Little Bones - Hardcover

Jenkins, Janette

3.36

262 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 070118194X ISBN 13: 9780701181949

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2012

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It's 1899. London. A young girl is abandoned by her feckless family and finds lodging and work assisting a doctor. But Jane Stretch is no ordinary girl, and Mr. Swift is no ordinary doctor.

Jane does her best to keep up with the doctor, her twisted bones throbbing, as they hurry past the markets, stage doors and side shows to appointments in certain boarding houses across town. The young actresses who live there have problems, and Mr. Swift does what is required, calmly and discreetly. Grateful to her benefactor and his wife, Jane assists him and asks no questions -- the desperate young women not minding that it is a cripple girl who wipes their brows.

When this unlikely pair become involved with a rakish music hall star, Johnny Treble, who calls on Swift's help for his rich mistress's predicament, it seems that Jane's spell of good fortune is not going to last. The police come knocking -- how will the doctor explain the absence of his medical certificates? How will they explain their connection to Johnny Treble's sudden death? And how will Jane argue her innocence? It seems that no amount of wand waving will make their problems disappear.

Little Bones conjures a tawdry, tantalising, troubling world of unclear morality and conflicting sympathies -- richly evocative and full of curiosities.Two people act against their consciences simply to get by, and the choices we make are called into question. Is it possible to commit abhorrent acts without being corrupted by them?

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About the Author:

Born in Bolton in 1965, JANETTE JENKINS studied acting before completing a degree in Literature and Philosophy and then doing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she was in Malcolm Bradbury's final class, along with Toby Litt, John Boyne, Richard Beard and Bo Fowler. She is the author of the novels, Columbus Day, Another Elvis Love Child and Angel of Brooklyn. Her short stories have appeared in newspapers and anthologies, including Stand Magazine, and have been broadcast on Radio 4. In 2003 she was awarded an Alumni Fellowship by the University of Bolton. She lives in the city of Durham.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this atmospheric historical novel set in 1899 London, Jenkins (Firefly) evokes the ambience of a Dickens novel. Fifteen-year-old Jane Stretch is intelligent, hardworking, and a cripple. After her family abandons her, she finds work and lodging with a doctor—she will act as his assistant—and his wife, who never leaves their shabby house. Showgirls from the theater seek Mr. Swift's medical services to remove obstructions, also known as inconveniences. He provides them a tincture to drink, leaving Jane with them as they miscarry. Without this position, Jane would likely end up as a beggar or in the workhouse, so she does what she is told, never considering the ramifications of her involvement in an illegal activity. Every other chapter flashes back to Jane's childhood with her ne'er-do-well parents and flighty older sister. Jane notes with alarm her employer's decline into alcoholism, which in conjunction with Mrs. Swift's agoraphobia foreshadows the trouble to come. The novel's ending avoids the melodrama typical of Dickens's work and aims for a more realistic denouement to suit the ugliness of Jane's life, but the result is heavy-handed. The vividness of the story's setting is more successful than the story itself. (Nov.)

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