The Dress Lodger

Rating:
Summary: Would Scare The Dickens Out Of Charles D.!
Review: Dickensian, or so and so meets Dickens, is probably a publicist at work. This authoress writes in a style that is her own, so if a label is to be attached how about "Holmanian". That this books take place in the 19th century does not require a comparison to Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, or Anthony Trollope. If her next book takes place in the 21st century will she be compared to Isimov?

This book is well written; an interesting tale, some history, and I would happily have read it were it twice as long. This Authoress's very harsh, foul, and all 5 sense offending England, makes many descriptions that others have written, descriptive of a city that while not perfect, is tolerable, and tolerated.

This book rubs the reader raw, nothing is embellished, think of something that you fear, and then imagine it has been brought to the page with a beautiful turn of phrase. This Authoress writes what other authors, and other readers may have been thinking. Many have mentioned topics in the book in their reviews, if they make you shift a bit in your seat, Sheri Holman will keep you there as going to bed and dreaming of her characters would be exponentially more frightening.

I enjoyed the book enough to go and pursue her first, and subsequent works will be added to my reading as well.

Good read, you would not be disappointed, just a bit unnerved.

Rating:
Summary: Good but Confusing
Review: As a fourteen year old girl, I felt that the book was interesting because the comparison of Gustine's life to mine is impossible to comprehend. The historical aspects made me question why my school has not assigned this book as required reading. The Dress Lodger taught how medical science was built on the backs of the poor. There were confusing parts, especially at the begining and end, where I had to reread passages two or three times to understand what Holman was saying. But overall, The Dress Lodger was a book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Rewarding Work of Literature
Review: I won't address the elements of the story, which are covered aplenty in other reviews, other than to say that if you have ever wondered about everyday life for the poor of early nineteenth century England, The Dress Lodger is about as close as you dare come. Any closer and you might not get back. Holman immerses us in the realities of her character's lives until we can taste what they taste, smell what they smell, and worry about their everyday concerns. To say the least, this book is not a skimable page turner. It must be carefully read but offers many levels of reward to the reader willing to pay sufficient attention.

The impatient reader (like me) may wish to read this book twice. The first time to satisfy the urge to find out how it all comes out and a second time to savor the writing. I don't know if the hallmark of a great book is that it demands to be read more than once but it seems to me that it ought to be. I have read a great many books but have almost never even considered, much less actually done, an immediate rereading of one. But here I am reading The Dress Lodger for the second time and am thrilled and filled with self-congratulations that I was wise enough to do so. Anyone sensible to the rewards of literature will find that spending some time with Holman's characters is time well spent indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping from Start to Finish
Review: Very few writers can take me where Ms. Holman has. She wraps her detail around you until it leads you where you didn't think you could go. Ms. Holman's characters have more development in them than they would want you to know. Sit back, be prepared to finish the book, and thirst for another.

When Ms. Holman writes, she draws you into her genious mind and keeps you there until you become part of the life lived by Guistine. You literally wear her dress and live the wretched life she endures. I read each night by saying, "Okay, just one more chapter." But I kept on reading.

Rating:
Summary: Dickens meets Caleb Carr
Review: This is one of the most gripping books of historical fiction that I have ever read. It has all the power and twists and turns of a good Dickens novel combined with the suspense of a spine-tingling thriller. I found it on par with Carr's The Alienist and Patrick Suskind's superb Perfume. Holman's storytelling is utterly gripping and what a story The Dress Lodger tells! I can't get Gustine and Henry Chiver out of my mind. Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor, heads up, these could be the roles of a lifetime...

Rating:
Summary: breathtaking from start to finish
Review: This is the finest, most erudite novel I have read in the past five years. Holman is a talented writer who captures time, place and character brilliantly. Anyone who cares about current literary fiction needs to read THE DRESS LODGER !

Rating:
Summary: Oh, This Woman Can Write!
Review: Every now and then a book comes along and socks you in the jaw. The Dress Lodger is like that. The writing is like Dickens with an attitude. Holman is free from the fetters of Victorian propriety, thrusting us into the dismal life of a 15 year old prostitute named Gustine, complete with the quesy aspects of her evening's work. The title comes from the dress she rents from her landlord; with it, or rather following it is an old hag called the Eye, whose sole reason in life is to guard the dress. Gustine is the hero of this book,but other characters include a young doctor just recently escaped from charges of graverobbing, a child born with a remarkable birth defect, and a girl who wants to be a ferret.Interesting ? You bet. Holman can create characters worthy of Dickens or Hardy, but there's something of the vivisectionist in her, for she reveals all.

Rating:
Summary: Strong Stuff!
Review: The story of a pretty,young prostitute who hires a glamourous blue ball gown from a pimp,to attract customers.She is the mother of a baby who was born with his heart outside his chest cavity,and attracts the attention of a young doctor who was involved in the infamous Burke and Hare scandal of body snatching and the murder of indigents to supply cadavers for medical schools. The prose is wonderful and the stench of filth,poverty and death remains in ones nostrils.This is life at its most degrading and the thought that people really lived like this is unbelievable!You'll need a hot bath a a good hair scrub after reading this!

Rating:
Summary: Death Sets the Tone
Review: While I foung the characters in this book interesting (their inner conflicts and character quirks made them truly human, not just stereotypes), the most prominent "character" was Death itself. It resides in the home, streets, the clothing of the people, the very air of the town. The voices of the dead speak clearly and are responded to. In their struggle to overcome grinding poverty and despair, the characters' primary battle is just to keep alive. Most of us who are fortunate enough to live comfortably, in this century, can't imagine the poverty the characters in this book experience, but Ms. Holman does a splendid job of describing their desperate lives to us. Each of the characters, including, and especially, Dr. Chiver, must grapple with his/her own conscience to determine how best to exist in the world of Victorian England in the midst of a cholera epidemic. The combination of satisfaction and pain Dr. Chiver feels upon obtaining a corpse for his anatomy students culminates in the horrifying final scene in which he must at last come to terms with, and face the consequences of, his own actions and attitudes. The gulf between the rich and the poor was wide and deep; neither understood the other, and we can see, in Chiver's fiancee, the forces that were at work to bridge that gulf. No one was portrayed as all bad or all good, and that was what made the people in this book so interesting to me. I found the subject and the plot fascinating and refreshingly different; however, the tidy ending left me dissatisfied. In my opinion, the ending weakened all that had gone before. Having said that, I still think it's a good read. Life vs. death, right vs. wrong, the gray areas that are reality are examined in a very interesting way in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Falls short - could have been better -- 3.5 ***
Review: THE DRESS LODGER by Sheri Holman

Here was a book that I had a hard time deciding whether I liked or not. THE DRESS LODGER by Sheri Holman falls short of my expectations, but I won't be giving it a terribly bad review. What was good about this book was the story. There are several themes and story lines going on at the same time, with Gustine the prostitute and her baby as one focal point, Doctor Chivers and his obsession with his anatomy school another, and finally the cholera epidemic the third. Between the three, Holman weaves a story about life in Sunderland, England in the early 1800's, focusing mostly on that of the poor and unfortunate, but also contrasting their lives with the upper class, which is represented by Doctor Chivers and his fiancée, Audrey.

Gustine works as a pottery assistant by day, and is a prostitute by night. She and her baby live in a rundown lodging, owned by a shady man named Whilky Robinson, who is also her pimp. He has the help of an old hag known as The Eye, who literally can only see through one eye. She is hideous and can strike fear into anyone that sees her. She cannot speak, but follows Gustine at night wherever she goes, making sure Gustine earns the money Whilky has hired her for.

The story starts with a narrative, an omnipresent narrator that points out Gustine to the reader. She is known for her blue dress, which from afar makes her look like a lady of upper class standing. Upon closer inspection one will know she is a prostitute, and she is working her shift. The Eye is always behind her, keeping watch. While Gustine is servicing her latest customer outside near the wharf, she spies a body near the water. It is a dead body, to Gustine's delight. She then searches out the Doctor, Dr Henry Chivers, who the reader soon finds out is looking for fresh dead bodies to help teach his anatomy class. Dr Chivers believes that a good doctor needs to practice on a real body, and that classroom lessons on paper are not enough. Gustine has volunteered to find bodies for him.

And so starts the intricate novel THE DRESS LODGER. It is full of interesting characters, two-dimensional yet serving the purpose, to tell a story. What makes this book not quite the winner it could be is the writing style and the structure. Holman apparently tried to emulate Dickens and other contemporaries of that time. However, she falls short of her goal. I would give this book A+ for effort, but the story definitely needed to be re-written and fixed up. The ending was also somewhat sloppy, although again I applaud the effort. If it were not for the fascinating story of the cholera epidemic and reading about 1800's England, I would not have wanted to finish this book. It was difficult to read, especially the first few chapters, and it wasn't until I got past that point that I really was able to get into the story. This book is getting 3.5 stars from me, 4 stars based on Amazon's rankings.