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jarrahpenguin 's review for:
One Good Turn
by Kate Atkinson
As I wrote in my review for Atkinson's first Jackson Brodie book, Case Histories, I really enjoyed the crafting of the novel and the characters, but was troubled by the amount of sexism and homophobia built into Brodie's character. The great thing about One Good Turn is that Atkinson has a bunch of interesting, fully-fleshed-out new women characters in the story. I really liked the characters of Gloria and Tatiana, and the way they work together is delightful. And I was particularly excited to meet the character of Louise Monroe, whom we meet again and who kicks ass in the next book.
However, on Jackson's prejudices, things only got worse.
There's more general disdain for women, particularly young women: "He didn't like being at crime scenes and seeing them being run by policewomen only a few years older than his daughter."
He finds a young woman dead in the ocean and there's this: "If she'd been alive he would have automatically thought, what a great body, but in death this judgement was translated into a lovely figure - aesthetic and asexual as if he was contemplating the cold, marble limbs of a statue in the Louvre." This observation simultaneously objectifies the dead girl and glamorizes the violence against her.
Then there's the way he relates to his now-sorta-girlfriend from the previous book, Julia. For example, he "conjure[s] up a picture of Julia's breasts" and then resents that he hasn't seen enough of them recently. But the absolute worst thing, which I can't excuse, is this passage where he admits to himself that he raped her:
It makes sense where someone's misogynist and homophobic that they'd also be transphobic, so we also get this: "E.M. Watson (what kind of a name was that?) was just plain odd: either a badly put together woman or a man in drag. Transvestitism was a mystery to Jackson. He had never in his life worn a single item of female clothing."
It almost pains me because Atkinson is such a gifted writer, but as I said before, this characterization of the books' hero makes it hard for me to justify reading the novels. It might be different if another character or circumstances showed Jackson to be wrong in his prejudices, or if he himself realized at some point what a reactionary asshat he was, but that doesn't really happen and it makes it an uncomfortable read.
However, on Jackson's prejudices, things only got worse.
Spoiler
Take, for example: "Tobias was camper than a Scout jamboree. Jackson had nothing againts gays, he just wished that sometimes they wouldn't be quite so gay, especially when being introduced to him in what had turned out, unfortunately, to be a good old-fashioned macho Scottish pub."There's more general disdain for women, particularly young women: "He didn't like being at crime scenes and seeing them being run by policewomen only a few years older than his daughter."
He finds a young woman dead in the ocean and there's this: "If she'd been alive he would have automatically thought, what a great body, but in death this judgement was translated into a lovely figure - aesthetic and asexual as if he was contemplating the cold, marble limbs of a statue in the Louvre." This observation simultaneously objectifies the dead girl and glamorizes the violence against her.
Then there's the way he relates to his now-sorta-girlfriend from the previous book, Julia. For example, he "conjure[s] up a picture of Julia's breasts" and then resents that he hasn't seen enough of them recently. But the absolute worst thing, which I can't excuse, is this passage where he admits to himself that he raped her:
"Once , he had made love to her while she slept and she'd hardly even twitched when he came inside her, but he didn't tell her about it afterwards because he wasn't sure how she would react. He couldn't imagine her being particularly put out (this was Julia, after all). She would probably just have said, 'Without me? How could you?' Technically it was rape, of course. He had arrested enough guys in his time for taking advantage of drunk or drugged girls. Plus, if he was honest, Julia was such a sound sleeper that there had been a touch of necrophilia about the whole thing."
It makes sense where someone's misogynist and homophobic that they'd also be transphobic, so we also get this: "E.M. Watson (what kind of a name was that?) was just plain odd: either a badly put together woman or a man in drag. Transvestitism was a mystery to Jackson. He had never in his life worn a single item of female clothing."
It almost pains me because Atkinson is such a gifted writer, but as I said before, this characterization of the books' hero makes it hard for me to justify reading the novels. It might be different if another character or circumstances showed Jackson to be wrong in his prejudices, or if he himself realized at some point what a reactionary asshat he was, but that doesn't really happen and it makes it an uncomfortable read.