarta). The ship was commanded by two men: upper merchant, Francisco Pelsaert and skipper Ariaen Jacobsz, both of whom already hated each other prior to the voyage. Mutiny was brewing prior to the fatal shipwreck. After running aground many of the passengers were offloaded onto small islands nearby, others had to be left on the ship and were drowned. Francisco Pelsaert made the decision to take a group of 48 people in an open long boat and make their way 3,200km to Batavia to get help. Amazingly this was successful, but by the time the rescue boat returned the remote islands had turned into a scene of brutal massacre and carnage. Jeronimus Cornelisz, the Under merchant, took charge, and with a group of thugs set themselves up on Batavia’s Graveyard (now Beacon Island) and began to systematically eliminate the survivors, including the children, to reduce competition for food and the chance of being hung for mutiny if the rescue ship returned. Some of the women were kept alive as sex slaves. Cornelisz and his men disarmed and marooned the loyalist soldiers in the group on nearby West Wallabi island. Instead of perishing, this group found water, and under the leadership of Wiebbe Haijes, withstood attacks on them, and were able to intercept the rescue ship Sardam first and tell their version of the gruesome events. Pelsaert executed Cornelisz and some of the mutineers on the islands, two men were left on the coast of Western Australia, and the rest sailed to Batavia. Of the original 341 ship inhabitants only 122 made it back to Batavia with at least 125 having been murdered on the Abrolhos, others having drowned or perished.
Jess Kidd’s version is beautifully written and atmospheric but some of the events are lost in the childish recount of the story. I felt too much time was spent following Mayken’s search for an eel monster, the Bullebak, instead of helping us understand the mutiny and events. Gil faces a similar fearsome monster, the Bunyip, based on local Indigenous folklore. Both children face terrible tragedy and heartbreak. Gil is considered weird by the rough islanders and persecuted by both adults and children. His only solace is his pet tortoise Enkidu (named for the Gilgamesh epic).
This was a well-written atmospheric story but probably got itself overly caught up with monster stories, which may not have been entirely necessary given the monstrous reality actually occurring.… (altro)
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
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Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 7
- Opere correlate
- 2
- Utenti
- 2,546
- Popolarità
- #10,091
- Voto
- 3.8
- Recensioni
- 132
- ISBN
- 100
- Lingue
- 4
- Preferito da
- 2
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Plot Preview:
The book started off really well, especially in the 1629 timeline. The 1989 timeline was duller in comparison, with hardly anything to hold my interest. But when I reached the halfway mark of the book, I realised that I was registering nothing, my mind drifting away more and more often. So I went back all the way to the start and forced myself to concentrate. However, I began to lose interest at exactly the same point. I completed this book only by sheer determination and a hatred of DNFing. When a book has two timelines and neither keeps you invested, there’s no way this ship would sail to a happy ending.
The obvious common factor between the two timelines is that they come to us from a child’s perspective. Both the kids are adventurous, inquisitive, atypical of their era, and orphans. Mayken is an especially amazing character, what with her tendency to explore forbidden areas, her wild imagination, her love for her nurse maid Imke – also a great character, and her determination to be brave. Gil’s personality is more subdued in comparison, though he also has a whimsical side to him. Both kids however never behave their age, especially evident through Mayken’s fondness for using the F word. Slightly implausible that a wealthy and sheltered young girl of the early 17th century would know and use a cuss word! The only character I liked in the 1989 story was Enkidu the tortoise.
The historical timeline (the 1629 one, I mean. As I type this, I realise that both timelines are historical!) kept my attention much more than the modern one. The characters, the life aboard the ship, the old beliefs and superstitions, the mythical water monster, the darkness of the subsequent events – all were gripping to a great extent. However, as we see everything proceed only through Mayken’s eyes, we see what’s happening but we never realise why it happened. Especially considering the human machinations that resulted in such a gruesome outcome, knowing the reasons and the motivations of those involved would have helped much in feeling connected to the narrative.
There is a hint of the fantastical in both timelines, what with Mayken’s imagined monster and Gil’s investigation of the identity of the ghost girl. But the potential stays underutilised.
I had assumed that the “ghost” quest would somehow bind the two timelines together. But at the end, each timeline was cut off abruptly, with nary a connection established and many questions left unanswered. Moreover, the shift between the two timelines was very frequent, especially in the final quarter. Jumping between 1629 and 1989 after every 2-3 pages made for a bumpy and annoying ride, and the flat ending of both timelines sealed the disappointment.
I fail to see the point of Gil’s story as it had nothing to connect to the Batavia wreck except for the presence of the wreck itself in the background. The two tracks never feel like parts of the same fictional work. This novel might have worked much better for me had it focussed only on the Batavia story, thereby providing a detailed glimpse of the exact historical events.
The 1629 timeline is based on the actual shipwreck of the Batavia. I hadn’t heard of this incident and its gruesome fallout, and learning the truth of the incident left me incredulous. That said, I would have appreciated some suspense about the proceedings. However, the 1989 timeline reveals details about the 1629 events even before the historical timeline does. The latter spends a lot of time on the pre-wreck narrative but zooms through the actual event and its consequences. I read the Wikipedia entry after I completed the book to fill in the many blanks left by the novel. The wreck, its cause and its aftermath is like a horror story. How I wish the book had handled the post-wreck scenes better!
One factor where this negative reading experience is my fault is in my preference for balanced realism in writing. I'm not sure what I thought the book would be, but I certainly did not expect this endless cycle of death and darkness and abuse and misery, much of which was graphic. There is hardly any positivity in the book. On top of it, it includes gratuitous animal abuse as well! I know there are readers for such plots, but I am not one of them. I don’t mind dark reads, but seeing a plot that is so dark that it is almost carbon black? Not for me. This was almost like misery lit in the second half.
I’ve heard much praise about this author’s writing and I could see the beauty of her descriptions in this book as well. But as far as plot development is concerned, maybe I should try another book of hers to see if this novel was an aberration or the norm.
I cannot think of any strong positive point by which to recommend this book. However, all of my friends on Goodreads except two have rated this 4-5 stars. So it’s very clear that the book does hold appeal to the right reader, and I encourage you to pick it up and discover the same for yourself. In the meantime, I go looking for a book with some rays of sunshine to heal my broken heart.
2 stars, almost entirely for Mayken and for making me aware of the Batavia shipwreck.
My thanks to Canongate and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Night Ship”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.
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… (altro)