Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th Century Women Writers (Overlook Press, March 2010 and Duckworth Overlook, May 2010)
Lesley will be speaking about her book at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August, 2010, and at the Milngavie Arts and Books Festival, September 2010.
She will be appearing at the Wigtown Festival on October 3rd at 3pm.
and at the Lichfield Festival on October 7th at 10am.
This book looks at the following nine literary relationships: between Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry; H.D. and Ezra Pound; Rebecca West and H.G. Wells; Jean Rhys and Ford Madox Ford; Anais Nin and Henry Miller; Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre; Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway; Elizabeth Smart and George Barker; Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. It explores these relationships from the women writers’ point of view to argue that, whilst such relationships proved often personally damaging for the women involved, they were liaisons that did benefit their art. It also argues that, in many cases, the women knew these relationships could be damaging but went after them nevertheless. Once they got them, they clung to them, knowing their work was benefiting from their liaisons. They made Faustian pacts with their male literary partners that cost them a great deal, but which also contributed to their status as iconic writers.
The Alienist (work in progress) is about madness, marriage and mistakes. It begins in September 1823, as the real-life childhood friend of Mary Shelley, Isabella Baxter Booth, is contemplating leaving her husband, a prominent writer and thinker, because he is going mad and she herself is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The narrative then switches to 1887 and the fictional Alexander Balfour, a lonely and forgotten old man, who is looking back over his youth as a Scottish doctor in one of the most radical asylums in Scotland. Isabella must decide whether to return to her husband or not: Balfour, at the same time, is on the verge of a great breakthrough in the new science of psychiatry, a field in which Scots are dominant. But something happens to both of them when they meet in that autumn of 1823, leading to two crucial questions: has Isabella married the wrong man? And what is the catastrophic mistake Balfour makes that costs him his career?
The Picnic was published in August 2007 (Edinburgh: Black and White) and is about the disappearance of Rubina, a Scottish grandmother, from a family picnic one day in Toronto in 1973. Rubina had emigrated with her husband and young family after the Second World War, but her daughter Lily came back to Scotland as soon as she could. In 1973, she made a trip back to Toronto with her family, and it was during this trip that her mother disappeared. Twenty-two years later, Lily is back in Toronto, this time because her sister has been seriously injured in a car crash. Meanwhile, Lily’s daughter, Sadie, in her first academic post, is conducting research into mother-daughter relationships in novels by women between the wars, and wants to know what really happened to her grandmother. Lily refuses to talk about it: can Sadie find out herself?
What they said about The Picnic:
“McDowell’s confident writing boasts smart dialogue and a subtle lyrical style throughout...Inspired by the immigration of her father’s family to Canada, McDowell gets perceptions of Scots coming to Canada just right...Dual narrative can be jarring but McDowell handles hers with ease and grace...Canadian writers have long reflected the Scots presence in Canada. Contemporary examples include Alistair McLeod’s Cape Breton Highland Scots in No Great Mischief and Alice Munro’s search for her own Scottish antecedents in The View from Castle Rock. Until now, Scottish writers have been slow to reciprocate, preferring to set their work in Scotland. McDowell’s fine portrayal of the immigrant experience may be the book that will begin to redress the balance.”
(Theresa Munoz, Scottish Review of Books)
“Sadie’s gradual enlightenment about the real nature of family is one of the most satisfying developments in the book. Though she intends it as an academic feminist act to write the lives of these unwritten women, it’s a personally rewarding one as well, introducing her to her true self in unexpected ways. The end comes together beautifully, drawing together the well-written strands of the story in a sweet shot of emotion.”
(Sian Preece, The Herald)
“’Academia’s loss, our gain’...The Picnic is far more than just a sharp-clawed satire on university sexism...the storytelling trips effortlessly across the generations. The reason is simple: throughout (McDowell) has a clear grasp of her characters’ voices...a writer of intelligence and poise, who’s found a voice that is defiantly her own. A writer, in other words, whom a lot more than academics should be watching out for.”
(David Robinson, The Scotsman)
“McDowell’s meticulously constructed and presumably largely autobiographical novel teases open the tightly knotted questions of identity and love, and the conflict between personal fulfilment and family constraints. She retains tension throughout..what emerges is a tightly cast story...combines literary and psychological analysis to offer a new approach to the age-old theme of reconciliation and self-discovery.”
(Lucinda Byatt, Scotland on Sunday)