The Invincible Miss Cust
At the age of six, Aleen Cust discovered her vocation. Her early passion for animal welfare became the fire behind this fascinating story of a woman fighting to live the life of her choosing—regardless of the many obstacles in her way—and ultimately become the first female veterinary surgeon in Britain and Ireland.
Born into an aristocratic family, Aleen quickly learns that she faces opposition at home, as well as in wider society, if she is to follow the path she has chosen. Her mother, a member of Queen Victoria’s household, is horrified by Aleen’s ambition to work, a disgrace to the family name. Then there is the world of veterinary surgeons to persuade to even let her study, widespread horror that she wants to work with large farm animals, and the reluctance of farmers to accept and respect a woman as their vet. But Aleen is fortunate in her friends, her own persistence, and in finding the small but growing number of men in the veterinary world who are prepared to give a clever, determined woman a chance to succeed.
The drama of the story is not about Aleen’s ultimate success in her ambition to become a registered veterinary surgeon, but in her relationships, both personal and professional. Aleen is a wonderful character—single-minded, unconventional, resilient, and optimistic—and a robust range of secondary characters help Haw weave the wider world into her fiction. Advances for women in the world of medicine, suffrage efforts, increasing discontent in Ireland and the horrors of WWI all impact the story as they would have impacted Cust in real life. Haw’s excellent historical afterword rounds out the reading experience.
