Intriguing and atmospheric historical mystery
Although a conscious escape from ‘spinsterhood and all the humiliations that went with it’, Rebecca Palmer’s marriage to pharmacist, Alexander, is not what she anticipated. Shocked when Rebecca shows small signs of sexual pleasure, Alexander chooses to interpret this as an indication of ‘unnatural’ urges that need to be controlled. It turns out he has just the drug to do it, an as yet unnamed ‘wonder drug’ that he has been developing in his laboratory above the pharmacy.
Initially the ‘medicine’ her husband prescribes (described by him as like bathing ‘an individual’s brain in a vat of contentment’) eases Rebecca’s anxieties and provokes pleasant dreams, memories of her first love, Gabriel. However, since we soon learn that this ‘wonder drug’ is in fact heroin, unsurprisingly Rebecca finds herself increasingly dependent on the drug to get through the day. And, as events unfold, it transpires Rebecca is not the first person to have been subjected to Alexander’s experiments.
With the exception of Gabriel, none of the male characters come out very well from the story. Alexander, as well as using his wife as a guinea pig for his pharmaceutical experiments, is revealed to have unusual sexual proclivities and fetishes. Alexander’s friend and business partner, the aptly named Mr Badcock, is a particularly unpleasant example of manhood. Ironically, when both men eventually learn of the other’s vices, their hypocritical response is to condemn each other’s actions.
I really enjoyed the period atmosphere of the book and the descriptions of 19th century Edinburgh, including the less salubrious parts of the Old Town. ‘Here the streets were not as straight as they were in New Town. They stuttered with differently angled, differently sized houses and lurched into the alleyways as if they were drunk.’
The Pharmacist’s Wife convincingly illustrates the stages of drug dependency, with higher and higher doses needed to achieve the desired result, and the dreadful effects of addiction. It also engages with the inequality between men and women at that time. Sexual, economic, legal and psychological power all rested in the hands of men. It’s a time when even a normal bodily function such as menstruation is regarded as a ‘disease’ and when it was seriously believed that ‘women’s temperament…could not bear as much as men.’ Child birth, anyone?
Initially the ‘medicine’ her husband prescribes (described by him as like bathing ‘an individual’s brain in a vat of contentment’) eases Rebecca’s anxieties and provokes pleasant dreams, memories of her first love, Gabriel. However, since we soon learn that this ‘wonder drug’ is in fact heroin, unsurprisingly Rebecca finds herself increasingly dependent on the drug to get through the day. And, as events unfold, it transpires Rebecca is not the first person to have been subjected to Alexander’s experiments.
With the exception of Gabriel, none of the male characters come out very well from the story. Alexander, as well as using his wife as a guinea pig for his pharmaceutical experiments, is revealed to have unusual sexual proclivities and fetishes. Alexander’s friend and business partner, the aptly named Mr Badcock, is a particularly unpleasant example of manhood. Ironically, when both men eventually learn of the other’s vices, their hypocritical response is to condemn each other’s actions.
I really enjoyed the period atmosphere of the book and the descriptions of 19th century Edinburgh, including the less salubrious parts of the Old Town. ‘Here the streets were not as straight as they were in New Town. They stuttered with differently angled, differently sized houses and lurched into the alleyways as if they were drunk.’
The Pharmacist’s Wife convincingly illustrates the stages of drug dependency, with higher and higher doses needed to achieve the desired result, and the dreadful effects of addiction. It also engages with the inequality between men and women at that time. Sexual, economic, legal and psychological power all rested in the hands of men. It’s a time when even a normal bodily function such as menstruation is regarded as a ‘disease’ and when it was seriously believed that ‘women’s temperament…could not bear as much as men.’ Child birth, anyone?