First Novel for Sussex Downs Lecturer
Lecturer Kay Syrad who works at Sussex Downs College has just had her first novel published. The title of this new work is ‘The Milliner and the Phrenologist’ a story set in 1860s London. It is a period of discovery, competing ideas and rigid social hierarchy.
It has been hailed as a remarkable, ambitious and compelling debut novel, which is highly original and visual, brimming with delicious wit and a Victorian narrative that taps into the current zeitgeist.
Kay has taught at the college since 1988. She co-runs and teaches Literature on the one-year Access to Higher Education Course, which enables students who feel they have not previously fulfilled their potential at school or college to prepare for university-level study.
Her poetry has been published in a wide range of journals and anthologies. She is particularly interested in the nature of perception, which she explores in her poetry publication ‘Objects of Colour’, and which is the subject of a new novel currently under construction. Kay is also co-author of a Thames and Hudson monograph ‘Silent Spaces’ on the artist Chris Drury.
The Milliner and the Phrenologist
1860s London: a period of discovery, competing ideas and rigid social hierarchy. When Alice Heapy, an unusual and artistic young milliner, daringly sets up her own business,the mother of John Motton, eminent phrenologist, isamongst the first of her bourgeois and eccentric clients.Alice is intrigued by the phrenologist’s belief that he candetermine his clients’ character and moral capacity bymeasuring their heads, whilst Motton is astonished at thepower Alice’s poetic hats exert on the lives of his motherand her peculiar friends. But under each other’s exactingand increasingly hostile gaze, Alice and Motton begin toreveal—and, in desperation, attempt to conceal—their owncharacters.
As Alice and Motton play out the ferocious Victoriantensions between social classes, men and women, scienceand art, faith and reason—tensions which continue tochallenge us—we are drawn into the sensuous imagery andsubtle humour of this sharply observed drama, eager toknow where it will lead. A highly original and visual novel,brimming with delicious wit, The Milliner and the Phrenologistis a remarkable debut from Kay Syrad.
Kay’s novel is published by Cinnamon Press. For more information go to www.cinnamonpress.com
