Hallie Rubenhold explores the lives of the women who were the victims of Jack the Ripper in Victorian London
October saw the Tyneside Book Club take a rare excursion into non-fiction, reading Hallie Rubenhold's The Five, an exploration of the lives of the five women believed to have been murdered by Jack the Ripper.
Members were in agreement that this was a deeply sad book, exposing the precarious nature of life for working class women in Victorian London. Most, if not all, of the five women had lives that promised more at some point, only for some catastrophic event, or perhaps their own alcoholism, or both, to propel them into the circumstances where they were vulnerable to an opportunistic killer.
It was clear Hallie Rubenhold had researched her subjects intensively, both as individuals but also as part of a society where women living in poverty were forced to be dependent on men both for security but also because of societal expectations.
She also was felt to have successfully made the argument that these were not "common prostitutes" and in most cases no prostitutes at all, and that they largely emerged from the books as living, breathing individuals rather than simply as victims of violence.
Some readers appreciated the wider picture of Victorian society that emerged in some of the author's digressions, but others felt it did make the book overlong, and harder to get through. Some members found the victims's stories began to merge together, given the similar circumstances of some of them.
Although members accepted the book was about the women rather than the crimes, some did want more details about the murders and felt that key part of the jigsaw should have been included. Some members though thought it was the right decision to avoid more gruesome detail as this was an antidote to the reams of books that focus on the identity of the killer rather than the killed.
There was some discussion about how much it mattered whether the women were prostitutes, as even if they had been it would not have made the murders any more palatable. But most agreed the author was emphasising that detail in order to correct the record.
Although some members said The Five would not be their normal choice of reading, and proved a struggle at times, all agreed they got at least something out of it. And despite being focused on a particular point in history, members did feel it had something still to say about how victims of male violence are seen today.
Some did wonder whether the author was "preaching to the converted", but others suggested the attention to book had received and the awards it had won could well have brought The Five a wider audience. It was also the only serious exploration of lives of the women that had ever been published amid a welter of work about the killings.
Overall members found this was a bleak but necessary book, though not one offering much solace.
Members were in agreement that this was a deeply sad book, exposing the precarious nature of life for working class women in Victorian London. Most, if not all, of the five women had lives that promised more at some point, only for some catastrophic event, or perhaps their own alcoholism, or both, to propel them into the circumstances where they were vulnerable to an opportunistic killer.
It was clear Hallie Rubenhold had researched her subjects intensively, both as individuals but also as part of a society where women living in poverty were forced to be dependent on men both for security but also because of societal expectations.
She also was felt to have successfully made the argument that these were not "common prostitutes" and in most cases no prostitutes at all, and that they largely emerged from the books as living, breathing individuals rather than simply as victims of violence.
Some readers appreciated the wider picture of Victorian society that emerged in some of the author's digressions, but others felt it did make the book overlong, and harder to get through. Some members found the victims's stories began to merge together, given the similar circumstances of some of them.
Although members accepted the book was about the women rather than the crimes, some did want more details about the murders and felt that key part of the jigsaw should have been included. Some members though thought it was the right decision to avoid more gruesome detail as this was an antidote to the reams of books that focus on the identity of the killer rather than the killed.
There was some discussion about how much it mattered whether the women were prostitutes, as even if they had been it would not have made the murders any more palatable. But most agreed the author was emphasising that detail in order to correct the record.
Although some members said The Five would not be their normal choice of reading, and proved a struggle at times, all agreed they got at least something out of it. And despite being focused on a particular point in history, members did feel it had something still to say about how victims of male violence are seen today.
Some did wonder whether the author was "preaching to the converted", but others suggested the attention to book had received and the awards it had won could well have brought The Five a wider audience. It was also the only serious exploration of lives of the women that had ever been published amid a welter of work about the killings.
Overall members found this was a bleak but necessary book, though not one offering much solace.
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