Set in Kensington in 1865, The Milliner and the Phrenologist is a highly visual novel with a strong emotional narrative. Through the drama of a developing relationship between Alice, a young milliner, and John Motton, a phrenologist, the novel examines the implications of trying to classify and contain human character and mind.
The story explores the two characters' different world-views in the context of the work they each do: the milliner trying to survive by creating fantastical hats for her eccentric and demanding clients, and the phrenologist attempting to maintain personal and social order by categorising people's mental and moral propensities. From their first meeting, Alice is suspicious of John Motton's work. As a milliner, Alice is concerned with the material world of fabric, texture, shape and colour. The differences between the two characters have subtle reverberations for our contemporary interests in reason versus faith. Here it is the female character who is the materialist, and the male character whose work has a quasi-religious element, despite the atheism of the phrenological movement. In the anxiety and desire for control generated by their interactions sexual tensions inevitably arise, but the outcomes are never predictable. -- Publisher: Cinnamon Press
