1849: Bess Hardemon arrives at the grimly Dickensian Priors Heath school, little knowing that she will one day end up as an inspiring and legendary headmistress - but at considerable personal cost. 1970: Sarah Beckett is delighted to gain a place at Priors Heath - as much for the pride of her parents as for herself - but will she fit in? The plight of a nineteenth century schoolteacher, trapped by her duty to her job, is mirrored by a modern day woman's fight to escape the shackles of a broken marriage. Bess Hardemon, a tough and canny young teacher is determined to make a difference at her new school. At the cost of her own chance of finding love, Bess remains trapped by her duty, a confinement echoed a century later by Sarah, who must make her own choice between duty and her efforts to save a broken marriage.
Confinement
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'A satisfying multi-nuanced treatment of what women want and the sacrifices they make to acheive.' (IRISH EXAMINER )
Book Description
The compelling, powerful story of two women, separated by a hundred years, but linked by the lives they choose and the decisions they make.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a lovely novel, and I really enjoyed it. It is fascinating to read about the attempts to make an education more widely available to girls in the mid nineteenth century,and to improve the dire conditions and low standards in Priors Heath school, which is what Bess Hardemon strives to do, first as a teacher, then as headmistress for many years. She devotes herself to this cause, thereby putting herself and her own opportunities for love into second place.
In the more recent past there is Sarah, who attends the school as a girl and then returns one day as a teacher. The lives of both Bess and Sarah are tied connected throughout to the people they meet at the school and the special places within it which come to mean something to them, such as the Rose Garden.
The novel deals with love, passion, duty and the various 'confinements' that women can experience in their lives, and the challenges of breaking free of these and doing something different. If you like these sorts of stories, with an interweaving of a part set in the past and one in the present/a different era, this is a clever example, with lots of links between the two.
In the more recent past there is Sarah, who attends the school as a girl and then returns one day as a teacher. The lives of both Bess and Sarah are tied connected throughout to the people they meet at the school and the special places within it which come to mean something to them, such as the Rose Garden.
The novel deals with love, passion, duty and the various 'confinements' that women can experience in their lives, and the challenges of breaking free of these and doing something different. If you like these sorts of stories, with an interweaving of a part set in the past and one in the present/a different era, this is a clever example, with lots of links between the two.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By L. Bretherton
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I read this book after 'The Rose of Sebastopol' which I thought was pretty good, so I wanted to explore the author's earlier works. This book is like an unpolished gem, I feel. The characters of the two teachers, Bess and Sarah, are cleverly juxtaposed in the narrative, and you are continually torn from one to learn about the other. However, there are weaknesses. There are many plot lines introduced which are not fully followed up, there are some undeveloped characters, and there is a degree of uncertainty around several episodes which leaves the reader a bit unsatisfied. Personally, I had hoped for a liaison between Carnegie and Bess, which is hinted at but never brought to fruition. The character of Laurence is somewhat sketchy, as is that of Imogen herself. Sarah - does she have a happy ending or not, the reader is left to choose. As with Sebastopol, I feel there is a vein of true gold running here, but perhaps the editing is lax, somehow we don't end up with the polished product we should have, given the clear talent of the author for capturing the intimate detail of daily life in each era.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By David A. Bede
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
Confinement is split between two loosely intertwined stories taking place at the same school, roughly 150 years apart. As other reviewers have suggested, the effect of alternating back and forth between the two can be jarring, but both tales are at least somewhat compelling nonetheless.
Bess Hardemon, the heroine of the 19th century portion of the story, is truly a five-star achievement of character development. Like many pioneering real-life women of her era, she sounds positively anti-feminist by today's standards, but that belies the real progress she made for the girls of her generation and those since then. She and most of her family and colleagues ring absolutely true to anyone who has studied the history of the era, and I found myself rooting for her to win all her reforms. The tale does occasionally take the easy way out, but that is forgiveable in such a well-developed and readable story.
In the modern half of the story, Sarah Beckett and her friends are both a bit less developed and a bit less likeable. Some of the more dramatic twists in her story, while vividly written, are a bit hard to accept. For example, her reaction to being dumped by her first boyfriend, while plausible for many teenage girls, seems a bit extreme for one as mature and well-adjusted as Sarah is portrayed as being early in the story. Her continued obsession with the man in question later in life may also strain your ability to be sympathetic after a while. Sarah's friend Imogen is a bit more convincing as a character, but her career path as an adult is wildly implausible given her early history. Some of the subplots are also rather underdeveloped as well, notably that of the link between the Bess Hardemon era and the current one.... Read more ›
Bess Hardemon, the heroine of the 19th century portion of the story, is truly a five-star achievement of character development. Like many pioneering real-life women of her era, she sounds positively anti-feminist by today's standards, but that belies the real progress she made for the girls of her generation and those since then. She and most of her family and colleagues ring absolutely true to anyone who has studied the history of the era, and I found myself rooting for her to win all her reforms. The tale does occasionally take the easy way out, but that is forgiveable in such a well-developed and readable story.
In the modern half of the story, Sarah Beckett and her friends are both a bit less developed and a bit less likeable. Some of the more dramatic twists in her story, while vividly written, are a bit hard to accept. For example, her reaction to being dumped by her first boyfriend, while plausible for many teenage girls, seems a bit extreme for one as mature and well-adjusted as Sarah is portrayed as being early in the story. Her continued obsession with the man in question later in life may also strain your ability to be sympathetic after a while. Sarah's friend Imogen is a bit more convincing as a character, but her career path as an adult is wildly implausible given her early history. Some of the subplots are also rather underdeveloped as well, notably that of the link between the Bess Hardemon era and the current one.... Read more ›
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this read very much although I did find the modern day school teacher incredibly annoying, she was a very flaky character who seemed to blame everyone else for the way that her life was going.
The headteacher from the past - Bess, was a joy though. Ahead of her times, strong-willed and feisty yet quite tragic and sometimes dramatic.
It was interesting to read about the same school within two different time lines, the changes, the differences and the similarities.
The headteacher from the past - Bess, was a joy though. Ahead of her times, strong-willed and feisty yet quite tragic and sometimes dramatic.
It was interesting to read about the same school within two different time lines, the changes, the differences and the similarities.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This amazing book combines two different lives in two different eras, intertwined cleverly to create a stunning and intriguing plot. The reader is brought right into the book as they experince the feelings of the characters as their own as the author vividly portrays their inner desires and fears. A thoroughly gripping story, although this book is mainly aimed at adults it could be enjoyed by any age.
I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to get emotionally involved in the books they read.
I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to get emotionally involved in the books they read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Kate Hopkins
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
A very interesting if sometimes frustrating novel about working in a school in two very different eras. In the Victorian era (the time of the Pre-Raphaelites, Dickens and Tennyson) Bess Hardemon, a vicar's daughter, determines to make herself useful to her fellow men by pursuing a career in teaching. She ends up as the headmistress of Priors Heath School, carrying out much educational reform, and devoting her life to her girls' education. But the work comes at great personal cost, and Bess remains in many ways traditional and anti-feminist. Meanwhile, in the 1960s, Sarah Beckett attends Priors Heath. A bright, vulnerable girl with a pushy mother, Sarah makes an unexpected friendship with the class rebel, the brilliant and unreliable Imogen.Imogen and Sarah's teachers encourage her to think of life as full of exciting possibilities. But an unexpected meeting with Imogen's brother, combined with stress, leads to Sarah making a suicide attempt and thereafter opting for safety: a marriage to a dependable, kindly engineering student, a life travelling the globe with him,living in a number of pleasant houses in foreign cities, boarding school for her two children. Years later, Sarah begins to wonder whether giving up her career wasn't a huge mistake. Deciding to live on her own for a while, she takes up a history teaching post as a temporary member of staff at Priors Heath - where the headmistress turns out to be Imogen, now a reformed character. Will Sarah opt for a new life altogether?
There was a lot I enjoyed about the book, though I found both heroines frustrating in different ways.... Read more ›
There was a lot I enjoyed about the book, though I found both heroines frustrating in different ways.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Confinement
This book gives a fascinating insight into two different women's lives - professional (as tecahers) and private, and how the job both saves them, but in some way damages them too. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Rachel Cude
4.0 out of 5 stars
An enjoyable read
I really enjoyed this book, probably more so because I work in a school. This is the fourth novel I have read by Katharine McMahon and this is probably one of my favourites. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2011 by Tilly Tompkins
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing
Confinement is the second of Katharine McMahon's books that I've read. The Rose of Sebastopol wasn't a particular favorite, but I decided to give the author another try with this... Read more
Published on 19 Sep 2009 by K. Huff
5.0 out of 5 stars
McMahon is in the same league as JKRowling!
The book at first appeared to be twisted and confusing but within a couple of page it became compulsive. It was as though you were living with both Bess and Sarah at the same time. Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2000
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