- The Bookbinder of Jericho, by Pip Williams. Affirm Press, $32.99
Pip Williams's first historical novel set in Oxford, The Dictionary of Lost Words, was released during the COVID lockdowns of 2019. It was an instant success, in no small part because it's a fantastic story. But also because the imaginative narrative transported readers from their locked-down homes into a past world of words. Slips of paper in a scriptorium. Secret words and definitions. The life of a woman trying to grasp knowledge in a patriarchal academic society.
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According to Williams, Oxford's class structure hasn't changed as much as one might hope since those times. The city is still divided into Gown (academics and the upper class) versus Town (the working class). In her new novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, Williams returns to the same era, delving into the lives of working-class women employed at the Oxford University Press bindery.
The bindery is a place of paper and pages and bone folders (segments of cow bones used to guide the folding of pages). It is also a world of withheld knowledge.
Peggy is a young woman who has worked at the bindery since she was 12. She craves learning and knowledge, but her access to books and education is restricted because of her class. In the bindery, she's surrounded by books and words, yet she is constantly told: "Your job, Miss Jones, is to bind the books, not read them". Even so, she finds ways to read when she can. Her love of books and literature was passed on by her mother, now dead three years.
Peggy lives with her twin sister Maude on a narrowboat on one of Oxford's canals. It's a small home, but it's full of damaged and rejected books and pages from the bindery - items Peggy has secretly brought home because they were going to be discarded.
The novel commences in 1914 as WWI breaks out in Belgium. Patriotism is high, as are hopes that the war will be over by Christmas. Soon, however, Oxford is flooded by refugees, evacuees and injured soldiers.
This is a time of opportunity for women. With most of the men away fighting the war, a crack opens in the social order, allowing women to step into roles previously denied to them. Some leave the bindery to work at the munitions factory, where the pay is better.
Chances to transcend boundaries arise for Peggy too. She volunteers to read to injured soldiers in hospital. Normally, because of her class, she wouldn't be allowed this privilege. But at the hospital, she befriends Gwen, another volunteer who is an educated woman of the upper class. Through this friendship, Williams is able to explore stark class differences in attitudes and ways of life.
What makes Williams's books so popular and enjoyable is not only the fascinating narratives and immersive worlds she creates, but also the engaging and convincing characters. Peggy's struggle to find ways to learn is very real. At every turn, there are "locked doors" that stand in the way of gaining an education - lack of money and books, no access to the library, her duty to care for her sister.
Maude is one of the most delightful and heart-warming characters in the book. She's very different from Peggy: vulnerable, yet incredibly perceptive and insightful. "Maude didn't find it easy to compose an original sentence, but she chose what to repeat. She understood ... that most of what people said was meaningless." Throughout the novel, the echoes of Maude's speech subtly weave a rare kind of wisdom into the narrative, especially when juxtaposed against Peggy's hidden thoughts.
Williams describes The Bookbinder of Jericho and The Dictionary of Lost Words as "companion" novels. They are stand-alone books, but Williams threads common characters into the narratives.
Tilda, for instance, a strong character in The Dictionary of Lost Words, reappears in The Bookbinder of Jericho. She's an activist in the suffrage movement who, because of the war, has temporarily shelved her fight to gain the vote for women. She contributes to the war effort as a Voluntary Aid Detachment, helping in hospitals in Belgium and France. As a close friend of Peggy and Maude, her letters back home provide a firsthand perspective on the war.
The Bookbinder of Jericho is a wonderfully constructed and layered novel representing working-class women through an engaging and sympathetic lens. However, Williams never glorifies the lives of these women, nor does she flinch from the hardship or challenges they face through poverty, disadvantage and the English class system. Rather, she presents a very human perspective on an interesting aspect of life at Oxford University Press during a time of turmoil and change, constantly asking questions about knowledge - who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld?
- Karen Viggers' next novel will be published by Allen & Unwin in January, 2024.
