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Lucky Bunny
On sale
4th August 2011
Price: £17.99
Crime is a man’s business, so they say, though not according to Queenie Dove. A self-proclaimed genius when it comes to thieving and escape, she reckons she’s done pretty well. Yes, she had a tough childhood in London’s East End during the Depression, with a father in and out of prison. But she survived the Blitz, learned how to get by on her wits, and soon graduated from shoplifting to more glamorous crimes. Daring, clever and sexy, she thrived in the Soho of the Krays and the clubs of Mayfair, fell wildly in love, and got away with it all. Or did she?
For beneath Queenie’s vivacious, unrepentant account lies another story – of punishment and loss, and a passionate relationship that turns sour. To the end, she believes she was lucky, but did she simply play the hand that fate dealt her? Vividly portraying the times and circles she moved in, Lucky Bunny captures an intriguing, engaging woman as it questions how far we are in control of our own lives.
For beneath Queenie’s vivacious, unrepentant account lies another story – of punishment and loss, and a passionate relationship that turns sour. To the end, she believes she was lucky, but did she simply play the hand that fate dealt her? Vividly portraying the times and circles she moved in, Lucky Bunny captures an intriguing, engaging woman as it questions how far we are in control of our own lives.
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Reviews
Female fictional bandits and rogues often have a novelty value, and Queenie is no exception...Dawson's heroine is so fresh and spirited that she carries the day
Queenie's voice remains lively and vivid, her story described sensually, full of sound and smell and colour. But what does her chirpy tone hide? A good narrative voice shows the character not just by what they say but by how they say it. So on the face of it LUCKY BUNNY is a less sober story than, say, WATCH ME DISAPPEAR, Dawson's extraordinary study of childhood and sexuality. Indeed, it's a treat to read. However, we have warnings from the beginning that Queenie is not necessarily telling us the whole truth.
Pacy and atmospheric, this tale of a girl attempting to dictate her own destiny is wickedly good
Dawson's eye for period detail is unerring, as Queenie flits glamorously through Mayfair nightclubs and Hackney council estates alike, with namechecks for the Dockers, Diana Dors and the Krays... She bursts out of these pages, longing for life, as we are drawn into her world by Dawson's terse, electric prose. I've seldom read a novel with such a sense of excitement. And the fact that we find ourselves rooting for the wonderfully wicked Queenie through all her uproarious and emotional capers only underlines the subtle and affirming art of her creator.
A moving, wonderfully evocative story of love, danger and passionate intensity
Heart-rippingly painful and joyously playful. A major prize-winning contender.
I adored Queenie Dove: she is such a force of nature, a compelling character who arrives in the world with nothing to live on except huge reserves of wit. Queenie's sassy optimism and charm is so convincing that all the time I was rooting for her I had to keep reminding myself that this was a novel and not a memoir. It's the best thing I've read for ages.
a rambunctiously riotous yarn
Queenie - tiny, whippet-smart, mischievous - is born to crime. Dawson's heroine is so fresh and spirited
Dawson, as ever, delves deep into her subject matter, combining fast-paced narrative with astute, piercing reflection on more complex matters... [Her] research into the period is impeccable: everything from shared outdoor lavatories to sleazy Soho nightlife is vividly evoked, and the small details - Nan's mouth bulging with bullseyes; the Second World War posters that urge "Keep Mum, she's not so dumb!"; the variety of ways in which men fraudulently avoided enlistment - transport the reader.
In Dawson's capable hands, thieving Queenie's story is far more than just crime caper. An award winning poet, Dawson shrewdly uses her heroine's undeniably clever but poorly educated point of view to evocative and sometimes lyrical effect, the author's use of language is pure, simple and shimmering.
She leaves us with some unforgettable images: some horrifying, like the wartime night when dozens of Londoners were crushed to death in the underground as they tried to flee German bombs, some beautiful, like the way Queenie's newborn baby's eyes change in days 'from inky blue to the blue of a mussel shell to a lighter, more astonishing colour, vivid as a thread of blue ice in snow'. Lucky Bunny is admirable, too, for the way its fizzing narrative is grounded in a cool-eyed awareness of the social and sexual injustices of the mid-20th century
a romping read, saved from sordidness by the skill and energy Jill Dawson puts into her characters, especially Queenie - flinty-hearted minx that she is.
Jill Dawson is one of those writers so gifted and assured you relax just five words in. Take me anywhere you like, you say to the book. I'm in your hands. Where Jill takes you here is down the old East End, through a horrid World War II childhood, a spell in jail and hten the glamourous, but seedy underworld of the Fifties. Admittedly it doesn't sound so lucky and heroine Queenie is no angel. But she's resourceful, funny, brave and beautiful. You're on her side from that fifth word in I mentioned.
Jill Dawson has created a lively, absorbing page-turner and Queenie is such a charismatic villain, you will be barracking for her all the way.
it is a testament to Dawson's skill that beneath the excitement there is always the ghost of the girl Queenie used to be, anxious, unloved, frightened, tough and determined to keep on going... Despite its surface thrills and spills and Krays era glamour, Lucky Bunny is a novel of great concern, human sympathy and seriousness. It is a novel of ideas and society, disguised as a romp...In the end I understood and admired Queenie Dove - and admired Jill Dawson, too, for creating something so fine from such brutish elements.