Unity Book Wellington was lucky to have the back half of the store available to use for the event, now thankfully damp-free after the flood two weeks prior. Speaking to a rapt audience full of old friends, Barbara Ewing started her discussion last Wednesday 11th February by saying she was going to tell us about the book she “did not mean to write”.
Barbara went on to tell us, with great fervour, about the research that led to the writing of The Petticoat Men, her latest novel. It was the “scandal of the century” – two minor gentlemen by the names of Bank and Law-Clarke dressing up as women to attend parties and balls.
Research was a great part of writing this novel and Barbara told us how she, like Hilary Mantel, finds the “seduction of research” a great inspiration for fiction. It is a novel of a trial, hypocrisy, loyalty and love, she told us as she began to read the first two chapters aloud to the room.
Much to the audience’s delight, Barbara started to act each character, giving them life. Soon the crowd was entranced by the world of these two cross-dressing men. The crowd was treated to one more surprise as Barbara sang a verse from the novel – a woman singing as a man singing as a woman. There was much applause at the end.
Barbara told us how she finds acting and writing intertwined and acting helps her build her characters. She shared with us her process of going through archives to find correspondence written by Gladstone, the Prime Minister of Britain at the time, relating to the trial the novel is based on, which Barbara was asked not to publish in the novel itself. Barbara shared with us a little secret on how we can find them too – if you ask us nicely, we might tell!
Barbara warmly greets the crowd
The crowd at the lunchtime event
Barbara reads from The Petticoat Men
Signing copies of The Petticoat Men
