Reviewed by Wendy Lipke
While researching for this book, the author looked for evidence to see whether the French Revolution offered any real change and opportunities for women in the country. Their role within the revolution was great. They formed their own political clubs and societies and took part in some of the most important events within that movement.
The Woman in the Wallpaper is the first novel penned by English writer, Lora Jones, who began her career in the TV industry, reading scripts and writing for ITV, the BBC, Channel 4, and others. For a first novel this is an epic one with 490 pages for the reader to learn about the lives of three young women against the unrest of a country divided by class and suffering drought and often starvation.
The story, which took five years to write including the COVID years, is presented in the first person by three young women with completely different personalities – worker sisters Lara and Sofi and aristocratic Hortense. Their interaction occurs at the Oberst Wallpaper Factory in the late 1700s. This setting was inspired by an actual factory in Jouy-en-Josas, near Paris, established in 1760.
The type of wallpaper produced by this factory depicted floral and pastoral scenes, arranged in repeating vignettes. The wallpaper at the centre of this story records snippets from the life of the owner’s family. However, it also appears that the appearance of one of the sisters closely resembles that of the now deceased mother and this connection influences the storyline.
This is a work of fiction based on some historical happenings. It provides a picture of life around the time of the French Revolution rather than an accurate history.
The book is broken into five parts which contain chapters narrated by each of the three female main characters. These chapters are quite brief but give different points of view about certain events.
In the Prologue the reader is transported to Paris, October 1793, where there is great emphasis placed on a new device, Madame Guillotine. What is also described in detail is the last hours of a young woman’s life.
Part One then swings back to October 1788 in Marseilles where the reader learns about the life of a stone mason and his two daughters who hope one day to work with their father where some of their sketching may help with his commissions.
When the next segment in the book begins, the sisters and their mother have moved to the wallpaper factory for work.
The writing is graphic in parts but easy to read with some unusual descriptions like pushing a whole egg into the mouth ‘as though trying to recreate its laying in reverse’(39) and a moon reduced to a ‘fingernail clipping’ (173). The story has all the elements to maintain interest. There are the innocent and the guilty, the haughty and sometimes cruel, people who lurk in the shadows, the fanatical and the unknown. Who really killed the wife of the wallpaper factory owner and who was responsible for Lara’s condition. Why does Lara feel that her whole life is mirrored in the wallpaper? There is an unconsummated marriage and a rape. What else could you ask for?
This is probably a novel that would interest women more than men, but for a first novel it bodes well for other work produced by this author.
The Woman in the Wallpaper
(2025)
by Lora Jones
Hachette Australia
ISBN:978-1-4087-3142-0
$34.99; 512pp