Jenni Fagan

The Panopticon is the debut novel by Jenni Fagan and stars a very unreliable narrator. Fifteen year old Anais has spent her life in and out of foster homes or locked up in supervised care. She is smart, funny and carries an intense anger inside herself. She has been let down by every adult she has ever come into contact with. The story opens with Anais being placed in the Panopticon, a young offenders home. The police are convinced that she has placed a female police officer in a coma but show more although she has blood on her clothes, she also had enough drugs in her system that she can’t remember.

Anais tells her story in a rough, raw manner that is both lyrical and spirited. She is full of quirks and curiosity. The descriptions of institutional life paint a bleak picture and this story acts as an indictment of the care system in which Anais and her fellow inmates have been placed.

I knew right from the start that this was going to be a dark read as I couldn’t see how such a damaged child engulfed in such a broken system could possibly be anything else. The author has written the book in Scottish street brogue which took me a few pages to get the feel for, but once I did, I realized that the writing is superb. I would add a caution for those who dislike extremely earthly language and a lot of swear words, this may not be the read for you. This is an electrifying, intense story that can make you smile and break your heart in the space of one paragraph. I will definitely be looking for more by this author. show less

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but when I bought it, I thought "The Panopticon" was a Young Adult, Urban Fantasy, Rites of Passage book: a comfortable read, an escape from reality, an opportunity to bask in a young person's accomplishments in the face of difficult odds.

So strongly did I have this impression that it took me a couple of chapters to shrug it off and see an entirely adult, brutal, depressing, painfully realistic novel about power and struggle, and the lives of the broken, abused, show more abandoned and feared young women, that we lock up and keep under scrutiny.

I was mislead because the book had a slightly arty, slightly edgy cover, the main character was a strong, independent fifteen year-old girl and the extract I heard made reference to the stone figures on the gate of the Panopticon moving as she approached.

It seems that my imagination is now so conditioned to the conventions of Urban Fantasy that I took a moving lion metaphor/day-dream literally because it seemed normal.

"The Panopticon" is about as far from my normal as you can get. It's about what officialdom would call "children in care" and who are shown here a young people, robbed of childhood, not yet given the privileges of adulthood, and "cared for" by being kept in a Panopticon prison where they can be observed and prevented from disturbing the rest of us.

The women in the Panopticon are not female Oliver Twists, waiting to be rescued from delinquency by being welcomed into a good middle-class home. They have nothing but the respect they earn from their peers through the notoriety that they gain.

If "The Panopticon" was a PS3 game, it would have Parental Advisory written all over it, because these are not the kind of young women that parents want their kids to spend time with. They swear, fuck, wank, drink, take drugs and smash the people and things around them.

The main character has named herself Anais after the erotica writer Anais Nin because the whore, who was the only woman who ever took her in an looked after her, liked her books. She describes herself as "a girl with a shark's heart". She is full of rage that she cannot always contain and which escapes through acts of destruction but she has not lost her compassion for her peers or given up hope for herself.

Very bad things happen to Anais in this book. Brutal, awful things that leave scars on the body and the mind. Things that will break your heart but which Anais does her best not to allow to break her.

Fagan's writing is powerful enough that you can settle into Anais' scarred skin and see the world through her eyes. Anais is not looking for pity or campaigning for political change. She accepts the world as it is and seeks to survive without losing too much of herself in the process.

"The Panopticon" is written in Scottish English, filled with terms like didnae and wisnae, that I often hear but seldom see written down. Actually that's a good summary of much of this book, it is filled with things I often see but that are seldom written down. The title, Panopticon literally means "seen by all". I think Jenni Fagan wants to make us look at how we treat our young and to feel ashamed.

I've seen reviews and comments on this book that focus on the "unacceptable" level of swearing and ask "couldn't this have been written in English?" This stuns me. How does a literate person get to the end of a book like this and have those as the main things they want to say?

I'd rather focus on the "unacceptable" truth in this book: that we do not know what to do with our broken young and that what we do do is more to protect us than them. I'm also filled with admiration for Jenni Fagan's ability to use fiction to make me see reality.

If you'd like to hear Jenni Fagan talking about her writing, click on the SoundCloud link below.


https://soundcloud.com/ted-hodgkinson-granta/jenni-fagan-the-granta-podcast show less

I'd give this book six stars if I could, because it is filled with truth, with cold fear, with a burning hate of those who hurt women and girls, who subjugate, dominate, torture, use, abuse, ignore, and discount those who brought them forth into this world.

This novella is also filled with tears of grief over such dark acts over the course of human history; filled with tender remembering of a lost teenage maidservant who was killed as a witch, tortured by vile men who pretended to be human to show more denounce other innocent women. Let us not forget those who suffer for the same reason even now, such as the women and girls raped in Gaza (whether by Hamas or IDF or some random man or adolescent, it's still a hate crime against women). show less

After killing her father, the devils' daughter Jessie MacRea rows into Edinburgh to fulfill a contract for her father. Jessie was sold to Mr. Udnam, The Minister of Culture at 10 Luckenbooth Close so she can bear a child for him and his fiance. Jessie fulfills her end of the bargain and becomes a maid for Mr. Udnam's fiance, Elise. Mr. Udnam soon grows jealous of Elise and Jessie's relationship and commits the unthinkable. Before her death, Jessie curses Mr. Udnam's precious building and the show more inhabitants there for the next century. Over the next nine decades, the occupants of 10 Luckenbooth Close feel the effects of the curse as it creeps up each floor.

Luckenbooth is an atmospheric, gothic story creating an experience told throughout the decades. Jessie's story pulled me in from the beginning as she rowed away from her father's corpse. I was fully intrigued by the devil's daughter and her intentions. The writing style is unique with shorter, clipped sentences, the flow of thought from the characters minds that creates a jarring, staccato pace, catapulting you into what is happening in that moment. Split into three parts, each part tells the stories of three people who live in 10 Luckenbooth Close over the centuries. Each chapter allowed me into the lives of each resident for a period of time. While each character is complex and fully differentiated, the writing style stays the same. Each character's story offered something different while furthering the story of the curse. Flora's a hermaphrodite navigating drugs and sexuality in the 1920's. Levi works in a bone library and is drawn into creating a bone mermaid. Ivy is recruited to be a spy during World War II. Agnes is a medium who channels the spirits of Elise's dead sisters. William is a poet who can hear the echoes of the building's past. Queen Bee is part of a gang that leads her to Luckenbooth and an untimely end. Ivor is a coal miner who is afraid of the light. Dot is the last resident of Luckenbooth in the 1990's that will see the end of the curse. Luckenbooth is the type of story where you just have to settle in and see where it takes you. 10 Luckenbooth Close is a character itself that ties everyone together and becomes its own character. Haunting, dark and yet hopeful, Luckenbooth creates a world within its walls.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. show less