Sleep Pale Sister (Paperback)

Henry Paul Chester is a Victorian artist, the owner of a deadly secret, which goes to the very depth of his heart and art. Here we seem to be on traditional Gothic turf: that of James Hogg and his 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner', for Chester postulates that he may well have a secret double. Joanne Harris obeys the literary conventions of the early Gothic here by making Chester a Catholic - Matthew 'Monk' Lewis' Ambrosio removed from his Abbey and placed into the art world. He is just as repressed and far back in denial as Father Reynaud is in Chocolat. Then there's a touch of Sheridan Le Fanu too, with the distressed maiden taking liberal doses of laudanum. However, 'Sleep, Pale Sister' is not just homage to old fictions. Joanne Harris is an excellent storyteller, with a quite distinctive style. The tales of Le Fanu and Stoker may have had their powerful, exciting moments, but Harris outshines them all with her excellent technique.

Chester is obsessed with painting young, 'innocent' girls. Which leads him to spot the nine-year-old Effie in a park. For the price of a few shillings, Chester gets his perfect model. Effie becomes the star of a series of portraits of young, distressed children, such as 'The Little Beggar Girl'. After ten years, Chester marries his 'perfect' model, and this is precisely the moment when their relationship sours. She turns to one of Chester's rivals, the unscrupulous Moses Zachary Harper, for solace. But he is not about to lead her to the Promised Land. It is at a carnival that Effie finally heeds her calling, summoned by Fanny Miller, a brothel keeper who sees something of her dead daughter in Effie. With Effie under her spell, Fanny finally unlocks Henry Chester's dark secret. Together with Mose, she devises a deadly plan to expose and ruin Chester. But with the use of magic, there is always the danger of the unseen...

In Chocolat, there's a delicious scene in which Harris refers to 'Alice in Wonderland', and it seems as though she could be hinting to Charles Dodgsons' suspected paedophilia. But there is also the example of the Pre-Raphaelite John Ruskin, whose name is often mentioned in this novel, as Chester seeks the art critic's approbation. Ruskin too married an Effie, Euphemia Gray. Ruskin's marriage was annulled after six years due to it being unconsummated, leaving Effie free to marry another Pre-Raphaelite artist. It's possible that Joanne Harris got part of her story from this source, from Ruskin's repressed sexuality. One also has to take note of the fact that Kate Atkinson has taken the name of Euphemia as the heroine of her latest novel, 'Emotionally Weird'. Now that Harris and Atkinson are both published by Doubleday, it would seem prudent to investigate such links between these two writers. However, Atkinson's use of Effie may well be coincidental, since this name seems to be beloved of the Scots and 'Emotionally Weird' is very celebratory of all things Scottish. Besides, 'Euphemia' means 'to speak well', and since Effie is not the most articulate of narrators (in her narrative which knows it is prose), this is probably another sign of Atkinson's wordplay at work.

However, as mentioned before, Harris' 'Sleep, Pale Sister' can be linked to a number of other Victorian and Pre-Victorian Gothic fictions. Also running through the novel is the figure of Scheherazade, the heroine of 'A Thousand and One Nights', who, to prevent her execution by the king, her husband, cleverly told him so many fabulous tales that the time of her execution had to be constantly stayed, because he was so eager to hear their resolution. Of course, the Arabian Nights do have a happy conclusion, and it's intriguing to see Joanne Harris playing with the rules of convention here.

'Sleep, Pale Sister' is then a quite complex work, but combined with Harris' typically strong plot, any reader will be compelled to race to the end. It's a very rewarding novel, operating on many levels. Take, for instance, Harris' employment of 'My Sister's Sleep', the poem which forms the basis for one of Effie's portraits - it does have a great deal of relevance to the plot. One of Harris' main themes is that of Childhood, as excelled in her latest novel, 'Blackberry Wine'. It is entirely appropriate then, that she should attempt to tackle the Victorians, who are widely credited with having created 'childhood'. However, Harris is quite clear as to how some Victorians set out to pervert their creation. This is a narrative conceived from the same pen as that of Chocolat, and therefore deserves to be read by a much wider audience. At its heart lies the same battle between the supposed rational man and the 'hysterical' woman, as defined here by the fictional psychoanalyst Dr. Francis Russell. Like 'Chocolat', an equal balance of male and female antagonists narrates the novel. You'll not be disappointed by this rare and bloody fiction.