The Colour of Milk
Nell Leyshon
In this edition, we turn our attention to Nell Leyshon’s ‘The
Colour of Milk’. This novel has been
compared to Alice Walker’s classic ‘The Color Purple’ and Margaret Attwood’s
magnum opus ‘Alias Grace’ and there are
certainly similarities between these books both in terms of style and
content. If you are going to read ‘The
Colour of Milk’, it is worth noting that, despite its short length, it is
filled with are images that are both haunting and traumatic: this is not a novel for the
fainthearted. One critic has written
that it was a book that they ‘read in a couple of hours but the characters
remain with me for weeks.’
The year is eighteen hundred and thirty one. Mary – the narrator and sole voice in the
novel - is fifteen. She is a hardworking
farm girl who is both powerfully self assured and yet naïve about the
world. Mary is sharp tongued,
beautifully observant and strong willed, as is demonstrated by her refrain
throughout the novel: ‘this is my book and i am writing it by my own
hand.’ Mary moves from the harsh reality
of an abusive father and an emotionally disengaged mother into the home of the
local vicar, where her chief task is to look after the vicar’s wife during a
long and protracted illness.
At the vicarage she is taught to read and write – which
becomes the key sign of her freedom and developing power. At the point in which she has power, however,
the question facing her is how she will use it, and what the consequences of
her actions might be.
The novel is heavily stylised. It only uses lower case letters, and the
narrative flow seems unsophisticated and childlike. The novel’s other protagonists are caricatures,
sketched into the narrative by their
flaws and failings rather than by their appearance or fortitude.
Leyshon weaves a rural narrative strongly through the
novel, with the chapters or sections of the novel reflecting the changing
seasons. The pace of the novel brings
with it a sense of foreboding, as the pages quickly turn towards its
heartbreaking finale.
Although beautifully crafted, the narrative never falls
into a perfect idyll, and the final twist in the novel serves as a tragic
climax to the story of a girl whose hair is the colour of milk.
Questions for
discussion:
How does the style of the book affect your engagement
with the story and the characters?
There are a number of tough events and themes in the
book. Which do you find the most
shocking, and why?
What, in your opinion, is Mary’s main disability?
The novel is written from Mary’s perspective. Who’s voice would you like to hear from
next? Why? What do you think they might say?
What is the biggest tragedy in the novel?
What is ‘freedom’ and how it is exercised (or abused) by
the characters in the novel?
If you were writing your own story, in your own hand, how
would your story start?
