Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile

Description

If you tell a story oft enough So it become true As the nineteenth century draws towards a close, Mary Ann Sate, an elderly maidservant, sets out to write her truth. She writes of the Valleys that she loves, of the poisonous rivalry between her employer's two sons and of a terrible choice which tore her world apart. Her haunting and poignant story brings to life a period of strife and rapid social change, and evokes the struggles of those who lived in poverty and have been forgotten by history. In this fictional found memoir, novelist Alice Jolly uses the wholly original voice of Mary Ann to recreate history as seen from a woman's perspective and to give joyful, poetic voice to the silenced women of the past.

Alice Jolly is a novelist and playwright. Her memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns won the PEN Ackerley Prize 2016. She also won the V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize awarded by the Royal Society of Literature in 2014 for one of her short stories, Ray the Rottweiler. She has written two novels previously, What the Eye Doesn't See and If Only You Knew. Her next novel, Between the Regions of Kindness, will be published in 2019. She has written for the Guardian, Mail on Sunday and the Independent, and she has broadcast for Radio 4. She lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

'What distinguishes Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile from more conventional historical novels is Jolly's daring experiment in form, and her extraordinary handling of language . . . A rigorously researched, lyrical tour de force' Guardian 'Mary Ann's voice is a remarkable achievement... (Alice Jolly) gives her individuality and vigour in a work of tremendous humanity.' Times Literary Supplement