by BARRY HEALY
Mrs Engels
by Gavin McCrea (Melbourne: Scribe, 2015, 352 pages, A$29.99)
For those hankering to know what Friedrich Engels’ erect penis looked like, page 37 of this novel is for you. “In its vigours, it points up and a bit to the side”, says Lizzie Burns, the first-person narrator of the entire story.
She goes on: “Its cover goes all the way over the bell and bunches at the end like a pastry twist. Before he does anything he spits on his hand and peels this back.” Engels is quite enamoured of his member, it seems.
Gavin McCrea’s Lizzie Burns is a brilliant narrative voice and his writing sparkles. Lizzie’s rich brogue and her incisive humour are wonderful.
McCrea minutely researched daily life in Victorian England in order to bring domestic details to life — you can smell the stench and feel the press of the bodies. And if ever you thought that running a house with servants was easy Lizzie Burns has a thing or two to explain to you.
Eleanor Marx knew Lizzie Burns well. She wrote that “she was true, honest and in some ways as fine-souled a woman as you could meet”.
But McCrea has Lizzie Burns represent herself as an opportunist, manipulating Engels for her own financial security while grappling with her confused affections, which gives an inkling of his book’s failings.
Engels was Karl Marx’s closest collaborator. More than that, his financial support was vital for keeping the Marx family together body and soul — and funding the activities of many European revolutionaries.
Engels did this by working in his father’s Manchester cotton mill for decades. In Manchester he fell in love with Lizzie Burns’ older sister, Mary, and lived with her devotedly for 20 years.
Mary and Lizzie Burns
It was Mary Burns (and possibly Lizzie) who led him through the mean backstreets and working-class quarters that Engels famously depicted in The Condition of the Working Class in England.
After Mary’s death Lizzie and Engels became lovers. The novel switches backwards and forwards in time to incorporate all these events.
But the events are refracted through McCrea’s blurred prism and his vision is limited.
He has Mary and Lizzie working in the Ermen and Engels Manchester mill, which is unsupported by history. In fact, it is unlikely that they ever worked in any mill.
Excluded from this novel is the fact that the Burns sisters introduced Engels to Irish revolutionaries in Manchester. He was very impressed by them, despite not agreeing with their direct-action politics.
Engels became fascinated by Irish history through Mary and Lizzie Burns’ story-telling and appreciated Gaelic music and culture. Engels’ and Marx’s interest in Ireland, a significant part of their politics, was ignited by their contact with the Burns sisters.
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