The prose in Milk Fever is accessible and inviting; it does not mimic the narratives of 18th-century Europe. Rather, it welcomes contemporary readers into a story which does not feel more than two hundred years old. So, there is gobbling and devouring but without a wholly anachronistic tone.
In this sense, Lissa Cowan’s work reminds me of Mary Novik’s style in novels like Muse, which also considers the position of European women in times of great political and social change.
And the author’s decision to root the narration in the voice of a marginalized observer recalls works like Pauline Holdstock’s Into the Heart of the Country, affording a voice to one who rarely appears in the historical record.
The oppressed may have limited opportunities for resistance, but in the pages of Milk Fever the women are fervent in their desire for change, even while the public sphere is slow to follow.
It is a pleasure to read such a quiet, revolutionary, woman-soaked story.
More details here, at BuriedInPrint.
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