It is fitting that at the beginning of this novel a reference is made to Dickens' Oliver Twist. Fingersmith is a novel descended from Dickens voluminous library as well as much 19th century sensualist fiction. Waters skilled use of language to evoke characters and a sense of place through physical detail and psychological mapping of experience is a distinct characteristic of this descent. She also has a tremendous ability to use fabulous names such as (Mrs Sucksby and Miss Bacon) as Dickens did to mark poignant traits of her characters. Where Waters veers from Dickens is in her conjuring of robust female characters who can dominate the novel, not through the circumstances of their plight and their representation of certain social injustice, but through the powerful voice they use to assert their individual positions. Of course the great descriptions and plotting Waters uses to conjure this tale of a 19th century English plot to capture a family fortune makes a great many statements about the ways in which women were marginalised and the bizarre social positions they were forced to inhabit. However, the great strength of her brilliant protagonists Sue and Maud is in the way their actions are guided more by their impulsive desire to survive rather than to spur the trim, thrilling plot or subscribe to any societal roles presented to them. Their struggles led by these natures produces a longing for a happy resolution built not out of sentimentally contrived conventions, but a deserved reward for revealing to us their faulty human natures.

Sue and Maud are not angels. They both deceive and betray each other, but they discover in this Darwinian world a rare affection for each other and a chance to share confidence when one's closest family is apt to betray you. The curious mirroring effect Waters uses with them, mixing pasts and characteristics of them, is descended from a more recent literary genius, Angela Carter. There are elements of her ideas (particularly realised in her novel Wise Children) on the way identity can be splintered, performed and reimagined which correspond to the ways Susan and Maud's fates are intertwined. Their relationship is drawn out as a struggle to express their mutual love and define their suppressed lesbian desires. But this is also presented as an arduous task to realise the aspects which make them powerful individuals. This novel makes the remote past enticingly familiar and relates a harrowing story that makes you wish it to continue on and on.


Another great novel from Sarah Waters   June 10, 2002
 51 out of 55 found this review helpful

After reading and enjoying Sarah Waters's previous novels, I knew Fingersmith would meet my expectations. However, I had no idea! Fingersmith, as usual, had the gorgeous, atmospheric qualities that I think is Sarah Waters's trademark. And of course, the writing is simply genius. But more than that, Fingersmith is fantastic -- this novel told a darn good story.

Set again in 19th century London, Fingersmith begins with Sue Trinder's tale as an orphan and a thief. She lives in a house filled with other orphaned babies and an assortment of pickpockets, or "fingersmiths," along with the lady of the house, Mrs. Sucksby, who took care of Sue since she was an infant. Now 17, Sue's opportunity to show her appreciation to Mrs. Sucksby finally comes -- in the form of Gentleman, a seedy con man and friend of the household. Gentleman is armed with a plan to make them all rich and enlists Sue as his helper. But things aren't always what they seem, and as the plan unfolds, all sorts of secrets and twists come unraveled.

Fingersmith is everything I had hoped it would be -- beautiful writing, a stunning cast of characters, and a riveting, compelling storyline. I was helplessly drawn into the slums of London as well as the drab, solemn English countryside where Sue and Gentleman spend their days spinning their treacherous web. I will admit that there weren't as many shocking surprises (for me, anyway) like Affinity, but this novel was much like Tipping the Velvet in how it pulls in the reader from the beginning with a rousing good story. I can't enough good things about Sarah Waters, her novels, and her talent. She's exceptional, and Fingersmith is nothing less than stellar.


The sublime Sarah Waters is god   March 5, 2002
 36 out of 37 found this review helpful

This third book of hers clinches it. Sarah Waters is god. There is nothing she can't do. Tipping the Velvet was great; Affinity was beyond great; Fingersmith is sublime. Reading it took over my life. Okay, that's happened once in a while before with a really fine book. But I don't recall this ever happening before: being so engulfed by a book that it made me dizzy, feverish, downright sickened--and hey, if you don't get that these are good things then you're not a serious reader--in sum, it rendered me virtually incapable of going about my daily life, my head and heart were spinning so over Sue and Maud and their story.

Waters has singlehandedly reinvented--no, no, she transcends--lesbian fiction, a genre that up to now has consisted almost exclusively of embarrassing, dim, dismal, dumbed-down dreck. Her writing is literary, her plots are engrossing, her feel for time and place is flawless, and sheesh, she even pulls off incredibly sexy sex scenes that are beautiful, believable, move the story forward and leave the reader's heart pounding.

Fingersmith is breathtaking. Waters is an awesome talent. Goddamn. She does us lesbians proud.


Simply incredible   February 1, 2002
 18 out of 21 found this review helpful

Fingersmith is, quite simply, one of the best books I have read in a long time. Sarah Waters is the newest British author to capture my attention. Fingersmith, her newest book, is set very evocatively in a den of pickpockets and thieves in Victorian London.

Reading Fingersmith is like taking a journey. In the same way that Dickens, Wilkie Collins or Charles Palliser could transform a reader, Waters is a magician. Her characters are believable and real; her setting is breathtaking (you can practically smell the stench of London); the plot is complex, but accessible. All and all, Fingersmith is virtually perfect.

The main character, Sue, is filled with a combination of wide-eyed wonder and worldliness. Her story is one of love, betrayal and struggle; but this is no historical romance. Sarah Waters writes in a very literary style and new readers are sure to recognize her talents.


BOLD AND POWERFUL   March 22, 2002
 16 out of 19 found this review helpful

Perspicacious and powerful, English writer Sarah Water's third offering is as lavish as her bold debut, Tipping The Velvet (1999). Once again the author returns to the period and places she so perfectly limns, while filling her complexly plotted tale with dissolute characters bent on nefarious doings.

It is 19th century London, Lant Street, a dark thoroughfare home to fingersmiths (thieves), most notably Mrs. Sucksby, a double-dealing Dickensian matron, if there ever was one. She traffics in castoff babies, whom she doses with a spot of gin when they wail, and is landlady to an assortment of petty criminals. There is Mr. Ibbs who keeps his locksmith's brazier going so he can melt down pilfered coins, and Sue Trinder, a 17-year-old orphan, who receives unusually tender care from Mrs. Sucksby.

An engaging charlatan, Richard Rivers known as Gentleman, suggests a fanciful plot that will make them all wealthy. He intends to scam elderly Mr. Lilly, a collector of rare books, by marrying Lilly's niece, Maud, described as "fey, an innocent, a natural." Once the pair are wed and she has received her inheritance, Maud will be consigned to a madhouse, and the plotters will divide their booty.

In order to ensure the success of his plan, Gentleman seeks the assistance of Sue. He asks her to pretend to be Susan Smith and gain employment as lady's maid to Maud so that she can help convince Maud of Gentleman's love for her. Sue agrees, and after instructions on how to behave leaves the only home she has ever known for Briar which she finds to be "a muddle of yards and out-houses and porches, and more dark walls and shuttered windows and the sound of barking dogs." Her reward for being an acceptable lady's maid? She will be allowed to keep "the pieces of soap that Miss Maud leaves in her wash-stand."

As chary as she is of being in this strange place, Sue finds herself drawn to the hapless Maud. The two women become unexpectedly close.

Then, in a sudden amazing twist, we find that things are not as they seem and people are not who we believed them to be. When the events that led up to this time are recounted through another's eyes we discover secrets long hidden and the shocking truth about Mr. Lilly's collection. Maud, too, has a story to tell.

Circumstances force the two women to respond in differing ways which leads to a horrifying crime before a completely unexpected denouement.

"Fingersmith" is an epic gothic novel rich in detail and ripe with suspense. Sarah Waters is an author both cerebral and cunning; she is a virtuoso wielding a powerful pen.

- Gail Cooke