Ronald Frame

I often have misgivings about "spinoffs." I bitterly resented Leavitt's "Calvin," who lifted Bill Watterson's resplendent brat and his philosophical stuffed tiger, and plopped him into an angst-ridden teen novel where Calvin is diagnosed as schizophrenic. Blecch. Then again, Lloyd Jones's "Mr Pip," built off Dickens's "Great Expectations," worked better than I had expected, and Peter Carey's "Jack Maggs" was a triumph. So I gave this one a shot. Frame creates a fuller back story for the pathetic Miss Havisham of "Great Expectations" (fertile ground, this novel, no?), wearing out her days - or rather, the same day, over and over and over - half-dressed in her wedding finery in commemoration of the day she is jilted at the altar by a scoundrel. She is bright, she is sharp, she is thorny in character, wealthy but from "trade," not true artistocracy. She does not, however, suspect that the noble family she is sent to live with to put the final social polish on her is simply being paid by her father. So she is always on the outside, looking in, and so tumbles hard for the sweet-talking rake Compeyson, another tolerated outsider. Once he has dumped her, after having insinuated himself into the family business, the workers become sullen, resistant to taking orders from a woman, and it's all downhill from there. Her Estella is meant to punish men for their treatment of women, but also to punish the innocent, society, and everyone else who has thwarted and disappointed her. And - of course - she learns her folly too late. Faithful in spirit to the original, Frame creates a believable, difficult history for this woman. The subplot of a maidservant she was fond of when they were children ending up married to Compeyson seems a bit pointless. But for a confirmed Dickens fan like me, this was worth the read.

The novel was written in 2012, narrated in first person from inside Catherine Havisham's mind. Written by a man. It did occur to me as I read that in 2017, this might raise questions or even ire. How dare he write a woman's thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensibilities (up to and including sexual arousal)? Do we allow such things these days? Is it gender appropriation? But... but... how can a 21st century writer write a 19th century novel? I don't have answers and the questions trouble me. I guess it is a sign of the times that they even occurred to me...… (more)

In this book, Frame allows one of the greatest characters in English literature to tell her story. Miss Havisham, from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, is the crazy old lady who, after being abandoned at the altar, closes up her house, leaves the wedding feast to rot on the table and wears her wedding gown for the rest of her life.
In Frame's story, we learn about Catherine Havisham's youth as the motherless daughter of a wealthy brewer. Catherine loves her father and is proud of the family name, but she has no peers. Lonely, she chooses Sally, the daughter of a servant, as her best friend. In her way, Catherine loves Sally, but they have an odd relationship. Catherine confides in Sally, but she never treats Sally as an equal, and Sally never confides in Catherine. Mr. Havisham, wanting his daughter to rise socially, sends Catherine to live with the aristocratic Chadwycks. From the Widow Chadwyck and her children, Catherine is meant to learn the manners, the dialect, and the ways of the gentry. They study the classics and arrange themselves in tableaux. However, the lessons she learns from the Chadwycks cause her to be romantically naïve and overly dramatic—setting her on the road to becoming the character we know she must become.
Through his extraordinary writing, Frame gives the narrative to Miss Havisham, but does not make her sympathetic. The reader never feels close to her. Even as she tells the story, Catherine keeps us at a distance. Readers familiar with Great Expectations know the tragedy that will befall Miss Havisham. We cringe at her bad choices, wrong assumptions, and spiteful schemes, but realize that no other way lies before her. Frame clearly shows how a naïve brewer's daughter became the horrible Miss Havisham.… (more)