In this fine example of descriptive fiction, Michèle Roberts weaves together the tales of people, divided by time, living in and around Walworth, London.
Madeleine is an academic in 2011 who has recently found herself pensioned off and becomes drawn to the history and people of the Walworth area; Joseph is employed in 1851 by Henry Mayhew, a journalist and advocate of social reform, to research the lives of London’s working classes, especially Walworth and its environs.
While Joseph repeatedly falls foul of the physical temptations of the streets which he is employed to merely observe, Madeleine finds herself destined to grapple with a sense of detachment from her own life, observing it from a remove.
Madeleine’s and Joseph’s lives create a single fabric, posing the question of whether it is possible for a physical space to simultaneously host the present and the past. Roberts does justice to both strands of this story which is richly descriptive, evocative and packed with characters.
