There is no mistaking the distinctive voice and vividly crafted prose of Frances Hardinge. She is a writer who delights in language, and whose stories fizz with ideas, allusions and eccentric detail. In this dark, quasi-historical, quasi-fantastical tale, which is set in a post-Origin of the Species 19th century, Hardinge riffs on the themes of women’s place in society, evolution, nature and nurture, and the anatomy of lying.
“Listen, Faith. A girl cannot be brave, or clever, or skilled as a boy can. If she is not good, she is nothing. Do you understand?” So says the Reverend Erasmus Sunderly – gentleman scientist and Victorian patriarch – to Faith, his clever and devoted teenage daughter, who longs to follow in his footsteps and study natural science. Faith is hungry for knowledge and experience, yet she is constantly thwarted by the age and society into which she has been born. As a doctor and keen craniometrist tells her (with regard to the inferior size of the female skull and, ergo, intelligence), “too much intellect would spoil and flatten [the female mind] like a rock in a soufflé”. Little wonder that her frustration manifests itself in behaviour that is not always strictly ladylike.
The Lie Tree, Hardinge’s seventh novel, opens with the Sunderly family decamping from Kent to the isolated island of Vale. Faith discovers that the underlying motive for this abrupt move is to escape the growing scandal around the vicar’s recently published scientific findings. When tragedy strikes, and her father is found dead under suspicious circumstances, Faith determines to find out the cause of his death as well as to discover the nature of his scientific investigations, hoping, in the process, to save the family name and fortune. Being a mere girl, she must act clandestinely for, as her coquettish yet resourceful mother tells her: “Women find themselves on battlefields just as men do. We are given no weapons, and cannot be seen to fight. But fight we must, or perish.”
Hardinge draws a convincing picture of the times, peppering her narrative with flavoursome historical detail – ratting, craniometry, the treatment of left-handed children, after-death photography – but she also makes forays into the effects of Charles Darwin’s ideas on Victorian society. Faith’s father, a fossil hunter and man of God, entertains friends who race “their rival theories like prize ponies”, while noting in his diary that: “within our lifetime we have seen Heaven’s lamp smashed. We are the blink of an eye, a joke amidst a tragedy.”
Within this historical context, Hardinge introduces a fantastical element in the form of the eponymous Lie Tree. he tree “feeds” off lies and dispenses secrets in its fruits. Faith delights in spreading lies in the island community; she is empowered by her mendacity and rewarded by the clues she subsequently harvests. In a story that weaves in multiple themes that touch on belief, knowledge and accepted behaviour, the Lie Tree is a wonderfully symbolic invention: it will only grow in the dark and spontaneously combusts in the light. “A lie was like a fire … A slight breath would fan the new-born flames, but too vigorous a huff would blow it out”; whereas some lies had “a life and shape of their own, and there was no controlling them”.
With her trademark wit and intelligence, Hardinge steers the intricate plot to a satisfying conclusion. At once entertaining and provocative, this is rich and resonant fare that manages to do what all good fantasy and historical fiction does: shine a light on our world.
• Linda Buckley-Archer’s The Many Lives of John Stone will be published in October. To order The Lie Tree for £4.99 (RRP £6.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
