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Reviews
Death in Ten Minutes: The Forgotten Life of Radical Suffragette Kitty Marion by Fern Riddell
benjaminbarlow's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
gripyfish's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
hayleyashal's review against another edition
5.0
Eye opening and absorbing! My first non-fiction read about the suffragette movement and I loved it.
questingnotcoasting's review
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
This was a really engaging read. It tells the story of Kitty Marion's life, capturing her character so well, while also giving a good overview of the suffragette movement as a whole. Most importantly it shows the scale of violent action by the suffragettes and explores why it has often been erased by historians and by suffragette leaders themselves in favour of a sanitised version. It's a fascinating part of history and while some of their actions can't be excused, it's important to know this side of the suffragette story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism
Moderate: Violence
lynchy8's review against another edition
5.0
I love this book. It was so well researched and absolutely fascinating from start to finish.
I hadn't heard of Kitty Marion, and of course as the book progresses we soon found out why - for various reasons from a number of different sections of society, she has largely been written out of the story. Too violent, too German...
It's a very thorough look at one life and how it intersected with the musical hall, women's suffrage, the first world war, and life in the late 19th to early 20th century. She was an extremely strong and stubborn woman, loyal and devoted to the cause. What women went through to get The Vote was truly horrifying, and a lot of the history has been sanitised. You can feel Kitty's outrage through the pages.
I hadn't heard of Kitty Marion, and of course as the book progresses we soon found out why - for various reasons from a number of different sections of society, she has largely been written out of the story. Too violent, too German...
It's a very thorough look at one life and how it intersected with the musical hall, women's suffrage, the first world war, and life in the late 19th to early 20th century. She was an extremely strong and stubborn woman, loyal and devoted to the cause. What women went through to get The Vote was truly horrifying, and a lot of the history has been sanitised. You can feel Kitty's outrage through the pages.
kjcharles's review against another edition
A fluently written and extremely angry account of the forgotten life of a suffragette. Not the noble suffering kind, either. Kitty Marion was one of the ones who smashed windows, burned houses, planted nail bombs, sent explosive and corrosive materials through the post, and engaged in a sustained campaign of full terrorist violence that could have had a body count in the hundreds if the dice had fallen differently. And if you like me didn't know the scale of suffragette violent terrorism in the 1910s, that's because, this book shows, the suffragette leaders and historians made a concerted effort to erase it in favour of the Nobly Suffering Women narrative. Terrorists not being quite so endearing.
Riddell answers the question of "where was she radicalised?" very easily. Marion went from an abusive father to seeing her hopes of music hall stardom destroyed by #MeToo agents and producers. She was radicalised by shitty abusive men, a dismissive and treacherous establishment, and a culture that condemned women for existing in any but the approved way, especially sexually.
Marion was also a birth control activist, and Riddell shows clearly how the middle class suffragettes wanted to distance themselves from sex positivity or female sexual agency. They didn't see that without birth control women are in chains; they still bought into the male narrative of what constitutes a Good Woman. (Props here to Annie Besant who fought the vile misogynist abusive Contagious Diseases Act and was pro birth control, and was thus ostracised and rewritten as the match girl lady.) No wonder Kitty Marion set fire to things.
A very angry, important and revelatory read that I wish I'd had in my teens.
Riddell answers the question of "where was she radicalised?" very easily. Marion went from an abusive father to seeing her hopes of music hall stardom destroyed by #MeToo agents and producers. She was radicalised by shitty abusive men, a dismissive and treacherous establishment, and a culture that condemned women for existing in any but the approved way, especially sexually.
Marion was also a birth control activist, and Riddell shows clearly how the middle class suffragettes wanted to distance themselves from sex positivity or female sexual agency. They didn't see that without birth control women are in chains; they still bought into the male narrative of what constitutes a Good Woman. (Props here to Annie Besant who fought the vile misogynist abusive Contagious Diseases Act and was pro birth control, and was thus ostracised and rewritten as the match girl lady.) No wonder Kitty Marion set fire to things.
A very angry, important and revelatory read that I wish I'd had in my teens.
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