Mrs Gulliver by Valerie Martin:

1950’s America, Mrs Gulliver runs a brothel and takes in a young visually impaired girl, Carita as an employee.  Before long, Carita is a favourite and falls in love with the wrong boy, creating trouble for herself; let alone Mrs Gulliver.  

The writer has a reputation for writing literary fiction and there is a lot of craft and graft here, it is after all a single prose piece of three hundred pages with no chapter breaks.  However, there is allow a lot of pulp elements here: sassy dames, threatening gangsters and dialogue so arch Dashiell Hammett could run a train over it.  

Above all this, is the concept of sex as a transaction - even in the best of relationships and how economic systems hold people in poverty.  It’s published by Serpent’s Tail on March 7th and I thank them for a copy.