The Fair Fight
The Fair Fight is, I think, just about the most well-written novel I have read in five years. The depiction of the situation and characters is very clearly done with great economy of effort. Even the title is clever.
It’s divided into sections, each taking the point of view of one of the principal characters. This is a technique that has received some criticism, but it works really well here, enabling the reader to constantly reinterpret characters and situations.
Our heroines are Ruth, the ugly duckling child of a brothel who has a talent for pugilism; and Lottie, a smallpox-ravaged younger sister who has been made a nonentity by the rigid social conventions of the well-to-do. Ranged against them are three men who have power and money aplenty but waste everything because of serious character flaws. Lottie’s elder brother is an alcoholic; his gay lover is an inveterate gambler, and their friend Granville Dryer masks personal cowardice with bloodlust. The novel charts the rise of some of the characters and the decline of others.
So this is a tale of morality and female empowerment, although sadly the latter trumps the former in one important resolution, which jarred with me. With that one proviso, this is an excellent read, and one that will stay with you for a long time.
