I’ve been traveling for a week and the preparation for that travel preoccupied much of my time in the week beforehand which means that I am a little late with Ali Bacon’s article to honour Women’s History Month. However, it’s never too late to feature women who played a role in history!
In writing biographical fiction, Ali Bacon didn’t set out to celebrate women, but in the end it was the female characters who demanded attention. Let’s hear from Ali about featuring Victorian women in her latest two novels: In the Blink of an Eye and The Absent Heart.
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Ten years ago, with a contemporary coming of age novel under my belt, I had no plan to write historical fiction. But I had stumbled on the story of Edinburgh artist/photographer David Octavious Hill and I couldn’t get it (or him) out of my head. A novel had to be written and the biggest problem for me to solve was point of view.
The central focus of the story was a real historical figure, living in the mid-19th century and although he had no surviving relatives, I was shy of ‘impersonating’ a real man, someone I felt I knew, someone whom experts in the subject possibly knew better than me! I was also aware of the very common device in historical fiction of using someone in a ‘minor’ role to carry the narrative: the duchess’s servant, the king’s page, the foot-soldier rather than the general, and very soon I had an excellent candidate to put to use in this way.
Jessie Mann was a friend of Hill’s family, who acted as a photographic assistant. Little was known of her except that she was an important contributor to the photography business, and a single woman. My fictional antennae vibrated! Hill was a widower who was known to be both charismatic and attractive. Could I add some romantic interest for my hero? On the other hand, thinking of Jessie made me consider the other women in Hill’s life and there were quite a few, a well-to-do lady of letters, the sculptor sister of his closest friend, his daughter even. He had photographed all of them at different times. But suddenly my interest was from the other direction. Why not look at the man through the eyes of his sitters? I considered choosing just one of these women, Jessie Mann, Elizabeth Rigby (later Lady Eastlake), or Amelia Paton, but in the end I chose them all, assembling Hill’s life through the eyes of the women who sat for him. I soon began to see how they had been documented to that point as sisters, daughters and wives. They had been overshadowed for the most part by the men in their lives, leaving their own exploits not so much uncelebrated but as one writer put it, unexamined. I’m glad to say that things are gradually changing in this respect and both Jessie Mann and Amelia Robertson Hill have at last been given proper recognition.
With In the Blink of an Eye (order details below) at last completed, I looked around for a new subject and Scotland’s beloved son, the writer Robert Louis Stevenson (to whom I have a slight family connection) caught my eye. Unlike Hill, Stevenson is a figure of huge literary stature with acres of words written about him. Rather than add to or compete with that legacy, I decided straight away to look for the woman’s story and for some time considered his ebullient and unconventional wife Fanny as a subject. However, with two biographies and a novel (Nancy Horan’s Under the Wide and Starry Sky) written about Fanny S., it felt like the ground had been covered.
It was then that a happy geographical chance that turned up another equally intriguing woman. Frances Sitwell [image attached] and R.L.S. were thrown together on a visit to Suffolk in 1873 (in a village close to my sister’s home) and for the next two years he sent her letters almost daily, writing without restraint and pouring out his heart in a diary-like correspondence. But what of the woman he addressed? We have no idea how she received these emotional entreaties because she asked for all of her letters to be destroyed. Yes, a gap in the record, a lacuna just made for fiction!
Although commentators dismiss Frances Sitwell as short-term crush (Stevenson was ten years younger), I could see that their connection was not as short-lived as is generally thought and they were in touch throughout the remainder of his life, including after his marriage, and so I embarked on the novel that became The Absent Heart. I began to see how Frances had carved a life for herself in very difficult circumstances (a bad marriage, the loss of children) and negotiated the constraints of Victorian society with some success. Interestingly, while my early drafts included male character viewpoints, as time went on I focused almost exclusively on Frances’s story, because it was more than worthy of close examination. As for Stevenson himself, I hope I have at least hinted at the liveliness and personal intensity I gleaned from reading a large part of his personal correspondence, but I have no regrets in keeping the spotlight on his more reticent muse.
History has always tended to focus on the ‘big’ lives, but historical fiction is the ideal medium for taking people from the shadows. It has been both fascinating and rewarding to redress the balance and give these women their place in the sun.
Many thanks, Ali. I love the notion that historical fiction is the ideal medium for taking people from the shadows!
The Absent Heart, [image attached] published on March 26th, ORDER FROM Linen Press, Amazon UK, Amazon US, or through bookshops.
The Absent Heart by Ali Bacon
Was it friendship, love or desire?
In 1870, Frances Sitwell, beautiful, intelligent and trapped in an abusive marriage, is grateful for the chaste affection offered by rising literary star, Sidney Colvin. They make a perfect couple until the young Robert Louis Stevenson bursts into their lives to captivate them with his wild, mercurial spirit and startlingly original talent. Louis falls in love with Frances. As her feelings for Sidney cool, and Louis’s entreaties become irresistible, she encourages him to express his feelings in letters, which he does with unconcealed passion.
With Louis’s death, these emotional outpourings fall into Sidney’s hands. His subsequent anger makes Francis question the nature of his feelings for Louis. As friendship, love and desire are put to the test, can Frances find the courage to secure her future happiness as well as her place in history?
In this beguiling account of a triangular relationship, Ali Bacon explores the boundaries of friendship love and desire in Victorian England and unveils the woman who had a profound influence on one of the greatest writers of his age, Robert Louis Stevenson.
In the Blink of an Eye by Ali Bacon
He had Edinburgh at his feet, but who would be at his side?
In 1843, Edinburgh artist, David Octavius Hill, is commissioned to paint the portraits of 400 ministers who have broken away from the Church of Scotland. Only when he meets Robert Adamson, an early master of the new and fickle art of photography, does this daunting task begin to look feasible.
Hill is soon bewitched by the art of light and shade. He and Adamson become the darlings of Edinburgh society, immortalising people and places with their subtle and artistic images. In the Blink of an Eye is a re-imagining of Hill’s life in the words of those who were beguiled by his artistry and charismatic charm. Tender, tragic and sometimes humorous, these voices come together in a story of art and science, love and loss, friendship and photography.
Order now from Linen Press, Amazon UK, Amazon US
Bookshops: ISBN (paperback): 9780993599729
About the author.
After graduating from St Andrews University, Ali Bacon moved to the South West of England where her writing is still strongly influenced by her Scottish roots. The Absent Heart is her second historical novel. She conceived The Absent Heart through a family connection to the writer, Robert Louis Stevenson.
Contact Ali via https://alibacon.com, or Instagram @alibwriter.
FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY. There’s a SUBSCRIBE function on the right hand side of the page.
M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.
