The Brontё Girl by Miriam Halahmy

 

The Bronte Girl by Miriam Halahmy

A guest post today, from Miriam Halahmy, a good friend from the 'other SAS', The Scattered Author Society...

“I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.” Charlotte Brontё.

My new novel, The Brontё Girl, Zuntold Books, March 2024, is set in Haworth in 1847, the year of the publication of Jane Eyre. Kate, 15, comes from a very poor home in the village. But she has ambitions to write. She is offered work at The Parsonage, home of the Brontё family and comes to the attention of the sisters, especially Charlotte. Encouraged to borrow books and pursue her desire to write, Kate knows she is in a house full of secrets. Gradually she is thrilled to realise the sisters are also writers. But poverty and gender stand in Kate’s way and Luke Feather, who wants to marry her, believes writing stories is a waste of time.

As an important friendship develops with Charlotte, Kate begins to embrace the radical ideas of equality and the needs of women. But how can Kate achieve her ambitions to write, locked into the daily struggle to survive in Haworth?

I have always loved the Brontёs’ work but I was inspired to write this novel by a new biography of Charlotte, by Claire Harman. It is 1839 and a new servant appears at the Parsonage, Martha Brown. Harman writes that Martha is, “Strong, intelligent, able and loyal… but she was only eleven years old.”

That was the trigger, that wonderful moment of inspiration before the engine turns on.

What if a poor girl comes to work at the Parsonage and she is gifted? Her great desire – just like the Brontё sisters – is to write and be published. Then she comes to the attention of Charlotte Brontё. I decided to write a book which would open up the Brontёs life and work to a new generation of readers and especially their radical ideas about the role of women.

Ginnel, Haworth

I was awarded an Arts Council Grant to research and write the novel. Ann Dinsdale, Principal Curator at the Brontё Parsonage Museum, opened the archives for me. Steven Wood, local historian, walked me round the village discussing social history.

Haworth is a gift to an author. Every worn stone step, every narrow ginnal and cellar brought alive the 1840s for me. The pubs, the cemetery, the sexton’s house and the prize at the top; the Parsonage. The moors, Top Withins, Alcomden Stones; the heather, bilberries, peat bogs and streams. All provided endless inspiration.

I stood in the Parsonage, imagining scenes for my book. Kate in the kitchen while Emily made bread, her German grammar propped against a pot. Kate bringing coal to the sitting room, Anne with her feet up on the fender. Charlotte’s steely eyes fixed on Kate, inspiring her to read Thackeray. Branwell’s room strewn with half empty sheets of paper which Kate craves, horrified at the waste. She only has a stump of pencil and a tatty notebook for her stories.

On the path to Top Withins, believed to be the inspiration for 'Wuthering Heights'

In the archives I studied the little books brought out for me to see and read the sisters’ original letters and poems. I visited Brontё Brussels and I haunted the British Library. I accumulated three shelves of books and maps. Each piece of research added essential layers to my work, before the Brontёs uttered a word.

Charlotte's little book, 1830, aged fourteen years.

At a gathering of Brontё Society members in Haworth, last year, I was invited to read an extract from the manuscript and I chose to read the moment when Charlotte and Kate first meet. There were several Brontё academics in the room. It felt like the ultimate test.

One academic asked, “How can you bring alive in fiction these people who really existed?” I answered, “This is Kate’s story, and everything is through her eyes. My research allowed me to breathe life into all seven of the real people in my book.” Everyone said they wanted to read the book, which was a relief!

Miriam Halahmy

Pre-publication reviews have also been encouraging. Sharon Wright, author of Mother of the Brontёs: The Life of Maria Branwell, comments,

“An absorbing story… The book radiates with Halahmy’s meticulous research, allowing us to appreciate the harsh realities of life for Kate in 1840s Yorkshire - and her struggle to escape by writing, like Charlotte, because she cannot help it. A clever and insightful slant on the Brontës.”

In the momentous year of 1847, when the Brontё sisters published their novels and Jane Eyre took the
world by storm, Kate’s journey in my book, The Brontё Girl, mirrors the sisters’ hopes and dreams and asks, In a world of increasing inequality, how much have women’s rights really improved since those heady days?

Miriam Halahmy