The Journal of Dora Damage: A Novel

by Belinda Starling

Overview

London, 1860: On the brink of destitution, Dora Damage illicitly takes over her ailing husband's bookbinding business, only to find herself lured into binding expensive volumes of pornography commissioned by aristocratic roués. Dora's charm and indefatigable spirit carry her through this rude awakening as she contends with violent debt collectors, an epileptic daughter, evil doctors, a rheumatic husband, errant workmen, nosy neighbors, and a constant stream of wealthy dilettantes. When she suddenly finds herself forced to offer an internship to a mysterious, fugitive American slave, Dora realizes she has been pulled into in an illegal trade of sex, money, and deceit.
The Journal of Dora Damage conjures a vision of London when it was the largest city in the world, grappling with the filth produced by a swollen population. Against a backdrop of power and politics, work and idleness, conservatism and abolitionism, Belinda Starling explores the restrictions of gender, class, and race, the ties of family and love, and the price of freedom in this wholly engrossing debut novel.


REVIEWS:
"Unfortunately, Starling's debut novel will be her last; she died prematurely last year at the age of 34. Although the plot is a bit too crowded and overworked-a common novice mistake-this historical melodrama artfully evokes the contradictions inherent in Victorian society. When Dora Damage is forced by circumstances-an invalid husband and an epileptic daughter-to take over the family bookbinding business, she is inexorably drawn into a London netherworld she barely knew existed. As if binding pornographic books for a circle of aristocratic clients isn't bad enough, she is also compelled to harbor Din Nelson, a fugitive American slave. Unable to suppress her emotional and physical attraction for Din, she gives into desire and her real education begins."- Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608196043
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	1,053,613
File size:	720 KB

About the Author

Belinda Starling lived in Wivenhoe, Essex with her husband and children and died in August 2006. The Journal of Dora Damage was her first book.
Belinda Starling lived in Wivenhoe, Essex with her husband and children and died in August 2006. This is her first book.

Editorial Reviews

Victorian fascination with forbidden sex and science inspires this first novel from Starling, who died last year in Essex, England, at 34. In 1859, arthritic hands and an impatient moneylender force Peter Damage to allow his wife, Dora, to enter the family trade, bookbinding. With assistance from apprentice Jack Tapster and German finisher Sven, Dora masters the art while looking after her invalid husband and their five-year-old epileptic daughter, Lucinda. Business thrives, and then Damage's major clients-dashing Sir Jocelyn Knightley; his crusading abolitionist wife, Lady Sylvia; and their distinguished circle of friends-hire Dora to bind pornographic texts (including Fanny Hill, The Satyricon and very low-end material). Dora can only guess at their other illicit activities, having no great romantic expectations for herself until the arrival of Din Nelson, an American slave seeking refuge in London. Starling thus sets up a tale of two cities, contrasting wealthy aristocratic London indulging in secret obsessions with London's working poor struggling through hard times. Not every choice Starling makes works, but she creates secondary characters with Dickensian flair, evokes Victorian pornography without being pornographic and viscerally captures the craft of bookbinding. Starling's heroine is a woman of great energy and courage. (Oct.)

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Publishers Weekly

This is the sad story of Dora Damage, a young mother in 1860s London who's married to an arthritically crippled bookbinder. With her husband unable to work, Dora's family comes precariously close to being evicted from their squalid apartment, and it falls upon Dora to secure their income. This was an era in which reputable women didn't work outside the home, so when Dora is forced to take over her husband's bookbinding business, she does so on the sly. Dora manages to find a benefactor willing to hire her (she's a woman, after all), but the work involves binding books of a pornographic nature. Morally repulsed but financially in need, she accepts the inevitable: she takes the job binding the volumes, which happen to be intended for the many genteel men of upper-crust society. Starling's first and last novel (she died of surgical complications four days after its completion) manages to illuminate the harshness and ugliness that discrimination in any form brings. Adult language; recommended.
—Marika Zemke

Library Journal

In Victorian London, a wife and mother must cross gender, labor and social boundaries to become a gifted bookbinder-of pornographic literature. Starling's only novel (she died in 2006) exposes grotesque Victorian beliefs and double standards through the occasionally lurid story of Dora Damage, who, in 1859, is busy enough tending her epileptic daughter, her home and her irritable bookbinder husband Peter. But when Peter's rheumatism prevents him from working and threatens financial ruin, she must take over the bookbinding business too, in contravention of male-only practices. Rich Sir Jocelyn Knightley favors Dora's designs and pays her to bind the increasingly explicit, violent and racist manuscripts circulated by his Noble Savages group. Meanwhile, his wife, Lady Sylvia, an abolitionist, persuades Dora to employ an escaped slave, Din Nelson, to whom Dora finds herself secretly attracted. Now she must work all hours to pay off Peter's debts while keeping the Noble Savages' books a secret. When Peter dies, the Noble Savages pay for his burial and give Dora enough to clear her debts. Then Lady Sylvia turns up asking for refuge, having been thrown out by Sir Jocelyn for giving birth to a mixed-race baby. As Dora begins to understand the depths of the Savages' depravity, she is sucked into an action-packed conclusion involving abduction, Din, the American Civil War and her own tattooed buttocks. Starling's cornucopia of ideas, research, issues and outrage tends to overflow, but there's entertainment in the novel's mood of near-comic irrepressibility and in its heroine-feisty, lusty Dora.

Kirkus Reviews

a richly atmospheric story that is fresh, complex and credible...an accomplished work” —Los Angeles Times

“the atmosphere is almost tactile and the plot builds to a perfect crescendo of melodrama” —Portsmouth Herald

“this historical melodrama artfully evokes the contradictions inherent in Victorian society” —Booklist

“The Journal of Dora Damage is the vivid, stylish, witty story of a woman who refuses to accept her powerlessness. A ‘lady-bookbinder,' primarily of pornography, the novel's heroine educates us in the deviance of mid-nineteenth century England: miscegenation, sexual aberration, and the exploitation, sexual and otherwise, of children. Starling illuminates the period, diving beneath the surface of things with vertiginous introspection and consummate poise.” —Susanna Moore, author of The Big Girls and In the Cut

From the Publisher