The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock – Imogen Hermes Gowar Free Audiobook

Written by Imogen Hermes Gowar
Read by Juliet Stevenson
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HarperCollins
Release date: September 11, 2018
Duration: 17:19:39

When a sedate, middle-aged London merchant falls in love with a beautiful prostitute, anything can happen—and does— .

In 1780s London, a prosperous merchant finds his quiet life upended when he unexpectedly receives a most unusual creature—and meets a most extraordinary woman—in this much-lauded, atmospheric debut that examines our capacity for wonder, obsession, and desire.

One September evening in 1785, Jonah Hancock hears an urgent knocking on his front door near the docks of London. The captain of one of Jonah’s trading vessels is waiting eagerly on the front step, bearing shocking news. On a voyage to the Far East, he sold the Jonah’s ship for something rare and far more precious: a mermaid. Jonah is stunned—the object the captain presents him is brown and wizened, as small as an infant, with vicious teeth and claws, and a torso that ends in the tail of a fish. It is also dead.

As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlors and brothels, all of London is curious to see this marvel in Jonah Hancock’s possession. Thrust from his ordinary existence, somber Jonah finds himself moving from the city’s seedy underbelly to the finest drawing rooms of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of the coquettish Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on—and a shrewd courtesan of great accomplishment. She has been enlisted by her former mentor Mrs. Chapell the proprietress of a high-class brothel, to “entertain” Hancock so he’ll agree to bring his exhibit to Mrs. Chapell’s celebrated institution.

Smitten and lovelorn, Hancock is rebuffed by Angelica, who is in the midst of another love affair and jokingly dares Hancock to bring her another mermaid. It’s only after she’s abandoned and left destitute by her feckless love that Angelica realizes there might be something to Hancock after all, especially since he does deliver the required second mermaid.

One review wrote–That purported sea creature brings an element of mystery to a novel alive with wit and humor. Gowar has a marvelous gift for the felicitous phrase and for Dickensian characters (Mrs. Chappell “is built like an armchair, more upholstered than clothed”) and excels in astute social commentary, especially in descriptions of the lavish household goods, clothing, and food that money can buy—in contrast with the mean lives of the poor in Deptford, where Hancock’s shipping office is located.

Though the story is set in the 1780s, during the reign of King George III, the novel calls to mind 19th-century masters like Dickens and Eliot, who relished the way character can drive and reverse plot. And there are so many characters to follow: Mrs. Chappell’s simpering brood of high-society prostitutes; Simeon Stanley, a footman and former slave from the American Colonies; George Rockingham, a rakish law student and dandy; Eliza Frost, a spinster who serves as Angelica’s controlling friend and manager; Sukie, Hancock’s young and impressionable niece; and, through it all, the ghostly mermaid, whose grief, anger, and playfulness serve as a backdrop to the social drama unfolding around her. Behind the window trimmings of Gowar’s epic romance lies an astute novel about class, race, and fate.

This is, indeed, a kind of fairy tale, one whose splendid combination of myth and reality testifies to Gowar’s imagination and talent.