Tipping the Velvet

Oh, where do I begin? First of all, I have to say that I haven\’t read that many erotic novels and this is only my third book about lesbian sex. So I\’m not jaded as some reviewers are. I have read my share of novels, but in recent years I\’ve preferred memoirs. So, unlike some reviewers, who felt that this story was predictable or boring or had too much sex or not enough, I can\’t say any of those things. I found the story to be original, interesting, exciting, stimulating, shocking, and touching. The sexual content was just right. I love books written in the first person–makes me feel so close to the protagonist. Some reviewers didn\’t find Nancy to be likable, but I never stopped liking her. She was certainly no saint, but she had some difficult times and brutal circumstances to contend with. To be brief, this story is about an innocent young girl who falls in love with a female performer who happens to be a male impersonator. As her life progresses, she loses some of her innocence when she uses her sexual prowess to support herself financially. The complications that develop make for a heartbreaking story as well as an amusing one. I was very happy with her choice of a final love partner, the first girlfriend she has who is more concerned with others than herself and who helps Nancy to become a more caring person. I read this book in three or four sessions and the last day I read for hours until I finished it. I had to know what happened. My world disappeared for a while. If I were to compare it to the other book I have read by Sarah Waters, The Paying Guests, I thought Tipping the Velvet moved faster than The Paying Guests, but I was more touched by the sexual descriptions in The Paying Guests.

A SassyPants Shorts review This is the fourth book by Sarah Waters that I have read and interestingly this is her first book. I am in awe that she wrote the first draft of this book while she was in graduate school. Who has time to write a book while they are in grad school? Not me, that\’s for sure! I was prepared to give this book 5 stars, but the strong start and interesting story did not hold my interest through the almost 500 pages. If you are not familiar with Sarah Waters, her books of historical fiction have some sexual or homosexual themes and some might consider parts of the content to be risqué. The title comes from a Victorian term for an act of oral sex. My predominate thought while reading this was that it was the book Charles Dickens would write if he wrote about lesbians and cross-dressing (the book is set in Victorian times and I am using the author\’s verbiage not our current terminology). The book begins with young Nan King, daughter of a family of oyster sellers. She adores the theatre and sees the performance of Kitty Butler, the famous male impersonator. She is immediately enamored and manages to become Miss Butler\’s dresser and eventually her co-star and very secret lover. This relationship ends tragically and the rest of the book follows Nan as she tries to make her way in life. She becomes a cross-dressing prostitute and then the sexual plaything of a very wealthy older society woman. Nan eventually finds love with a socialist. I thought that the book was very rich in character development, plot, and period detail. Information about life in the theatre and on the streets of London were very interesting. I was loving it and had a hard time putting it down until about two-thirds of the way through when Nan began living with her socialist friend Florence. The book started to drag at that point and felt overly long to me. I\’m still glad I read it. It is an impressive debut by a talented writer.

I don\’t usually like historical fiction but will read it if there\’s a queer, social or political context to it, and this novel is a really valuable, well-researched glance into the world of late 19th century lesbians, drag kings, and, later in the book, feminists and socialists. I often found the stylized language to make the novel seem a tad overwritten, however, I think that it enjoys a pretty tight structure. I also loved the good balance of steamy sex scenes and real-life considerations with lodging and money, which are usually overlooked once the emphasis shifts to romantic matters. Nancy, the protagonist, is often unlikeable, which made me like the book even more: I think Waters captured the othering and the disenfranchisement that so often happens to queer teenagers and young adults, pretty well. And I was thankful for a happy ending, which I also don\’t really like in general, but feel like it\’s an important political statement nowadays to give queer characters a non-deadly resolution.

This is a strange book. A very strange book. But it is also captivating—even riveting at times. While the engrossing plot, superb writing and rich historical details work seamlessly to keep the story moving along, I found it hard to continually have sympathy for the main character, and for me that is always a problem in a book. For that reason alone I am giving it four stars instead of five. Taking place in the Victorian period of the late 1880s and 1890s, this is the story of Nancy Astley, born to be an \”oyster girl,\” shucking and cooking oysters in her family\’s restaurant in Whitstable on the coast of England. But Nancy is not like the rest of her family. She would rather be in the gaudy music halls than working in the kitchen, and she eventually realizes she is more different than anyone suspected: She is a lesbian. The story focuses on this self-discovery in a time when such things cannot be publicly confessed and the bizarre, frightening, outrageous and absolutely shocking life she leads on the streets of London as she searches to define who she is and maybe, just maybe, find true love. This is an excellent, extremely well-written book by Sarah Waters, but it is not for the faint-hearted.

This novel is set in Victorian times – mainly between 1888-1895. It coincides with the life and times of Three Men in a Boat, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Sherlock Holmes, but it gives an alternate take on life in the late 19th century. This is hardly surprising as Nancy Astley, the first person narrator, is a lesbian who lived by her wits during an epoch when lesbianism wasn\’t as fashionable as it is today. On the whole, lesbianism was a topic neglected by the mainstream authors of the period such as Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Jerome K Jerome and even Oscar Wilde (although I\’m sure he had his own ideas on the subject). For me, the great strength of this book was Sarah Waters\’ research into the clothing, language, conventions and street life of era. I couldn\’t spot any anachronisms in the historical details. Although one might argue that the whole book was a thematic anachronism being written through the eyes of a woman immersed in late 20th Century feminism rather than a genuine young Victorian lady. (At least that is my impression.) The quality of writing was excellent and Sarah Waters is a natural story teller so there was plenty to occupy the mind. The downside of the book was Nancy Astley\’s self-absorption and sometimes her reflection on herself and her emotions slowed the pace to the point that some passages were almost boring. (This sort of prolonged introversion occurs also in Fingersmith by the same author and detracts from an otherwise enjoyable read.) Incidentally, Sarah Waters has just added her reflections on this book twenty years after its original publication (1998) as an epilogue. These are well worth reading if you\’re interested in how she came to write the book. She is not afraid to criticise herself which is quite refreshing. Overall, the positives in this book heavily outweigh the negatives and I\’d recommend it without reservation to anyone interested in Victorian London.

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