Though not all of our heroes get happy endings (that’s life, I suppose) this is a rollicking ride through the dirty back streets of Victorian London. Watching the tension ratchet up as the novel continues watching Iris become a part of other people’s dreams rather than her own, is disturbing.

Iris, in the eyes of the men, becomes an idealised version of herself, and Macneal writes about this so well: watching Silas gradually descend into madness through his conversations with his imaginary version of Iris is actually really chilling in fact, it reads like a cautionary tale. Iris is the centre of The Doll Factory, and for Silas and Louis (a member of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood of painters) she is more. Iris’ anger is almost physical, and watching her change her destiny and become an artist’s muse to Louis in order to pursue her dreams is a punch-the-air moment.īut the book is also about something else: it’s about the male gaze. Iris, in particular, is somebody you feel like you could be friends with: frustrated at her situation, creative, and burdened with guilt that she has now become a carer for her once-beautiful sister, now disfigured with smallpox.

Macneal is a master of the small details- things that make them seem like people in their own right, quirks of character, or dreams that defy their situations. They’re a cast of misfits: Albie, the street rat who yearns to save enough money for a set of dentures Silas, the obsessive taxidermist, and Iris, the girl with a deformed collarbone who dreams of being an artist.Īll of them feel like real people. You really feel like you’re there: from the fairly rampant sex to the little girl selling rat poison on the street corner or the moon over Hyde Park, she’s got a wonderful way with words that conjures up the past in a really immediate way that I don’t think I’ve read in any other book (but which has made me yearn for more Victorian reading material).Īnd the characters! What I loved about The Doll Factory is that none of Macneal’s heroes are perfect.

It’s a story about the danger of the male gaze and male obsessionįirst off, the way in which Macneal writes about Victorian London is amazing.

It’s a story about a woman having the courage to break free and pursue her dreams.

It’s an excellent Victorian novel with more genuine grime and filth than I’ve seen in any other Victorian novel.It’s not often that I come across a book that does so many things on so many levels.

The doll factory review