Timely, charged with tension
Author handles a charged subject with emotional intelligence and great skill, writes Georgie Hills.
Today’s #metoo movement gives real-life resonance to Sarah Vaughan’s engrossing new novel, Anatomy of a Scandal.
Part courtroom drama, part psychological page turner, it explores the interconnected lives of Britain’s powerful elite rocked by a sex scandal.
The set-up treads well-worn territory: the wheels fall off Sophie Whitehouse’s charmed life when her politician husband James’ affair with a sexy younger woman is splashed across the papers, leading to a sensationalised court case. So far, so Profumo you might think. Yet Vaughan’s story is a surprising and suspenseful departure from the tabloid trope of the Tory MP caught with his pants down.
Junior Minister James Whitehouse stands accused of raping his former lover at their place of work, in Parliamentary grounds. He may be guilty of cheating, but is he a victim of a scorned lover out for revenge? Coming from the land that invented the stiff upper lip, Sophie’s struggle to stand by her man is portrayed with believable anguish.
Prosecuting QC Kate Woodcroft is consumed by the case too. Professionally driven, emotionally brittle, she’s convinced Sophie’s husband is guilty and she’s determined to get to the truth and win her case.
With its riveting set pieces taking place in the oak panelled courtrooms of the Old Bailey, Whitehall’s corridors of power and the grassy quads of Oxford University, readers enter into the inner sanctum of the English establishment.
It’s a world Vaughan, a one-time political journalist, and Oxford alumna, knows well. She has a sharp eye for telling detail, particularly in the courtroom scenes. While Kate’s considered choice of footwear and robes looks the part, her tightly curled horsehair wig bought new rather than handed down the generations, betrays her outsider status. The going over of testimony in forensic detail and invasive personal interrogation in the court feels necessarily realistic and lends the book a propulsive tension.
Britain’s old boys’ club looms large. In what must surely be a knowing wink to former British PM David Cameron’s Bullingdon Club student days in Oxford, the exclusive male student membership of the Libertines revel in displays of wealth and wankery that come back to haunt them in later years.
This highly topical book comes out at a time where each passing day sees a new public figure brought down over sexual misconduct allegations.
All over the world the #metoo outpouring has highlighted the widespread problem of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. Vaughan handles a charged subject with emotional intelligence and great skill. The book richly deserves the buzzy talk surrounding its well-timed release.