When We Lost Our Heads

When We Lost Our Heads is a mashup of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, set in Montreal. Lots of important, weighty, and disturbing topics are covered within the book. But Heather O'Neill's writing has an unexpected Lemony Snicket sort of playfulness to it, which saves the story from feeling too heavy. Over the course of 400 pages the narrative was gripping and it only occasionally lagged. A solid 5 star read! Before I had even finished, I ran right out to grab another of Heather O'Neill's books, which I can't wait to read!

I found this novel both entertaining and thought-provoking. In some ways, it reminded me of a Victorian novel.

The book opens with the friendship between two girls. Marie Antoine is the spoiled daughter of the owner of a sugar factory. She lives on the Golden Mile, home to the wealthiest and most powerful families in late 19th-century Montreal. In 1873, Marie meets Sadie Arnett when her status-conscious family moves into the neighbourhood. Though opposites in appearance, the two girls immediately form such a passionate, intense friendship that they become obsessed with each other. They engage in daring behaviour often instigated by Sadie who is fascinated with death and the darker aspects of life and is introduced as “strange” and show more “different” and “devilish.” A tragic event leads to their being separated during most of their teenage years, but it is inevitable that they will be reunited. It is also inevitable that their reunion will be consequential.

The friendship between the girls is complicated. An observation is made that “Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in the tea. It makes it addictive.” This seems to be true because though the two love each other, as soon as they met, they experience jealousy. Sadie comments, “It was a strange feeling, jealousy. When she saw the way her parents treated Marie, she was jealous. Once this feeling had been awoken in her, it was impossible to make it dormant again.” When Marie meets Sadie who is as intelligent and talented as she, “It planted the seed of jealousy in her. And that seed began to grow and it bore thoughts that were like tendrils.” When the two are reunited, Sadie believes, “Their characters were both too strong. There was just no way they would ever be able to coexist peacefully. They could either resume their explosive love affair that would somehow bring down everyone around them or they ought to be on opposite sides of the Atlantic.” There is suspense as the reader wonders what mayhem the two will cause.

The reader will definitely have an emotional reaction to Marie and Sadie. They possess lavish personalities: they are intelligent, ambitious, determined, and manipulative. I was fascinated, just as I was also often repelled. I certainly don’t agree with all their decisions and actions, but their motivations are always clear and understandable. This is also true for secondary characters like Mary, George, and Jeanne-Pauline.

I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the names of characters in the book and important figures in the French Revolution: Louis Antoine (Louis XVI); Marie Antoine (Marie Antoinette); Sadie (Marquis de Sade); Mary Robespierre (Maximilien Robespierre); Jeanne-Pauline Marat (Jean-Paul Marat); and George Danton (Georges Danton). Since the novel includes more than one type of revolution and an uprising of the lower classes, these parallels are appropriate.

A major focus is gender roles. Again and again, statements about the expectations of female behaviour are mentioned: “Ladies were supposed to moderate their physical behavior. They were supposed to speak in an articulate and reserved fashion. They were not supposed to act as though they were transported by their emotions.” And “There was a pervasive idea that girls were all on the brink of madness. It took much less than anyone previously believed to push a girl over the edge. A single novel could do it. A complicated idea could do it. Having ambition and wanting to have an occupation could definitely do it. It was too taxing on the female brain. They had to be monitored carefully to make sure they stuck to exclusively feminine subjects. It was disturbing and unnatural for women to engage in male endeavors.” And women had to learn the basics of history “so they could follow men’s conversation. They were not, however, to form an opinion on anything. It was up to men to do that. Women would simply marvel at their ideas.” And “A woman ought to be pleasing to others, even when they were at their most miserable.”

Women were expected to marry because “being aligned with a real man brought a woman so much social standing in the world.” Of course, once married, they were expected to live in “a state of humbled servility,” and to be subjected to abuse: “It was usual for women to suffer abuse at home. There were no laws against it. It wasn’t exactly socially acceptable, but everybody did it.” Women were not allowed to be idle: “Women never got to be alone. That was too much of a luxury. Women always had someone to take care of.”

Particular attention is given to women and sexual desire. The Madonna-whore dichotomy is mentioned: “Women are either one thing or the other . . . indisputably wicked and terrifying, [or] . . . sheltered and pure.” If a woman were the former, “they would have her committed. The most socially approved way of ruining a girl. She would never be heard from again.” Women’s sexual pleasure was secondary to a man’s: “There were no guidebooks for women’s pleasures. There were only guidebooks that instructed a woman on how to give other people pleasure.” But since the female orgasm has no reproductive function and no other purpose other than enjoyment, “All the strict matrimonial laws were put in place because men didn’t want to have to stake their future on female desire.” In fact, a man could use a woman’s orgasm against her: “It could never be considered rape if the girls had an orgasm. He turned their orgasms against them. He considered their orgasm to be a form of consent.” If raped, a woman “was not allowed to talk about what had happened to her.” If an unmarried woman became pregnant, “what had happened to her was her own fault. She had spoiled herself. She was a whore.” One of the most crushing statements is, “[Women] were so surprised by their own ruin, as though it had hit them like lightning and not through an inevitable path the world had set out for them.”

Another focus is the radical disparity between the upper and lower classes, the rich and the poor, those who live on the Golden Mile and those who shelter on the Squalid Mile. Sometimes the disparity is mentioned in statements like, “When you were that rich, you didn’t have to be angry with your child. You hired a governess to do it.” But then there are detailed descriptions of conditions for workers. Marie thinks “’Working at a sugar factory is quite wonderful. We have the world’s most splendid machines. And what’s more, you inhale and sugar gets in your lungs and stays there. And when you cough, you cough sugar,’” but in reality accidents and mutilations occur on a regular basis. Children are hired because they can be paid less, and women are “underpaid, overworked, sexually vulnerable.”

The lyrical language is noteworthy. There are many poetic descriptions of writing: “The tip of her pen made the flight pattern of neurotic birds mating. The looping words on the page were like knots in a girl’s hair that had formed after she’s been standing in the wind. They were like the tendrils of a plant if spring happened all in one moment.” And “Sadie moved the tip of her pen like a sailboat over the waves on a most perfectly windy day. Her editing pen was making notes and slashes like a seabird dipping for fish.” And “the ink words turned into black goldfish, and swam off the page.”

There is so much in this novel that a second reading would be useful. O’Neill has written a raw and gritty novel about women who behave boldly and unapologetically; it reminded me of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen in which a woman who does not conform to societal norms is branded a witch. I think this book will cause a real stir – and deservedly so.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley. Quotations may not be exactly as they appear in the final copy.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less

The phrase "I support women's rights and wrongs" has never been more apt to describe a novel.

There's a lot going on in regards to class, gender, and sexuality that is explored throughout the novel through the main characters and the secondary ones. The two main characters, Marie and Sadie, have issues in regards to how they're treated in society as girls and women. Sadie especially has a difficult time as she is ignored while her brother is the golden child because he's a boy. With, Mary (one of Marie's father's love-child) she is left to grow up in poverty and squalor while seeing another child grow up with something she could've had. On the surface, it seems like what Mary preaches about is right, but she's only wanting to tear down show more Marie to then take her place. George, a young nonbinary/trans man, grew up in a brothel and falls in love with Sadie (when Sadie is banished from her family). He slowly realizes that Sadie never really loved him and finds his own voice. Probably the only redeeming character is George as everyone else in the novel sucks.

Still a fun and wild ride and definitely left me with many ideas to think about. show less

Deliriously decadent, wry, and darkly charming. I’m obsessed with the fanciful imagery and writing; it skews way more towards “tell” rather than “show”, but it works so well here! This book is like if someone made a queer retelling of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 “Marie Antoinette” and then injected it with cocaine, women’s rage, and sugar.

I am finishing this book at the end of a cycle of six recent books by and about women including The Foundling, by Ann Leary, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, I’m Glad I My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy, and She Holds Up the Stars by Sandra Laronde (for young adults).

The theme of women in evolution or revolution is consistent with all of these books. Closest to O’Neill’s satirical and scatological novel is Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry, although both are deadly serious in these post-ME TOO books.

O’Neill is one of our funnier Canadian writers. She comes from the same rich vein of Quebec humour that animates Mordecai Richler, Roch Carrier, and the social commentary of Gabriel Roy, and Mavis show more Gallant.

I come from Toronto not Montreal and only dream of a writer who can do for the streets of Toronto what Heather O’Neill does for the streets and history of Montreal.

She creates a counterpoint of revolution between the French Revolution beginning in 1789 and another imagined revolution in Montreal in the mid nineteenth century roughly contemporary with the social revolutions of Europe including the Revolutions of 1848 that rocked Paris, the German states, Ireland, Hungary, Denmark, Moldavia, Poland, and others.

It is sometimes called The Springtime of Peoples.

This book might be dubbed “The Springtime of Righteous Pornography.”

Her characters carry the names of French revolutionaries including Jean-Paul Marat, Robespierre, thrown in with other characters in popular imagination including Marie Antoinette and the Marquis de Sade. Then she adds what appears to be one of her literary heroines, an ugly but prolific cross dressing George Sand.

We watch the evolutions of an artist and a capitalist. We also see women rise from their chains. From the control of rapists in the mold of film producer Harvey Weinstein. And we see women rise from the chains of gender, the suffocation of conventions placed on their sexuality, the writings of history where women have been written out.

Of course, this story is something of a Western-centric liberation fractured fairytale. We know that women in other cultures are far from liberation. Likewise people of other genders.

In an interview O’Neill herself tells us she intentionally satirized the “lean in” feminism of Sheryl Sanberg through Marie Antoine who becomes something of a she-devil after the death of her father and rape by her suitor.

Her lover and childhood friend Sadie takes to the pen to liberate herself from Victorian social mores.

The dénouement the story is something of a Wildean escapade with missing family members, revenge, and shocking revelations.

O’Neill took her time mashing genres. show less

I loved the French Revolution parallels (even though I know so little about French Revolution), I loved the feminism, I loved the writing, and I loved twists and turns that I did not see coming. Let them eat cake indeed.

I have to say I was rather disappointed in this effort from Heather O'Neill. I recommended it to my book club on the strength of her other books especially Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Lonely Hearts Hotel but I don't think it is as good as those books.

This is a story mainly about two young girls living in the upper class district of Montreal who go on to gain notoriety as they age. Marie Antoine is the lovely blonde daughter of a sugar heiress and her good-looking but unfaithful man. Her mother commits suicide soon after Marie's birth and she is raised as the adored and spoiled daughter of the richest man in Montreal. Sadie Arnett has a mother and father and a brother but she might as well be orphaned for all the attention show more they pay her. She lives just down the street from Marie and they become friends. Both are adventurous and careless of the outcomes of their adventures so when they accidentally shoot an Antoine maid they are not really sorry. Marie's father doles out money to the maid's family and arranges for Sadie to be sent away to a school in England where she stays for many years with no contact from her family and only one postcard from Marie. When Marie becomes engaged to Sadie's brother she insists that Sadie be brought home for the wedding. While away at school Sadie started writing, mostly erotica, and experimented with liasons with some of the other girls. Coming home to Montreal, she is attracted to Marie but they have a falling out and Sadie goes away to the skid row district called The Squalid Mile to contrast it with the area where the richest people live which is called The Golden Mile. There Sadie meets George, an androgynous person who was born female and was raised in a brothel. George takes Sadie in and helps her write her first erotica work which is a thinly veiled account of her and Marie's friendship. Meanwhile Marie refuses to get married and becomes an even more autocratic factory owner than the men of the time. Two other women are important to the story: Mary Robespierre who is a child of the maid that Marie and Sadie killed and who looks just like Marie; and Jeanne-Pauline, a pharmacist who helps abused women with their troubles including poisoning husbands. Sadie's novel has the effect of inspiring other women to rebel against their oppressors. At one point Sadie is imprisoned for inciting rebellion and Marie rescues her. Their friendship, even more passionate now, resumes. As the conclusion approaches we learn more about the back history and we see how inevitable the conclusion is.

If you thought O'Neill picked her character's names lightly, think again. Marie's name is so similar to Marie Antoinette and her personality takes much from that aristocrat including her famous "Let them eat cake" announcement. Sadie isn't quite so obvious but when the two host a costume ball and Sadie goes as the Marquis de Sade that is a big clue. I'm sure the other names have other origins. In its way this is quite an interesting novel but the pornography spread throughout the book really turned me off. show less