Review: A mesmerizing novel of the struggle between the individual and the Industrial Revolution
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2014
As British-born Australian author Chris Pearce states in his book's preface, `After 25 years in federal and state public service and 12.5 years in two stints in the real world, I am now writing eBooks, researching my family history, doing a bit of consultancy editing, and contributing to a couple of writing sites in the US. I also compete in tenpin bowling. I have a background in economics, statistics, history, management, marketing and accounting. My wife and I live in Brisbane, Australia.' The reason for quoting the author's version of his resume is that it offers a fine example of what to expect in the style of writing of this very fine historical fiction novel: he knows his facts from research and from personal work history, relates to the characters he creates, and relates his story in well considered prose, assuring all along the fact that the reader must remain involved with the progress of not only the paths of his characters but also the themes of the times (the early 1800s) that yet today maintain the schism between the rich and the poor, the haves and have nots. It is a book successful on all levels.Henry Wakefield is a handloom weaver, in a long line of weavers, who ekes out a living for his wife Sarah and his five children in Northern England. The time is the early 1800s and the giant machine beasts of the Industrial Revolution are usurping individual craftsmanship. Within the first few pages of this book Henry is visited by one Daniel Crowther from Frederick Manning's cotton mill in Manchester with an offer to have Henry and his family of `potential workers' move to Manchester and become part of the complex depersonalization of corporate management. Henry rejects the concept despite the fact that his small family is near starving from his meager earnings, loathing the Big Factory Beast who he sees as his enemy. But Henry's yearning to leave poverty, to have money and improve his status in life undermines his hatred for the factory concept. Crowther's offer of better food and greater pay places doubt in Henry's wife Sarah and his family who long to live in better conditions in Manchester. Henry's doubt and his family's pleading results in Henry's visiting the local clergyman for advice, but money has changed the vicar, too.  Henry acquiesces, starts his own factory and with the wealth that ensues his family unity disintegrates: his son Albert steals and is sent to New South Wales, Sarah's mind crumbles and she is admitted to an insane asylum, another son Benjamin father's an illegitimate child. The consequences of joining the menace of big business have dire consequences for Henry, his entire family and his business. It is a web Henry has woven that in many ways reflects the spiral from individual work to industrialization.Chris Pearce has succeeded in creating an epic about the Industrial Revolution by placing it as the center of life of a family to which we can all relate. His writing style is of very high quality, not unlike a modern day Charles Dickens writing about the new technologies that forced people into the factories and a capitalistic sense of living - the revolution moved economic power away from the aristocratic population and into the bourgeoisie. And while the book is about 19th century England, it serves as a mirror to the third world countries as they suffer the same auguries today. More than a fine novel, it is a recapitulation and a prophetic stance that deserves a wide audience. Grady Harp, February 14..