Katherine's Wish
by Linda Lappin
Wordcraft, HK$132
Katherine Mansfield wrote many resonant short stories but her enduring appeal is owing to other factors. She was one of the first colonials to establish herself at the centre of London literary life; she had affairs with people of both sexes, which created an aura of scandal, and died early, at 34 in 1923, which added to her myth.
American author Linda Lappin has undertaken a daunting task in her novel about Mansfield. The trouble with fictional biographies of real people is readers often know the outlines of the story and are not given new insights into the characters: in this case, Mansfield's friend D.H. Lawrence is, as expected, both colourful and cussed while, again as expected, her handsome husband, literary critic Middleton Murry, is indecisive and lacklustre.
But Lappin, wearing 15 years of research into Mansfield lightly, rises to the challenges.
Instead of trying to trace Mansfield's whole life Lappin focuses on the last four years, when she was trying to write as much as possible before her likely death from consumption. Her contradictory Mansfield, both irritable and sensitive, is convincingly complex.
