Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Wages of Sin
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://kaitewelsh.wordpress.com/
CITY: Edinburgh, Scotland
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitewelsh/?ppe=1 * http://www.thebookseller.com/news/headline-acquires-feminist-victorian-crime-series-321292
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2017028345
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2017028345
HEADING: Welsh, Kaite
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370 __ |e Edinburgh (Scotland) |2 naf
372 __ |a Feminism |a Historical fiction |a Detective and mystery fiction |2 lcsh
374 __ |a Journalists |a Authors |2 lcsh
375 __ |a female
377 __ |a eng
670 __ |a Welsh, Kaite. The wages of sin, 2017: |b title page (Kaite Welsh) jacket flap (Kaite Welsh is an Edinburgh-based journalist, critic and the Literature Officer at Creative Scotland. She writes a weekly column for the Daily Telegraph and makes frequent appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. She was included on the Independent on Sunday’s 2015 Rainbow List, which recognizes the 100 most influential LGBTI people in the UK. This is her first book.)
PERSONAL
Married; wife’s name, Lola.
EDUCATION:University of Edinburgh, M.A., English literature, 2005; University of Sussex, M.A., sexual dissidence and cultural change, 2006.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, critic, and journalist. Random House, columnist, 2013-; List Ltd., arts reviewer and LGBT editor, 2014-; Times Literary Supplement, book reviewer, 2014-; eBay Advertising, copy editor, 2014-; WOW247, writer, 2014-; Indiewire, TV reviewer, 2015-; Illicit Ink, producer, 2015- Time Out, writer, 2015-; Creative Scotland, literature officer, 2015-; Daily Telegraph, columnist, 2015-. Appears on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
WRITINGS
Writes short stories.
SIDELIGHTS
Kaite Welsh is an Edinburgh-based writer, critic, and journalist. She freelances variously as a columnist, reviewer, and editor for Random House, List Ltd., Times Literary Supplement, eBay Advertising, WOW247, Indiewire, Illicit Ink, and Time Out. She is literature officer for Creative Scotland and a regular columnist for the Daily Telegraph. She also appears on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Welsh was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where she earned a master’s in English literature, and at the University of Sussex, from which she obtained a second master’s, in sexual dissidence and cultural change.
Welsh found her way into mysteries as an adolescent, when she came upon The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, wrongly shelved in the YA section of her library. She grew more and more intrigued with the Victorian time period and with the characters of strong women. As she told Anna Mazzola of Historia, “I’ve always been fascinated by the entrance of women into the professions. I devoured Phillip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart series as a teenager, and the intersection of that with the gothic and frequently gory world of Victorian medicine was irresistible. I read textbooks for fun, because that’s the kind of super-cool teenage girl I was, and ended up knowing far more about 19th century medical advances and legal cases than any fifteen year old should.”
Welsh’s own first mystery is The Wages of Sin. The novel follows the heroine, Sarah Gilchrist, from London to Edinburgh, where she has won a place at the University of Edinburgh’s medical school, as part of the first class of women allowed admission. The city of Edinburgh has its bright and dark sides, and Sarah, as part of the medical profession, sees them both. Dirk Robertson, writing at CriminalElement.com, noted, “When she is not studying or attending lectures, she gives help and medical advice to those who live on and under the streets of an Edinburgh that is a world away from the cosy drawing rooms, fine port, and cigars of high-society Scotland.” Sarah finds herself suddenly drawn into the mystery of the death of one prostitute she knows—who ends up as the specimen in an anatomy lecture.
A critic in Publishers Weekly called The Wages of Sin a “moving, nuanced first novel,” with “superior characterizations and convincing period detail.” Emily Brock, writing in Booklist, recommended it to readers “who enjoy historical fiction that incorporates mystery and female empowerment.” A Kirkus Reviews correspondent observed that the novel is a “gritty detective story as unflinching as its heroine, rich in well-researched period detail.” Robertson found the book a “page-turning tale of murder, subversion, and vice,” with characters that “are strong and well-drawn without being contrived.” He added that Welsh “captures the setting of old Edinburgh perfectly.” A blogger at For Winter Nights focused on the dark elements of the story: “The Wages of Sin immerses us in an Edinburgh that is stricken by that Victorian disease of hypocritical and dishonest morality.” The blogger also noted the chauvinism of the times and found the novel “as much a scrutiny of its times as it is a crime novel.” On the Culture Fly website, Natalie Xenos called the book “entertaining, engaging and eloquent” and “at once an illuminating exploration of the oppression women faced in Victorian times and a gripping gothic murder mystery.” Welsh, she remarked, could not “have chosen a more fascinating overarching theme for her debut novel.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 2017, Emily Brock, review of The Wages of Sin, p. 47.
Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2017, review of The Wages of Sin.
Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2017, review of The Wages of Sin, p. 37.
ONLINE
CriminalElement.com, https://www.criminalelement.com/ (October 15, 2017), Dirk Robertson, review of The Wages of Sin.
CultureFly, http://culturefly.co.uk/ (July 28, 2017), Natalie Xenos, review of The Wages of Sin.
Debutante Ball, https://www.thedebutanteball.com/ (June 10, 2017), Jenni L. Walsh, author interview.
For Winter Nights, https://forwinternights.wordpress.com/ (June 1, 2017), review of The Wages of Sin.
fromfirstpagetolast, https://fromfirstpagetolast.wordpress.com/ (October 15, 2017), review of The Wages of Sin.
Herald Online (Scotland), http://www.heraldscotland.com/ (September 14, 2017), Teddy Jamieson, author interview.
Historia, http://www.historiamag.com/ (May 29, 2017), Anna Mazzola, author interview.
Kaite Welsh Website, https://kaitewelsh.wordpress.com (October 15, 2017).*
Katie Welsh
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Singer, Scholar, Performer
Katie Welsh is a singer who specializes in musical theater and the Great American Songbook. She graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Princeton University, where she studied English, theater, and musical theater and had the opportunity to take classes with Broadway directors John Rando and John Doyle and participate in masterclasses with Tony-nominated composers Pasek and Paul, Broadway actress Becky Ann Baker, and Grammy and Emmy Award-winning music director Paul Bogaev.
For her senior thesis, she collaborated with director Suzanne Agins and music director Emily Whitaker to create Women in the World of Sondheim. This project, in conjunction with her written thesis, garnered Katie the Alan S. Downer Senior Thesis Prize from the Department of English.
Currently, Katie studies voice with Judy Bettina and dance at Princeton Ballet School. In addition to her work as a performer, she also works as a research and editorial assistant to Professor Stacy Wolf and Dean Jill Dolan at Princeton and is currently co-authoring an article on musical theater reception theory with Professor Wolf.
Download Katie's performance and academic resumes here
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Katie Welsh ’15 Speaks with “Everything Sondheim”
AUGUST 15, 2016
handPrinceton alumna Katie Welsh ’15 originally performed her concert Women in the World of Sondheim at Princeton as her senior thesis, and has recently presented it at New York City venues including the Duplex Cabaret Theatre, the Metropolitan Room, and Feinstein’s/54 Below. She was recently interviewed by Josh Austin for Everything Sondheim. The following excerpt is reprinted with permission. Read the full article online here …
A concert like Women in the World of Sondheim is important because it invites the audience to engage with musical theater in a new way. It pushes boundaries in terms of content — it takes musical theater seriously and treats it as a discipline worth analyzing — and it pushes boundaries in terms of form — it makes the typically personal, anecdotal cabaret patter a site for analysis. The show simultaneously entertains, educates, engages and excites audiences in a way I never dreamed was possible. — Katie Welsh ’15
Everything Sondheim: Before it was a concert, Women in the World of Sondheim was your senior thesis. Why tackle Sondheim and his female characters?
Katie Welsh: During my time at Princeton, Professor Stacy Wolf, a leading feminist musical theater scholar, became my mentor. When I was a freshman, I took her class on gender and sexuality in the Broadway musical, and it fundamentally changed how I thought about musical theater. She asked us to inspect the “heteronormative” narrative (“boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl”) and identify the tropes, traditions and stereotypes that have played out (and/or been challenged) over the course of this distinctly American art form’s fascinating history.
By the end of my freshman year, I knew I wanted to not only continue studying musical theater as a performer but also as a scholar — and specifically as a feminist scholar — and so when I took Professor Wolf’s Sondheim seminar my junior year, I couldn’t help but begin wondering: Who are the Sondheim women? How are they in conversation with one another across shows? Where do they fit in the Broadway canon? When I began my research, I discovered that the Sondheim women were already at the center of an important discussion in the field of musical theater studies. Many scholars were starting to classify “Sondheim’s women” as a new category, a new genre even, of musical theater heroines. I found this conversation exciting, and I knew I had to participate in it as both a singer and a scholar — so I devised Women in the World of Sondheim.
The show ultimately became what I now call an “informative” cabaret. Unlike more traditional cabarets, where the patter between songs is more personal and anecdotal, Women in the World of Sondheim features patter that is more informative and educational — I quote scholars and journalists, touch on the history of musical theater (specifically, Sondheim’s relationship to Rodgers and Hammerstein), lead fun moments of musical analysis and really weave the Sondheim women’s stories together in a new way.
EvSo: When and how did the passion for Sondheim develop?
Welsh: I was first introduced to Sondheim’s work when I was three years old and was allowed to watch the first act — and the first act only — of his 1987 collaboration with James Lapine, Into the Woods. (My mom loves musical theater and was quick to pass that passion on to me!) I studied and loved his shows all through high school and college, but it wasn’t until I took the seminar with Professor Wolf that I found myself deeply engaged with Sondheim’s entire body of work. While I was taking that seminar, I also happened to be singing a lot of Sondheim songs in my voice lessons … I suddenly saw an opportunity to blend my two passions — performance and scholarship — into a single project, and so it became my senior thesis!
EvSo: How did you morph your thesis into a professional concert?
Welsh: Over the past year, I’ve definitely tightened the show’s patter in certain places, but the text as a whole has mostly remained unchanged. What has significantly changed, I think, is how I present the text, specifically the tone of the show. After all, I’m going from performing the show for a roomful of scholars on a university campus to performing it for an audience in a cabaret room or supper club in the city. I’ve had to adjust and adapt to my new environments. I’ve strived to make the tone of the show a bit more informal, more inviting, more “relaxed,” while still maintaining the “informative-ness” of it — I’m striving to make it less about presenting the material to the audience and more about sharing it with the audience. This was always a goal with the show, even when I was performing it at Princeton—but I’m pursuing it even more rigorously now!
The show has inspired Welsh to create new “informative” cabarets. She has already developed and performed a second concert, Love … According to the Great American Songbook, and is currently developing a third show that explores the Broadway ingénue through the decades.
Read the full article online here …
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Kaite Welsh is an author, critic and journalist living in Scotland.
Her novel The Wages of Sin, a feminist historical crime novel set in Victorian Edinburgh, is out from Headline in June 2017. It is the first novel featuring medical student, fallen woman and amateur sleuth Sarah Gilchrist, with two further books due in 2018 and 2019.
Her fiction has featured in several anthologies and she writes a regular column on LGBT issues for the Daily Telegraph as well as making frequent appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. In 2014 she was shortlisted for both the Scottish New Writers Award and the Moniack Mhor Bridge Award. She has also been shortlisted for the 2010 Cheshire Prize for Fiction and the 2010 Spectrum Award for short fiction.
Kaite is represented by Laura Macdougall at Tibor Jones & Associates.
Kaite Welsh
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Author, Telegraph columnist & Literature Officer at Creative Scotland. On the 2015 Independent on Sunday Rainbow List.
Hachette Book Group University of Sussex
Edinburgh, United Kingdom 500+ 500+ connections
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"Kaite has been fantastic to work with, bringing a positive attitude with the ability to get up and running on projects
quickly and with enthusiasm. She … gives great consultancy on a range of issues that always help to move projects forward. I look forward to working with her again in the future.” - Ben Matthews, Bright One Communications I write high-quality arts and lifestyle journalism, sharp and engaging web copy, and award-nominated fiction. As a journalist I write long-form articles, short blog posts and reviews on a variety of topics from New York exercise fads to the latest fiction releases. I have a particular passion for writing about women's issues, sexuality and gender and I make regular appearances on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour discussing a variety of related topics. To commission me for freelance or full-time work, please drop me a line at kaite.welsh@gmail.com.
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Publishing and Editing Professionals
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Experience
Hachette Book Group
Author
Company NameHachette Book Group
Dates EmployedJan 2016 – Present Employment Duration1 yr 10 mos
Headline has acquired a feminist Victorian crime series by journalist Kaite Welsh, about a "trailblazing" female doctor-turned-detective.
The series features medical student Sarah Gilchrist, who has fled London to join the University of Edinburgh's medical school in 1982 - the first year it admits women. The plot follows her descension into Edinburgh’s "murky underworld of bribery, brothels and body snatchers" after a patient turns up in the university dissecting room as a battered corpse.
Editor Sarah Savitt said: "The Wages of Sin is an absolute treat of a novel – an irresistible read with a fantastic heroine, beautifully drawn setting, fascinating insights into what it was like to study medicine as a woman at that time, and brilliant glimpses of the early suffragette movement. Kaite Welsh is an exciting new voice in historical crime, and I’m thrilled to be working with her. It’s exactly what I love to read and publish – smart, page-turning, feminist – and I couldn’t be happier that this is my first new acquisition for Headline."
The Daily Telegraph
Columnist
Company NameThe Daily Telegraph
Dates EmployedOct 2015 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 1 mo
Writing a weekly column on feminism and LGBTQI issues for the Telegraph's women's section.
Creative Scotland
Literature Officer
Company NameCreative Scotland
Dates EmployedAug 2015 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 3 mos
LocationEdinburgh, United Kingdom
Freelance
Freelance Journalist
Company NameFreelance
Dates EmployedJul 2006 – Present Employment Duration11 yrs 4 mos
LocationLondon
Clients include: The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, Buzzfeed, the Southbank Centre, The Times Higher Education magazine, The Literary Review, Mslexia, The Gloss
Time Out
Writer
Company NameTime Out
Dates EmployedJan 2015 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 10 mos
Illicit Ink
Producer
Company NameIllicit Ink
Dates EmployedJan 2015 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 10 mos
LocationEdinburgh / Glasgow
Producing spoken word shows across Edinburgh and Glasgow.
March: A Women's History of Scotland
May: The Sex Show
October: Pure Steaming
Indiewire
TV Reviewer
Company NameIndiewire
Dates EmployedJan 2015 – Present Employment Duration2 yrs 10 mos
Reviewing Season 5 of Downton Abbey for Indiewire.
Media (1)This position has 1 media
Downton Abbey Season 5
Downton Abbey Season 5
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Guardian News & Media
Chair - Guardian Culture Professionals Network Q&A
Company NameGuardian News & Media
Dates EmployedOct 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 1 mo
Chairing a panel discussion on being LGBTQ and making queer art in the UK cultural sector on 29th October.
Media (1)This position has 1 media
Being LGBT in the arts - live webchat
Being LGBT in the
arts - live webchat
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The List Ltd.
LGBT Editor
Company NameThe List Ltd.
Dates EmployedJun 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 5 mos
LocationEdinburgh
WOW247
Specialist Writer
Company NameWOW247
Dates EmployedOct 2014 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs 1 mo
LocationEdinburgh, United Kingdom
Covering Edinburgh's literary scene with a particular focus on spoken word.
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Education
University of Sussex
University of Sussex
Degree NameMA [with merit] Field Of StudySexual Dissidence & Cultural Change
Dates attended or expected graduation 2005 – 2006
Activities and Societies: Founding member of 'Aphromighty', the Feminist Society zine.
MA dissertation - 'Not the Marrying Kind: Single Women in Victorian Fiction'
The University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh
Degree NameMA [Hons], 2:1 Field Of StudyEnglish Literature
Dates attended or expected graduation 2001 – 2005
Activities and Societies: BLOGS - Women's Officer Labour Students - Women's Officer, Vice-Chair Scottish Labour Students - LGBT Officer
Undergraduate dissertation - 'A World of One's Own: Female Sexuality in Science Fiction'
Volunteer Experience
WoMentoring
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Company NameWoMentoring
Dates volunteeredOct 2014 – Oct 2014 Volunteer duration1 mo
Cause Arts and Culture
WoMentoring
Mentor
Company NameWoMentoring
Dates volunteeredMay 2014 – Present Volunteer duration3 yrs 6 mos
Cause Arts and Culture
Non-fiction mentor for freelance journalists, offering insight, knowledge and support to women writers at the start of their careers.
Ministry of Stories
Writing Mentor
Company NameMinistry of Stories
Dates volunteeredJul 2013 – Jul 2013 Volunteer duration1 mo
Cause Arts and Culture
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Featured Skills & Endorsements
Blogging See 38 endorsements for Blogging38
Endorsed by Lilit Marcus and 4 others who are highly skilled at this
Endorsed by 2 of Kaite’s colleagues at Guardian News & Media
Social Media See 24 endorsements for Social Media24
Endorsed by Sara O'Leary and 1 other who is highly skilled at this
Copywriting See 21 endorsements for Copywriting21
Endorsed by Lynn Roberts and 1 other who is highly skilled at this
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Recommendations
Received (4)
Given (1)
Ben Matthews
Ben Matthews
Director at Montfort - digital, social & content marketing for people who change the world for good
February 6, 2012, Kaite worked with Ben in the same group
Kaite has been fantastic to work with, bringing a positive attitude with the ability to get up and running on projects quickly and with enthusiasm. She works well in a team and gives great consultancy on a range of issues that always help to move projects forward. I look forward to working with her again in the future.
Carrie Dunn
Carrie Dunn
Journalist and researcher
April 26, 2011, Carrie was a client of Kaite’s
Kaite has been a fabulous reviewer for me on BroadwayWorld.com, turning round clean copy quickly and efficiently, and always entertainingly. Her knowledge of theatre and literature makes for an educational and authoritative read. I would highly recommend Kaite to any employer.
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Accomplishments
Kaite has 5 publications5
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Publications
The Badass Feminist Coloring Book Derby Shorts Chicks Unravel Time Zoo Haunted Hearths & Sapphic Shades
Kaite has 3 courses3
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Courses
Guardian Masterclass: How to pitch to commissioning editors Guardian Masterclass: How to publish an independent magazine Project Management
Kaite has 1 honor1
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Honor & Award
Shortlisted for the Scottish Book Trust's 2015 New Writers Award
Interview with Kaite Welsh + #DebBallGiveaway of THE WAGES OF SIN
Posted By Jenni L. Walsh on Saturday, June 10, 2017
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Today on the Debutante Ball, we’re thrilled to welcome a fellow debut Kaite Welsh, from across the pond, to chat about her novel THE WAGES OF SIN!
A “nail-biting debut” [Fabulous magazine] set in 1890s Edinburgh, Kaite Welsh’s THE WAGES OF SIN features a female medical student-turned-detective, and will thrill fans of Sarah Waters and Antonia Hodgson.
Sarah Gilchrist has fled from London to Edinburgh in disgrace and is determined to become a doctor, despite the misgivings of her family and society. As part of the University of Edinburgh’s first intake of female medical students, Sarah comes up against resistance from lecturers, her male contemporaries, and – perhaps worst of all – her fellow women, who will do anything to avoid being associated with a fallen woman…
When one of Sarah’s patients turns up in the university dissecting room as a battered corpse, Sarah finds herself drawn into Edinburgh’s dangerous underworld of bribery, brothels and body snatchers – and a confrontation with her own past.
“A gritty detective story as unflinching as its heroine, rich in well-researched period detail” – Kirkus Reviews
This sounds like a book right up my alley (with a stunning UK cover!), and we hope it’ll be up yours, too. Keep reading for more about Kaite in our interview and don’t forget to enter to win your very own copy, by retweeting on twitter:
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You can also enter by sharing our Facebook post! We will select and contact the very lucky winner on Friday, June 16th at noon (US Only).
Now, on to the interview!
Talk about one book that made an impact on you.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins – I found it misshelved in the YA section of our local library when I was about 13, and I fell in love by the end of the first chapter. It tells the story of Walter Hartwright, a slightly feckless but well-meaning art tutor who is on his way to a new job when he meets Anne Catherick, a woman dressed all in white who turns out to have escaped from the local lunatic asylum. When he arrives at Limmeridge House to meet his new pupils, one of them is Anne’s mirror image and is engaged to the man who had Anne committed. It’s narrated by several different characters, including the glorious Marian Halcombe, a woman with a ferocious wit, buckets of courage and a mustache. Count Fosco is one of the most unnerving fictional villains I’ve ever encountered – I always feel I need a shower after I read his chapters.
I unreservedly love all adaptations of it, no matter how loose they treat the original plot – there’s something fascinating about seeing how someone interprets a novel you know so well. The 2004 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is terrible in so many, many ways, but how many other musicals have a climactic number where the heroine vows to get revenge on the men who wronged her sister?
Jenni: I haven’t read this one yet, but sounds juicy!
Talk about one thing that’s making you happy right now.
So far, Scotland is having a very rainy summer and I couldn’t be happier. I’m a recent gardening convert, so it’s terribly good for my plants (and means I don’t have to lug watering cans downstairs) but there’s something about the contrast between a grey sky and lush green trees that soothes me. Normally summer is my least favourite season, but every time the skies cloud over my spirits lift.
I have an app on my phone that plays rain sounds when I go to sleep, and when I’m writing I’ll have rainymood.com on in the background with some Bach or Elgar or Chopin on Spotify.
Jenni: My own Scottish skin (from clan Crawford) appreciates some good cloud coverage.
Where do you love to be?
In a coffee shop, with a book or my laptop. There’s a little place in London called Camellia’s Tea House, just off Carnaby Street, and when I lived in the city I’d order crumpets with honey and a pot of Lapsang Souchong and read historical mysteries for hours. Whenever I go away, I’m basically looking for somewhere with a hipster coffee shop that I can camp out in for hours with some magazines or a pile of books – it’s probably tragic that it’s my idea of total relaxation, but I’m not very good at holidays.
Jenni: This sounds completely wonderful to me!
What’s the strangest job you’ve ever had?
I reviewed sex toys for an LGBT women’s lifestyle site. I’d studied sexuality and queer theory for my Masters degree, so it seemed like a good fit. Sadly, my career ended after an incident with a vibrating tongue ring.
Jenni: I’m laughing. That is all 🙂
What’s your next big thing?
The second Sarah Gilchrist book! I’m editing it at the moment and it will be out in hardback next summer. Then I need to get stuck into Book 3, which I’m really excited about. I’m hoping that if the first three sell well then Tinder Press will want more – Sarah has a lot more stories for me to tell! In the meantime, there’s a standalone novel set in Edwardian Yorkshire that I’ve wanted to write for a while, so hopefully I’ll get stuck into that next spring.
I have a dizzying list of books I want to write, and frustratingly only a limited amount of time for me to write them in. I’d quite like a time turner like Hermione in the Harry Potter books – or maybe a TARDIS.
Jenni: All of us at the Deb Ball feel your pain. There’s not enough time to write all the book’s that are clogging up our brains!
Thanks so much for joining us, Kaite! And congratulations again on your debut of THE WAGES OF SIN!
Kaite Welsh is an author and journalist living in Edinburgh. She is a critic, former Daily Telegraph columnist and Literature Officer at Creative Scotland, where she supports the literature and publishing scene across the country. Morbid since childhood, she became obsessed with Victorian medical advances as a teenager and is absolutely useless in a crisis unless it can be treated by laudanum or smelling salts.
For more information about Kaite and THE WAGES OF SIN, please check out her website. You can also catch Kaite on Twitter and Facebook!
Historia Interviews: Kaite Welsh
29 May 2017 By Anna Mazzola
Kaite Welsh is an author, critic, journalist and activist. Her excellent debut novel, The Wages of Sin, set in the dark underworld of Victorian Edinburgh, is published by Tinder Press on 1 June. Here she discusses with fellow Victorianista Anna Mazzola her love of history, feminism, mob-caps and buttered crumpets.
Your protagonist, Sarah Gilchrist, is a medical student at a time when being a female medical student was deeply controversial, and it makes for a brilliant premise. How did you come up with this idea?
I’ve always been fascinated by the entrance of women into the professions. I devoured Phillip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart series as a teenager, and the intersection of that with the gothic and frequently gory world of Victorian medicine was irresistible. I read textbooks for fun, because that’s the kind of super-cool teenage girl I was, and ended up knowing far more about 19th century medical advances and legal cases than any 15 year old should. Then I discovered grunge and riot grrrl (which I still love) and boys (that phase didn’t stick) and only came back to my first loves when I was studying at the University of Edinburgh and found two plaques in the old medical school – one to Sophia Jex-Blake, the first woman to be admitted as a medical student, and one to Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.
So have you known for some time that you wanted to write historical fiction?
Yes, it’s always been historical for me. That’s probably 50-60% of what I read for pleasure – either historical fiction, chunky Victorian novels or biographies.
My aunt runs education and engagement programmes in museums, so there were always opportunities as a child to dress up as a bedraggled apprentice in a cotton mill or as one of the Brontë sisters. Writing historical fiction lets me slip into another time period without the pressure of having to give the mob-cap or jar of leeches back at the end of the day.
If I hadn’t been a writer, I’d have liked to be an historian or a time traveller. I always keep an eye out for the TARDIS, just in case.
Noted. The Wages of Sin is being described as a ‘feminist historical crime novel’. Was it important to you that it was a feminist novel, or did that just come from the story itself?
I don’t think I could write a book that wasn’t feminist. I can’t switch that part of my brain off, and frankly I don’t want to. It’s not as though I’m going to run out of material any time soon, sadly.
No, indeed. You brilliantly evoke Victorian Edinburgh. What were your key resources? What helped you to immerse yourself in the era?
It helps that a lot of Edinburgh hasn’t physically changed that much! If I need to absorb myself in Sarah’s time period I just wander around the old medical school building, or the Old Quad where the law library is, and find scenes coming to life in my imagination. The Cowgate, where a lot of the action takes place, is now full of clubs and student accommodation rather than slum dwellings and brothels, but it’s somehow still dark and unsettling even on the brightest day.
In terms of research, Elaine Thomson’s brilliant PhD thesis on Victorian women doctors in Edinburgh was invaluable. I remember reading it and just being delighted that someone else shared my weird obsession. A few years later, I was having lunch with the wonderful historical novelist E.S. Thomson and she mentioned the PhD she’d written. Thankfully, although we cover similar topics we have different time periods – she has 1840s apothecary Jem Flockhart, a woman who has to live as a man in order to pursue her profession.
I also found the 1892 Edinburgh Student Songbook in a second-hand bookshop in Yorkshire, quite by chance. It’s full of bizarre in-jokes and song parodies about the professors and gave me a real flavour of what student life was like. I’ve written a full-length parody of A Very Modern Major General called A Very Modern-Minded Graduette, which may or may not make it into a later book (but which I can, given enough gin, be persuaded to sing).
I’m definitely taking you up on that. Now, what was your favourite nugget of research that you came across (a fact, an anecdote, a picture, a story), and did it make it into the book?
There’s a scene fairly early on where some of the male students spread red ink powder on the lecture theatre benches, so it covers the women’s skirts and makes it look like they’ve been menstruating. It’s so horrible but so vivid. I remember reading it in the archives of the National Library of Scotland, then turning my phone back on when I left, to see that someone had tweeted in response to an opinion piece I’d written in the Telegraph: “Oh, she must be on her period.” Nothing changes.
I’m currently working on a piece about the history of trolling for BBC Scotland’s The Social, and it’s fascinating but infuriating.
I want to read that. What other parallels do you see between Sarah’s world and the modern world? How far have we come?
Every time we take a step forward for women’s rights, it seems like we take two steps back. Sarah spends her life fighting for the right to be taken seriously in her profession. Before November last year, I thought women had won that battle. But every woman who aims for success makes cracks in the glass ceiling, whether it’s a plucky Victorian medical student or a Presidential candidate.
Tell us about your path to publication: was it a rocky road or a smooth slide?
Suspiciously smooth – I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop! I’d queried a few agents and was implementing their editorial suggestions when the wonderful Laura Macdougall, then a commissioning editor at Hodder and Stoughton, dropped me a line. She’d seen the opening chapters on my website and wondered if I had an agent. I explained I was still querying and she explained she was looking to make the move from editor to agent, but in the meantime she’d love to see the full manuscript. A month or so later, the postman delivered a hand-annotated copy of my book full of lovely compliments and useful amendments, and a box of chocolate biscuits to help with the editorial process. We then ended up judging the Green Carnation Prize together and realised we had similar tastes in books. Once she joined Tibor Jones & Associates, there was no looking back.
Why has no one ever given me biscuits to accompany editorial notes? And, more importantly, how do you go about structuring your novels? Do you plan tightly, or plunge right it? And has it changed for your second novel?
Plunge right into it, get around 20,000 words in and wish I’d planned. That gives me enough time to have gotten a sense of what kind of story I’m trying to tell without having gone so far that if I’m going off-course. The next 10,000 words are sheer torture but after that, I can see the way ahead.
I like being surprised when I write, seeing what bubbles to the surface. I started Wages with a vague idea of who Lucy’s murderer was, only to realise halfway through that I was wrong. With the second book, which I’ve just turned in, I was writing a confession scene only for the supposed murderer to implicate someone else entirely!
Characters. You never know what they’re going to do. And what’s been the hardest part of the writing process so far?
Definitely battling self-doubt. I thought that would evaporate after I got a book deal, but no chance!
No, I suspect the self-doubt never goes away. But maybe someone who’s written ten novels can tell us different. The Wages of Sin is the first in a series. Can you tell us anything about what Sarah will be up to next, or are you keeping your cards close to your chest?
Sarah’s view of the world is pretty black and white at the start of Wages. Over the second book, she’s figuring out the direction of her own moral compass while trying to extricate herself from a tricky situation and solve a murder that’s much closer to home. Also, there’s haggis.
I actually have about five or six more books in the series loosely outlined that I’m desperate to write. I’m starting Book 3 at the moment and I’m nowhere near done playing in Sarah’s world.
If you do ever tire of the 19th century, which other historical eras would you like to explore?
I’d love to tackle Renaissance France during Catherine de Medici’s regency. I have an outline for another series about the group of noble women she called her ‘Flying Squad’: well-born courtesans who acted as spies. As well as Sarah Gilchrist, there are two Victorian standalone novels I want to write and I’d like to have a go at the Regency period as well. Oh, and the French Revolution. Basically, I have a very long list of things I want to write and not enough time to write them in. Maybe one day I’ll even write something contemporary. Who knows.
And now, my most important question: how many buttered crumpets did you eat while writing The Wages of Sin? I ask this because I seem to have eaten rather a lot while reading it. And what are your essential writing snacks?
Buttered crumpets are one of my major food groups, but they’re actually quite tricky to write with because the melted butter gets into the keyboard and then my butter-obsessed cat Franklin tries to eat it. My ultimate writing food is goats’ cheese slathered on cherry scones. I cannot recommend that highly enough. Preferably consumed with a large pot of Lapsang Souchong while listening to Chopin and the sounds of a rainstorm in the background. That’s my idea of perfect happiness.
For more about Kaite and her work, visit her website.
Anna Mazzola‘s debut, The Unseeing, is based on the life of Sarah Gale who was convicted in 1837 of aiding and abetting James Greenacre in the Edgware Road murder. The Unseeing is out now in paperback. Read our review.
14th September
"History doesn't look the way we think it does." Author Kaite Welsh on Victorian crime in Edinburgh
Teddy Jamieson
Senior Features Writer
Author Kaite Welsh. Photograph Gordon Terris
Author Kaite Welsh. Photograph Gordon Terris
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WHY, I ask Kaite Welsh, do you want to write crime fiction? “God,” the 34-year-old woman in front of me exclaims. “I wish I had a good answer to that other than the first and last man I fell in love with was Sherlock Holmes.”
It is a Monday afternoon at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Welsh is enjoying being a full-time writer. After years working as a journalist and in Creative Scotland’s literature team she is now concentrating on writing her Sarah Gilchrist medical thriller series set in Victorian Edinburgh.
When did she give up the day job? “About a week ago. I decided I would like to sleep occasionally. Writing a crime series, being a journalist and having a full-time job doesn’t really leave you time to do anything else so I thought: ‘The writing’s going pretty well. Let’s stake my bets on that.’”
Well indeed. Her debut novel The Wages of Sin is a hugely entertaining slice of Victoriana, full of medical dissections and misogyny with excursions into the Edinburgh sex trade and university life. The result is a pacey, entertaining, unapologetically feminist take on crime conventions.
Welsh always wanted to be a writer. “My dad has a contract written in green crayon that promises him all of my royalties that I wrote when I was about seven. It’s not actually legally admissible. I’ve checked.”
The Wages of Sin is the first in a trilogy (Welsh would be happy to write more if she gets the chance though). The genesis of the book goes back to Welsh’s own undergraduate days at Edinburgh University. She would walk past plaques to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and to Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the first women to study medicine at Edinburgh (although she was refused a degree), and think there is a story there.
Years later that original inspiration coalesced into the figure of her heroine Sarah Gilchrist, a “new woman”, an Edinburgh incomer with a murky reputation who is one of the first female medical students at the university. As this is crime fiction, you will not be surprised to learn that she gets involved in a murder investigation, one that takes her high and low through Edinburgh’s streets and society.
For Welsh it was the mixture of Victorian repression and opportunity that appealed. “Sarah’s world is fascinating because on the one hand all these exciting things are happening – women being able to have careers, being able to study at university – but at the same time they’re still so mired in misogyny and oppression, their lives are still so circumscribed in so many ways.
“And these palaces of learning are surrounded by the most awful poverty. You’ve got the university medical school and then not five, 10 minutes away, what were then the slums of the Cowgate. The juxtaposition was very interesting to me.”
Did Edinburgh really have opium dens back then? “There were opium dens around the city. I don’t know for sure there was one in Fleshmarket Close, but I wanted to use Fleshmarket Close as a setting, so, godammit, I made it up.”
In a way The Wages of Sin is the latest chapter of our obsession with Victorian values, of course. But our interest in the past, Welsh argues, is merely a reflection of our interests now.
“You can read reams and reams about 19th-century prostitutes, but what we’re really fascinated with is the reality of sex work today,” she argues. “That’s something that’s played on my mind a lot when I was writing Wages because it’s both about prostitution and people’s attitudes towards it. And I found mine changing dramatically over the course of the book.”
How so? “I began with a very paternalistic Victorian attitude. ‘These poor women must be saved. And if they don’t want to be saved it’s because they don’t understand they’re oppressed.’”
Now, Welsh says, she takes a much more pragmatic stance. “I don’t particularly like it, but if it has to happen it needs to be regulated. Which means it needs to be legalised.”
Welsh’s own Edinburgh history could best be described as a romance. She visited the city in her early teens and fell in love with it, returned as a student and then in 2014 left London to live in the Scottish capital.
She had started The Wages of Sin as a love letter to the city from a distance. Now she gets to do her research on the very streets she writes about.
“I have three Edinburghs in my head at any given time. The predominant one is Sarah’s. I’m always on the lookout for new settings; creepy little streets that terrible things can happen in. There are also my university days which overlay with hers quite a lot. The Cowgate wasn’t a slum, but it was full of bad nightclubs so I’ve done my time there. And then there’s the Edinburgh I live in now.”
She stays out in Trinity now. “A nice break from the bit I write about.” She shares her home with her wife Lola, who is originally from Motherwell and herself a writer. Welsh grew up on the Wirral, the recipient of what she describes as “a wonderfully Gothic convent education”. “I thought it was normal at secondary school to have a graveyard full of dead teachers. There’s a nun’s graveyard next to the hockey pitch, a chapel in the school and very gruesomely graphic crucifixes in every classroom. So it was perfect. The religion rolled off like water but it was wonderful for the imagination.”
Is Edinburgh a Gothic city for her then? “Definitely. You could put me down in Milton Keynes and I would find a way to make it Gothic … And I think I just got a book idea,” she laughs.
Welsh says she didn’t so much come out as “wander out”. “My perspicacious mother was pointing out since I was about 10: ‘It will be fine if you want to come out.’ I came out to my parents with very little fanfare when I was 13 or 14. Nobody was surprised. By the time I came out to the school I was seen as such a ranty feminist that nobody was shocked by that either, although one of my teachers at my leavers’ ball came up to my mother and said at university I’d find a nice man and go back to God.”
She and Lola got married in New York. Why did getting wed matter? “Maybe it was growing up with two very happily married parents – that happiness is the pinnacle of domestic life for me.”
After the ceremony they went to the Stonewall Inn (where members of the gay community rioted against police persecution at the end of the 1960s) “to raise a glass to the queers who came before us”.
“A drag queen offered us ecstasy as a wedding present which I thought was very nice, particularly given the fact she was drinking at 11am and I would assume didn’t have huge resources to be handing out ecstasy. It was a nice offer but I turned it down.”
Scotland has since caught up in terms of gay marriage with New York. It’s remarkable how much Scotland has changed in its social attitudes in recent years, Welsh suggests. By contrast, she says, England is looking a little regressive. Can she explain why? “God, far more intelligent people than me could tell you. I think it’s Rhona Cameron. Everyone loves Rhona Cameron.”
She’s joking, but only a little. Role models are important, she says. “When I was at school the only other out person I knew from the Wirral was Paul O’Grady – Lily Savage. He was the closest thing I had to a role model, which in retrospect explains a lot about my teenage makeup decisions.”
In a way, she says, bringing us full circle, this is why she is writing the Sarah Gilchrist books, to write women, including gay women, back into history.
“Sophia Jex-Blake lived out her life with her female companion and it’s far more likely than not that it wasn’t a platonic relationship. There is queer history and women’s history and the history of people of colour and trans people that get glossed over in what we think of history now, it’s that uncovering and telling those stories again that is important. History doesn’t look the way we think it does.”
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The Wages of Sin
Emily Brock
Booklist.
113.13 (Mar. 1, 2017): p47.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Wages of Sin.
By Kaite Welsh.
Mar. 2017. 304p. Pegasus, $25.95 (9781681773322).
Welsh deftly explores an era of pioneering women in her first novel. Set in 1882, The Wages of Sin follows Sarah
Gilchrist as she enters the University of Edinburgh's medical school with its first class of women. A disgraced London
aristocrat, Sarah finds that her reputation precedes her in Edinburgh, and she is friendless among her class of women in
an even less friendly university atmosphere. Her only place of welcome is the clinic, in Edinburgh's seediest slum,
where she assists. When one of her patients turns up in the mortuary at the university, Sarah is shocked to find
evidence of murder and takes it upon herself to investigate the untimely death. Welsh's deeply feminist novel is an
engaging, fast-paced tale full of twists and turns. Though at times somewhat predictable, the novel puts on full display
the various struggles of women entering academia, as well as women's class struggles. Readers who enjoy historical
fiction that incorporates mystery and female empowerment will love this.--Emily Brock
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Brock, Emily. "The Wages of Sin." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 47. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA488689524&it=r&asid=6e658aa5d0a5038e14cb41bc10b5fd1f.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A488689524
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Welsh, Kaite: THE WAGES OF SIN
Kirkus Reviews.
(Jan. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Welsh, Kaite THE WAGES OF SIN Pegasus (Adult Fiction) $25.95 3, 14 ISBN: 978-1-68177-322-2
An intrepid female medical student stumbles on a conspiracy in Victorian-era Edinburgh.Sarah Gilchrist is one of a
dozen young women braving their first year of medical studies at an unnamed Edinburgh university which has
grudgingly admitted them but treats them with contempt. Chaperoned in sequestered classrooms, the women are
mocked by male students and professors alike, but Sarah has it worse than most. As a debutante in London's smarter
circles, Sarah was raped at a ball by the son of a lord, then blamed for the attack and banished to a sanatorium for
treatment of her "promiscuity." Debut author Welsh lays it on thick in the opening chapters. Sarah's fellow female
students shun her while her repressive aunt and uncle, with whom she lives, preach at her. She rarely encounters a man
who doesn't smirk at her. A defter hand would evoke the pathos of Sarah's situation without lathering the reader in it.
Eventually Sarah finds a friend, and the story finds its footing when Sarah recognizes a corpse in dissection class as a
young prostitute she encountered in her work at a charitable clinic. Did the girl die by suicide, or was it murder?
Sarah's investigation takes her to the houses of ill repute and opium dens of the less savory side of Edinburgh. Now the
game's afoot! Welsh makes clever use of the conventions of the genre--Sarah has a dull, respectable suitor who the
family hopes will lure her from her unsuitable pursuit of education and an irascible, brooding mentor who will reveal a
secretly tender heart--while throwing in a twist informed by modern sensibilities. Damp, sooty, moralistic, and sinning
Edinburgh is convincingly evoked. A coy reference at the story's conclusion to another Scottish medical detective hints
that this novel may be the first in a series. A gritty detective story as unflinching as its heroine, rich in well-researched
period detail.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Welsh, Kaite: THE WAGES OF SIN." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475357480&it=r&asid=ab4345c3fd62717fb9f95a0c1e82c9c3.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A475357480
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The Wages of Sin
Publishers Weekly.
264.1 (Jan. 2, 2017): p37.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Wages of Sin
Kaite Welsh. Pegasus Crime (Norton, dist.), $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-68177-332-2
In Welsh's moving, nuanced first novel, a late Victorian whodunit, Sarah Gilchrist decides to make a new start after an
acquaintance sexually assaults her, a traumatic experience that her proper family views as a source of shame. Sarah
moves from London to Edinburgh to attend medical school, where she's bullied by her male colleagues and shunned
by some of her female ones. In addition to keeping up with her studies, Sarah assists at Saint Giles's Infirmary for
Women and Children, a clinic for the indigent. Lucy Collins, a pregnant prostitute, seeks an abortion at Saint Giles's,
but the director sends her away. Four nights later, Sarah is shocked to see that the body in the medical school
dissection room is Lucy's. Her professor suggests death was caused by a laudanum overdose, but Sarah notices bruises
and other marks that suggest Lucy was assaulted, reminding her of her own victimization. Superior characterizations
and convincing period detail make up for the routine sleuthing that ensues. Agent: Laura Macdougall, Tibor Jones &
Associates (U.K.). (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Wages of Sin." Publishers Weekly, 2 Jan. 2017, p. 37. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA478696479&it=r&asid=8799e49d89453325b8fafb8ec83fc90f.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A478696479
Review: The Wages of Sin by Kaite Welsh
DIRK ROBERTSON
The Wages of Sin by Kaite Welsh is a page-turning tale of murder, subversion, and vice in which a female medical student in Victorian Edinburgh is drawn into a murder investigation when she recognizes one of the corpses in her anatomy lecture.
A prostitute is murdered in late-nineteenth-century Edinburgh, and no one cares. The early demise of a woman of ill repute is of no concern to the Scottish capital’s society, high or low. No one, that is, apart from Miss Sarah Gilchrist, who is studying at the University of Edinburgh’s medical school.
The year is 1882, and it’s the first time women have been allowed admission to the school. Sarah is studying to be a doctor despite stern opposition from her family, the establishment, and society in general. This is a time when women are deemed inferior to men, and the behavior of men—in public and private—reflects this in many different ways. Brothels, where fallen women ply their trade, are sneered at and whispered about, yet the veil of double standards—which knows no bounds—is thrown over these establishments so members of the higher echelons of society can avail themselves of the wares, safe from people they consider nosy liberals or those with prying eyes.
One would not expect a young woman of Sarah’s position to come into contact with people from that world, but she feels an affinity for those less fortunate than herself, as she had to flee London from a scandal that branded her a fallen woman. In Edinburgh, she hopes to rebuild her life and move on in her profession of choice: medicine. When she is not studying or attending lectures, she gives help and medical advice to those who live on and under the streets of an Edinburgh that is a world away from the cosy drawing rooms, fine port, and cigars of high-society Scotland.
Unexpectedly, one of the poor young women she has come into contact with ends up on the slab in the medical school, ready for a class to learn the finer points of anatomy. The fact that Sarah thinks the girl may have been been murdered is of no matter. She is dead, and how the people come to meet their fate before they contribute to the learning of young medical students is of no concern to the authorities or the University.
Sarah sets off on a trail to find out exactly what happened to the unfortunate young woman. Fallen women deserve justice the same as anyone else. The journey takes her on a dangerous path—a very dangerous one, indeed. Sarah investigates in a way Sherlock Homes would have been proud of, but there is one problem: she has no Watson is in the shadows to protect her back.
I stepped into the entrance hall, nearly walking into a man who had come downstairs. Given his rumpled appearance and the silence from the room above the parlor, I suspected he had been one of the men upstairs, but which, I couldn’t possibly imagine. I tried not to stare after him as he left, wondering what on earth persuaded him to do what he had recently been doing—not to mention exactly what it was he had been engaged in. A few moments after the door slammed shut behind him, a lithe young man of around eighteen with a shock of black hair and a slightly pinched-looking face slouched downstairs. He glanced at me and smirked.
“Another new girl, Mother McAllister?” he asked. I didn’t stay to hear her reply.
I stepped into the street hesitantly, the twilight having given place to lurking darkness. Although the narrow, winding cobbled path was sheltered by tenements from the harsh November winds, it somehow seemed colder down here. Figures shoved past me, without a word of apology. I would be lucky to emerge with my purse, not to mention what little was left of my virtue. I couldn’t imagine living here, although people clearly did.
I walked steadily onward, refusing to turn and flee back to the light, much as I dearly wanted to.
I don’t know how many tasks Kaite Welsh set out for herself when planning to write The Wages of Sin, but what she has achieved—for me—is a top-class crime thriller, a riveting social documentary, and a fascinating historical novel. Three for the price of one. No Scotsman I know, including myself, would be able to resist a bargain of such immense quality—and neither should anyone else. Brilliant writing will continue to pour from her pen, and I suspect she will continue to set the bar even higher than she already has with this book—her first, and a total gem.
The central characters are strong and well-drawn without being contrived. She captures the setting of old Edinburgh perfectly. I was brought up there, and many parts of the city have not changed in the slightest since 1872. The slimy, dripping walls of the tenements, with their human flotsam hoping for a better day to come, sitting strangely with the homes and lifestyles of the rich and powerful living lives so opulent it would take your breath away. Neither knows of the others’ existence unless they meet in the brothels and drug dens of a town in a country with weather so foul it would make a grown person drop to their knees and pray for warmer climes.
The writing is sublime, and Kaite Welsh doesn’t hold back with her powers of description:
I saw myself through Fiona’s world-weary tired eyes—a naïve young lady wandering the slums like a tourist along the streets of Paris, protected only by the false sense of invulnerability that wealth and privilege afforded.
If this book sells like I think it will, then Kaite Welsh’s Wages of Sin will be considerable.
The Wages of Sin by Kaite Welsh
7 Replies
Tinder Press | 2017 (1 June) | 320p | Review copy | Buy the book
The Wages of Sin by Kaite WelshIt is 1892 and, for the first time, the University of Edinburgh’s medical centre permits women entry to train to become doctors. Sarah Gilchrist is one of the first cohort of female students and, every single day she and her classmates are reminded how unpopular they are – by the male students, their lecturers and by society in general, which regards them as unnatural to their sex. And Sarah Gilchrist has it tougher than most. Sarah is an exile from London. From among the upper classes, which in itself marks her out, Sarah has been expelled from her family on account of a scandal for which Sarah was blamed entirely. She now lives a virtual prisoner under the roof of her aunt and uncle whose instruction is to improve Sarah and make her suitable for marriage. Studying to become a doctor is the last thing they want for Sarah but even they understand that this disinherited and discarded young woman must earn a living somehow. And there are worse ways…
The Wages of Sin immerses us in an Edinburgh that is stricken by that Victorian disease of hypocritical and dishonest morality. The city is itself divided in two, between its respectable side which lives in the streets under the sky, and then its poverty-stricken and dangerous side, which hides in buried sewer streets of brothels, taverns and opium dens. Sarah moves between the two, training to become a doctor in the University, scrutinised by chaperones, and helping out in a hospital for the deserving poor, attending, among others, prostitutes and drunks. And when one of Sarah’s patients from the hospital, a young prostitute, ends up on the dissecting table of her medical class, the two worlds collide and Sarah is determined to find justice for the poor girl, no matter the danger to herself. Sarah believes that the greatest weapon anyone can hold over her is her past. She is wrong.
I love Victorian mysteries and the darker they are the better, and The Wages of Sin is steeped in atmosphere. Everything is described so richly, from the medical hospital to the slums to the parlours of the rich and respectable. The colours are so well painted. I felt like I was moving through a world of brown velvet, of wood-panelled walls and cold, ill-lit streets. But the atmosphere is squeezed and oppressed by the prejudice that these young female students face day in day out and, in particular, the absolute injustice that Sarah has been dealt. Sarah’s story is agonising and made even more powerful that we only hear it bits at a time and what we learn is shocking. It’s not often when I read a book that I feel rage but I felt it for Sarah Gilchrist.
The origins of feminism can be found in this marvellous novel and it doesn’t always make easy reading. The chauvinism of the students and the lecturers towards the female students pales by comparison against the cruelty of Sarah’s own family. On top of this we have the hypocrisy of Victorian philanthropists and the brutality suffered by the poor. There is a great deal here to make my hackles rise and that’s even before we get to the murder mystery!
The Wages of Sin is as much a scrutiny of its times as it is a crime novel and it is very well done indeed. It takes its time to build up this world. The story is told by Sarah herself and it is weighted by the burden she carries. She is so easy to like but the risks she runs! The mistakes she makes! It’s such a good story and a wonderful debut by Kaite Welsh. The good news is that this is the first in a series. I am so pleased that we’ll be seeing Sarah again and I’ll be cheering on this pioneering young woman.
Sarah Gilchrist has fled from London to Edinburgh in disgrace and is determined to become a doctor, despite the misgivings of her family and society. As part of the University of Edinburgh’s first intake of female medical students, Sarah comes up against resistance from lecturers, her male contemporaries, and – perhaps worst of all – her fellow women, who will do anything to avoid being associated with a fallen woman…
When one of Sarah’s patients turns up in the university dissecting room as a battered corpse, Sarah finds herself drawn into Edinburgh’s dangerous underworld of bribery, brothels and body snatchers – and a confrontation with her own past.
Sarah Gilchrist, sent to Edinburgh in disgrace, has fought for and won her right to study medicine. When not at university she helps in an infirmary for poor women and children. When she is faced with the body of one of her patients Sarah is sure that the woman died by someone else’s hand. Determined to find out the truth, and with no one to help her, will Sarah find herself out of her depths, and in the path of danger?
I was soon caught up in the story, eager to find out who had killed Lucy and why. I was also eager to see how Sarah would copy with all of the adversity in her way and for the reason for her being ostracised from society.
I spent most of the novel feeling angry. Angry at the way Sarah is treated. Angry at how society viewed women. Perhaps to be expected by men of the time, it was the treatment of her by other women that stung the most. Being ostracised from her family for something that was not her fault, to teeter on the edge of society and be beholden to her relatives meant she showed a great deal of moral fibre. Sarah comes across as feisty, ahead of her time. She is impetuous, her actions throughout the book show that. She acts first and thinks later but yet she is also well aware of her precarious position and has an internal struggle to balance what she wants, and what her family require of her.
Whilst this is a crime novel it is very much in essence a study on the role of women in the Victorian era and the tumultuous changes that were taking place at the end of the 19th Century. I felt that Sarah was finding her feet as a detective in The Wages of Sin. Much was deduced by way of stumbling upon the answer, she often jumped to the wrong conclusion. However, the relationships she develops as the story progresses are interesting. She finds friendship with Elisabeth, who not only offers her respite from her studies and the contempt of her class mates, but also offers her a way back into society. Then there is her burgeoning friendship with Professor Gregory Merchiston. Starting off on very rocky ground it was a pleasure to follow the story as the relationship between Sarah and the unusual Merchiston developed.
Despite spending most of the book annoyed on behalf of Sarah, I did enjoy reading The Wages of Sin. I was transported to another time. I was soon caught up in the social structure of the day, of the hardships faced by all levels of society. Whilst many of the issues facing women’s rights have now been dealt with it was interesting to compare their roles in society and see how far society has changed, and indeed how similar things still are. The mystery itself was intriguing and whilst I had determined the outcome before the reveal, it was fun to see the story unravel.
Intriguing, thought-provoking, engaging and entertaining. I am very much looking forward to the next book to feature Sarah Gilchrist and Gregory Merchiston. I just hope the next book is out soon.
About the author:
Kaite Welsh is an author, critic and journalist. Her work has appeared in everything from the Times Literary Supplement to Cosmopolitan and she covers LGBT issues for the Daily Telegraph. Her short fiction, featuring roller derby, Greek myths and ghosts, have appeared in several anthologies and she guest lectures on Creative Writing at universities around the UK.
She lives in Edinburgh with her wife, three cats and a lot of books.
This is book three of my #20BooksofSummer challenge.
BOOK REVIEW: THE WAGES OF SIN BY KAITE WELSH
NATALIE XENOSJULY 28, 2017
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Inspired as a student by a plaque to Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the first women to study medicine at Edinburgh University and the first practising female doctor in Scotland, Kaite Welsh couldn’t have chosen a more fascinating overarching theme for her debut novel. The Wages of Sin is at once an illuminating exploration of the oppression women faced in Victorian times and a gripping gothic murder mystery.
The influence of Jex-Blake’s life and work is central to Welsh’s story, which takes place in 1892, where the city backstreets are rife with disease, prostitution and all manner of dodgy dealings. Far away from the murky alleys, in the halls of the male-dominated Edinburgh University, Sarah Gilchrist is one of only a small group of female students embarking on a career in medicine. Not only is she still trying to forget the social scandal that chased her out of London but she also has to do daily battle with men who think women have no place getting a university education, let alone having a profession outside of being a wife and a mother.
It’s not just the men who give Sarah a tough time. Her female contemporaries treat her like a pariah, with word of her public fall from grace following her around like a dark cloud. Sarah is bright, headstrong and resilient, taking comfort in her studies and her voluntary work at a clinic for the poor and underprivileged. So when she discovers the bruised corpse of one of her patients in the university dissecting rooms, Sarah suspects that the girl’s suicide was staged to cover up a murder. But nobody cares about another dead body, even less so when she’s a prostitute.
Feeling a strange sort of kinship with the deceased girl, Sarah steps into the dark underworld of brothels, body snatchers, illegal procedures and social prejudice to seek out the truth. However, it’s not so easy to play detective when you suspect your professor could be the murderer and your family want to marry you off to the first eligible man who shows the slightest hint of interest.
“The operating theatre is no place for ladies. If you must abandon both your upbringing and God’s plan for you, kindly do the same with your delicate maidenly sensibilities.”
The Wages of Sin is exactly the type of historical mystery book I love to read, one that features a protagonist who’s way ahead of her time. My favourite Victorian adventuress in fiction is Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell, and Sarah Gilchrist is every bit her feisty, feminist equal, totally unable to stay out of trouble. In fact, Sarah actively looks for it and that’s half the fun – she’s always out of her depth, on the cusp of danger, and she never backs down.
What Welsh does so well is maintain a feeling of relevance and modernity, despite the fact the story is set in the 1800s. My blood boiled at the way the female demographic were treated by the majority of male students and professors – like they are dainty little flowers who couldn’t possibly be bright or robust enough to wield a scalpel. This prejudice and gender discrimination is all handled with a delightful sense of fun, a feeling of the women banding together and saying, “Don’t think I can do this? Just watch me.”
The period detail and descriptions of the grimy backstreets and seedy brothels paint a vivid picture of a city of two halves – the main thoroughfares where the respectable upper class ride in their fancy carriages and the dark alleys, where prostitution and opium dens are just the start of the horrors that lurk in the shadows. The murder mystery side of the story is so well handled that I had no idea where it was going to lead and, like Sarah, I was genuinely taken aback when the truth emerged.
Entertaining, engaging and eloquent, The Wages of Sin is a promising start to a brand new historical crime series and I can’t wait for the follow-up.
★★★★