Book Review: The Fair Fight

BOOK: The Fair Fight

AUTHOR: Anna Freeman

PUBLISHER:  Riverhead Books

The Fair Fight is like a dartboard in an English pub where the dart lands where its heart pleases and not the preferred destination, the bull’s eye.

Anna Freeman gave the dart to three characters: Ruth Downs, a professional boxer born in her mother’s brothel (called a convent in the book), George Bowden an aristocrat that lives on bets and Charlotte Sinclair, a smallpox survivor married off to Granville Dryer by her brother Perry Sinclair.

Although they have the voice in the book, the bull’s eye is hidden in the form of Dora, Ruth’s sister who became Granville Dryer’s mistress at a tender age; Dryer himself who also ‘owned’ Ruth because he trained her as a boxer and Perry Sinclair; George Bowden’s lover since their boarding school days in Bristol, England.

The author probably divided the book into Ruth’s, George’s and Charlotte’s stories for a reason.  They are more global in their thinking, unlike the hidden bull’s eye characters that are totally monopolistic. Only their passion matters. 

Perry Sinclair’s passion is George Bowden, who lives in Aubyn Hall, the Sinclair’s ancestral home.  He married off Charlotte, his sister to Granville Dryer after he realises that she is attracted to his friend and lover George Bowden.

Granville Dryer agrees to the arranged marriage because much as he spends most of his time in the brothel, he does not want to marry Dora.  Dora might be Dryer’s mistress and mother of his children, but she is open to anyone with a better coin. 

As for Granville Dryer, the coin is the most important.  He comes from what the book calls the merchant class and has no qualms about making anything or anyone a commodity.  That is why he makes money from turning Ruth, a young girl into a boxer, fighting both boys and girls.

The Fair Fight’s value is its historical context, which readers can relate to in 2018.  Boxing for example.  The book is set somewhere around 1799, but boxing practice such as taking bets on which boxer will win is alive and well.

Ambitious mothers and what they think is ideal for their daughters is still the norm, the same way, Ruth’s and Dora’s mother decided that both daughters will be the property of one man, one as a mistress and the other a boxer, entertaining men of what the book calls ‘the noble stock’.

Charlotte Sinclair is a bejewelled orphan, after having lost her parents to smallpox.  She is left with a scarred face and a brother that hates her because she is attracted to George Bowden his lover, who also likes women and would like to have a son one day.  This is totally unacceptable to Perry Sinclair, who is 100% gay.

The book’s historical value is putting social and economic circumstances in context, in characters.  Yes, history books are full of what went on around 1799, but it is clearer in fiction.  Despite all Granville Dryer’s money, Perry Sinclair and George Bowden still feel superior to him, because they are of noble class.  They did not sully their hands with working for it like Granville Dryer’s father.

The title of the book comes alive at the end, when women characters hit the bull’s eye despite the huge social schism.

It also ends the fallacy of capitalism as a driver of so-called development because men like Perry Sinclair, Granville Dryer and George Bowden put bets on everything, not real money.  Charlotte Sinclair’s mother’s house was a bet, so was a sugar cane estate in the Caribbean. No money exchanged hands.

The book’s downside is the publisher’s requirement that black people can only feature in literature as the dregs of society where even in 2015 and beyond they are labelled as drivers, maids, sex workers or nannies.  It is 1799 in The Fair Fight and there is a black Negress as a prostitute.  Will it ever stop?

The Fair Fight is a candidate for Women’s Studies internationally.

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.