Waters, Sarah 1966–

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WATERS, Sarah 1966–

PERSONAL:

Born 1966, in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Education: Attended college in Canterbury, England, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England. Agent—Greene & Heaton Ltd., 37 Goldhawk Rd., London W12 8QQ England; fax: +44 (0)20-8749-0318.

CAREER:

Writer and educator. Has been an associate lecturer with the Open University and tutored in creative writing programs.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Lambda Literary Award for fiction, Lambda Literary Foundation, 2000, for Tipping the Velvet, and 2003, for Fingersmith; Somerset Maugham Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction and Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction, both 2000, both for Affinity; Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award; shortlisted twice for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize; Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger and shortlisted for Booker Prize, both 2002, both for Finger-smith; British Book Award for Author of the Year, 2003; South Bank Award for Literature, 2003.

WRITINGS:

novels

Tipping the Velvet, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Affinity, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Fingersmith, Virago (London, England), 2002.

The Night Watch, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2006.

other

Social Movements in France: Towards a New Citizenship, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2003.

Author of articles for scholarly journals, including Feminist Review, Journal of the History of Sexuality, and Science as Culture.

ADAPTATIONS:

Tipping the Velvet was adapted for film by Andrew Davies. The production, directed by Geoffrey Sax, premiered on BBC America on May 23, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sarah Waters is the author of several novels, including Tipping the Velvet and Affinity, which concern lesbian characters during Victorian times.

Tipping the Velvet, published in 1999, is a complex book, exploring the unorthodox life of Nancy King, a budding lesbian, and her search for true love. Nan is initially portrayed as an innocent, simple girl, enjoying a night out at the local music hall, where she sees and becomes infatuated with Miss Kitty Butler, a cross-dressing lounge singer. The following chapters trace the young girl from innocence to young love and heartbreak, on to the requisite loneliness of a common streetwalker and into true love. Waters presents the material with a compassionate sensitivity. Miranda Seymour of the NewYork Times Book Review wrote of Tipping the Velvet: "Waters has captured it beautifully—not only the seediness of the hall and the transforming spell cast by the jaunty cross-dressing girl but the star struck innocence of Nancy's first love, the breathless passion she can hardly find words to describe."

In 2000 Waters published Affinity. Critics found this work to be much darker than her previous book. Following the death of her father and the marriage of her best friend (and secret lover) to her brother, Margaret Pryor becomes a "Lady Visitor" in a prison in order to recover from these losses. During her rounds, Margaret meets Selina Dawes, a spiritualist in prison for fraud and assault, and falls in love with her. "Sarah Chinn, writing in the Advocate, noted: "Waters has created a compelling character in a deeply absorbing book." Writing in Booklist, Margaret Flanagan called the novel "a humorous and remarkably honest period piece."

Waters presents another lesbian historical romance with Fingersmith. Set in Victorian England, the three-part novel is narrated by two orphan girls. One, Sue Trinder, becames part of a family of thieves and is raised by the family's head, Mrs. Sucksby. The other, Maud Lilly, is a lonely heiress who is targeted by the character named simply the "Gentleman" for a scam in which he will marry Maud and then steal her riches by having her committed to an insane asylum. He recruits Sue to help him by signing on as Maud's maid. Sue, however, soon finds herself attracted to Maud, who likewise begins to fall in love with Sue. The two heroines and narrators provide different perspectives on the story, one of several literary devices made popular in the nineteenth century that Waters employs to tell her story.

Writing in the New Statesman, Patricia Duncker noted that the author "manages … to keep her reader's confidence and attention by skilful plotting and plenty of surprises." Duncker went on to write that "what I found evocative in Fingersmith are the two settings. The damp, slow world of the house at Briar … places the reader inside the mental world of the heroine. And the vivid sexual bustle of the city, described in one thrilling escape sequence, leaps from the page in horrid splendour." A Globe & Mail contributor wrote: "It's a world altogether strange, yet familiar in a beguiling way; the juxtaposition is deliciously engaging. (And often funny.)" The reviewer went on to note: "Waters is an elegant wordsmith with a Dickensian imagination. A spellbinding storyteller, she is, without a doubt, an author who deserves acclaim." Tom Gilling noted in the New York Times Book Review: "A good part of the book's power comes from its illicit undertow; this is a Victorian novel the Victorians never dreamed of writing." Gilling went on to comment that the author writes "great Gothic, her descriptive skill augmented by an acute ear for dialogue."

Waters leaves Victorian England behind and turns to World War II for the setting of her fourth novel, The Night Watch. The novel begins in 1947 and then works back in time to 1941, when England faced potential defeat. In the process, she tells the story of several characters, including Kay, who drives an ambulance and goes out seeking women after her full-time relationship with a woman named Helen fails. Another character, Duncan, is gay, has been in prison, and is also a conscientious objector. His sister, Viv, has a married soldier lover and works at a marriage bureau that assists people to find replacements for the loves they have lost because of the war. Meanwhile, Helen, who is also Viv's partner in the bureau, has begun a new relationship with mystery writer Julia.

Referring to The Night Watch as "wonderful" in a review for the Detroit Free Press, Susan Hall-Balduf went on to note that the war essentially serves as background and that "what really matters is who do I love and who loves me, and how few and ephemeral are the days when one name answers both questions." Globe & Mail contributor Emma Donoghue called the book "an exquisitely written story of wartime London, an evocative study of a knot of complicated lives." Writing in the Seattle Times, Michael Upchurch found that the novel is "striking and structurally daring." Upchurch also noted: "There are masterful scenes here of ambulance rescue, nighttime adventure, romantic betrayals and realignments."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Advocate, June 22, 1999, Anne Stockwell, review of Tipping the Velvet, p. 124; May 23, 2000, Sarah Chinn, review of Affinity, p. 107.

Booklist, June 1, 1999, Margaret Flanagan, review of Tipping the Velvet, p. 1787.

Detroit Free Press, March 29, 2006, Susan Hall-Balduf, review of The Night Watch.

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), March 2, 2002, review of Fingersmith; February 25, 2006, Emma Donoghue, review of The Night Watch, p. D3.

Guardian (London, England), February 4, 2006, Justine Jordan, review of The Night Watch.

Lambda Book Report, July, 2000, Sarah Van Arsdale, "An Affinity for the Past," p. 6.

New Statesman, March 4, 2002, Patricia Duncker, review of Fingersmith, p. 51.

New York Times Book Review, June 13, 1999, Miranda Seymour, "Siren Song," p. 9; February 24, 2002, Tom Gilling, review of Fingersmith, p. 7.

Publishers Weekly, April 12, 1999, review of Tipping the Velvet, p. 53; May 29, 2000, review of Affinity, p. 51.

Seattle Times, June 25, 2000, Michael Upchurch, review of Affinity; March 22, 2006, Michael Up-church, review of The Night Watch.