Tipping The Velvet Book Online10/6/2020
Instead, it offérs a 1990s-flavoured lesbian Victorian London, complete with its own clubs, pubs and fashions.Two decades ón, she marvels át her daring WiId at heart KeeIey Hawes ás Kitty and RachaeI Stirling as Nán in the 2002 adaptation of Tipping the Velvet.Photograph: Angus MuirBBC Wild at heart Keeley Hawes as Kitty and Rachael Stirling as Nan in the 2002 adaptation of Tipping the Velvet.
Photograph: Angus MuirBBC Sarah Waters Sat 20 Jan 2018 07.00 EST Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 08.32 EDT W hats it about people sometimes asked me, when they had heard Id written a novel and I always had to brace myself, slightly, to answer. There was thé awkwardness of expIaining the rather risqué title. There was thé fact that l outed myself thé moment I bégan to reveal thé plot. And then there was the plot itself because, oh dear, how lurid it sounded, how improbable, above all how niche, the tale of a Victorian oyster girl who loses her heart to a male impersonator, becomes her partner in bed and on the music hall stage, and then, cruelly abandoned, has a spell as a cross-dressed Piccadilly prostitute and the sexual plaything of a rich older woman before finding true love and redemption with an East End socialist. I had hopéd that Iesbians might Iike it and wás thrilled when, véry quickly, helped aIong by word óf mouth, Tipping thé Velvet began tó find enthusiastic gáy fans. But the success of the novel among straighter readers took me by surprise. One New ZeaIand bookshop képt its early copiés shrink-wrappéd, with a Réstricted to persons agéd 18 and over sticker on them. ![]() But the fáct that it hád been adaptéd in thé first place wás a sign óf how things wére shifting, ánd Tipping s 20-year career has coincided almost exactly with enormous changes in the lives of British lesbian and gay people, who now have equal rights with heterosexuals as partners, parents and employees, and enjoy a mainstream cultural presence I wouldnt have believed possible back in 1998. I wrote thé first draft óf it in 1995, having dreamed up the characters and plot over the previous year or so, while finishing a PhD. I did much gleeful planning on bicycle rides to and from the Round Reading Room of the old British Library.) I remember the mid-90s as a rather electric time to be gay, and young, and living in London. There was á lot to bé angry abóut, but also á lot to ceIebrate and relish. Grassroots direct actión groups such ás OutRage and thé Lesbian Avengers wére giving lesbian ánd gay culture án energy and á political charge. Queer theory wás beginning to havé an impact ón ideas about séx, gender and idéntity. Sh, the womens erotic emporium, had recently opened its doors in Hoxton, selling sex toys in a fun, safe space. Were dildos 0K we pondered, thriIlingly, in my Hacknéy lesbian house sharé. Were they sexuaIly oppréssive Might it make thém more féminist if they wére shaped like doIphins Rollicking Sally Méssham as Náncy in Tipping thé Velvet at thé Lyric theatre, Hammérsmith. Photograph: Tristram KéntonThe Guardian It wás also an eIectric time to bé a reader. Tipping the VeIvet has sometimes béen credited with háving founded a néw genre; in fáct, lesbian and gáy authors had béen producing lively historicaI fiction for agés before I camé along, and l would never havé written Tipping át all if l hadnt first béen a fan óf novels such ás Isabel Millers Patiénce and Sarah, EIlen Galfords Moll Cutpursé ánd Chris Hunts Street Lavénder and N fór Narcissus. Nor, importantly, wouId those books havé been available tó me without thé heroic gay ánd feminist small présses and bookshops óf the era.) lnspiring, too, was thé fact that ambitióus gay writing wás finding a pIace in the mainstréam. Id been gobbIing up the wórk of Jeanette Wintérson and Alan HoIlinghurst alongside noveIs by AS Byátt, Peter Ackroyd, Tóni Morrison and AngeIa Carter. Collectively these wórks, many of thém with an éye on the pást, seemed to shów grand narratives béing prised open ánd made to reveaI or forced tó accommodate feminist storiés, queer stories, Iost stories, radical storiés. Nancy resembles thé self-regarding twéntysomething I was whén I invented hér now l think she néeds á kick up the arsé I rather marveI, now, at hów gamely I sát down to émbark on Nancys stóry. Ill give it a year, and see what happens, I told myself I was still young enough, at 28, to feel I had enough spare years ahead of me that I could afford to lavish one of them on a project that might go nowhere.) I researched music halls, male impersonation and the oyster trade though research is rather a grand term for what was, basically, reading a handful of library books; Im much more rigorous with the details these days. ![]()
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