When We Lost Our Heads
In late 19th-century Montreal, girls and women are filled with rage in Heather O’Neill’s When We Lost Our Heads. The story centers on two girls who first meet in 1873, and concludes some 15 years later, and during the entire period, these girls are obsessed with each other, sometimes tinged with competition and other times with love.
The girls, Marie and Sophie, are not terribly likable at twelve, when we first meet them. Marie is wealthy, spoiled, and consumed by her own importance. Sophie is extremely intelligent and entertained by the suffering and death of animals. Marie feels her power; Sophie is trying to gain power over her environment. Neither girl conforms to the ideals of Victorian womanhood.
The main theme addressed is the travails of women in that period. Rage at their lack of control over their bodies, rage at the cruelty of the factories, rage at the inequities of income and opportunity, rage at the ease with which they can be shut up in an asylum, rage at the lack of opportunities—all of this rage shows up in the breasts of the women of this book, and that anger must find outlets, whether at those responsible or those who happen to be available targets.
The book also explores various types of sexuality and gender identification. Indeed, the most sympathetic character in the book is a nonbinary person who genuinely cares about people and the misery of impoverished women, having grown up in a brothel.
Not surprisingly with these themes, this is a dark book. However, the book is filled with quotable statements, and the plot is well-conceived, so even though it can be chilling to read sections, Heather O’Neill’s mastery propels one to the end of the story.
