Graphic history

Sally Heathcote: Suffragette by Mary M Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of (a limited number of) women being given the vote and while my book of the year last year was the wonderful Things A Bright Girl Can Do about the suffrage campaign I wanted to read more.

Around the February anniversary there were a lot of new non fiction books about the suffragettes and I have added them to my reading list to investigate when my reading stamina is improved, but in a lot of recommended lists I saw mention of Sally Heathcote: Suffragette. On looking the book up I found it was a graphic novel (a genre I always intend to read more of) and so reserved it from the library in the hope that my brain would cope with the format.

It took a while for it to be my turn to borrow the book (hurrah - it is popular!) and this did mean I am further along in recovery and after a few pages struggling with the different format I was drawn in.

Sally is a fictional character but is obviously based on detailed research into the suffrage campaign, and we follow her contacts with the movement from its early days in Manchester, through the split between the militant and peaceful branches, on to the real violence of the years before the First World War and then the war itself and the culmination of the campaign.

This little splashes of colour, especially for Sally's hair, help to keep the story straight in all of the scenes and I did become involved in her story, the little flash forwards were especially effective. I also very much liked how the tale did poke holes in the mythology that surrounds the Pankhursts, they were a complicated family and this is highlighted in the book.  I've always been uncomfortable with Emmeline and Christabel's total volte face on the outbreak of war and this is reflected very well here.

To make the narrative work Sally is obviously repeatedly in the right place at the right time which does sometimes seem a little improbable but it is the only way the authors/illustrator can give a complete overview of the movement, the book definitely follows the 'show not tell' school of story telling.

Without spoilers the last few pages of the story pack a real punch.

Overall I enjoyed this book, but I think that it should be taken as a version of the history of the Suffragettes and read in conjunction with other books on the subject. It is also not clear from a quick glance at the book that Sally is an amalgamation of characters and the book fiction not biography.