An expansive exploration of friendship and discrimination set in the historical world of Australian circus, The Magpie’s Sister fits a lot into its 325 pages. With nods towards influences as disparate as Joseph ‘Elephant Man’ Merrick and Cyrano de Bergerac, Kerri Turner tells the story of Maggie Bright, a young woman with a facial difference caused by tumours, and her life as an integral part of a travelling circus in the early 1900s.
Despite finding her performing role limited to appearing as the ‘Lagoon Creature’, Maggie is actually better off than many with perceived differences at the time, made clear when she visits a carnival and sees the distressing reality of the people in there designated as ‘freaks’ and spending their days being gazed at, and poked and prodded by curious or hostile crowds.
Maggie, on the other hand, is a vital and valued part of the circus and has a lovely and supportive relationship with the ringmaster Rafferty, who has also helped with her education and trusts her implicitly.
The narrative thrust of the novel revolves around Maggie’s complicated friendship with the beautiful funambulist, Charlotte, which begins one night when the two young women go out on the town and wind up inebriated and making the rash decision to get themselves tattoos. When Maggie then overhears Charlotte speaking dismissively of her she assumes she’s again facing the rejection to which she has become accustomed throughout her life. But Charlotte has hidden personal challenges too.
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Meanwhile there are other members of the circus who have their own concerns, with Turner paying particular attention to the double standards that apply when it comes migrants wanting to live in Australia and how a white skin has traditionally received preferential treatment. It’s a prejudice and systemic bias that Turner is clearly reminding us remains in place today, though perhaps not as overtly.
With subplots revolving around Maggie taking it upon herself to conduct an epistolary relationship with an admirer of Charlotte’s (the Cyrano allusion), the disparate lives of the other members of the circus family, and revelations of the backgrounds and formative experiences of both Maggie and Charlotte, Turner is able to create a convincing and detailed historical world, but view it through a 21st century lens steeped in awareness of sexual, racial and disability discrimination.
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The research is comprehensive and fascinating, painting a credible portrait of life on the road for circus folk of the period, but it’s the characters that give the novel its power. Fundamentally, Turner is stressing how some people’s challenges are impossible to hide – they are written on their skin, whether that be by colour or physical difference. But for others, who may appear on the surface to have a charmed and easy life, it may simply be that their traumas and tragedies are on the inside sheltered from view. And how Maggie and Charlotte eventually come to understand each other’s perspectives and deepest truths is really rather beautifully and compassionately told.
The Magpie’s Sister by Kerri Turner
Publisher: Echo Publishing
ISBN: 9781760687878
Format: paperback
Pages: 325pp
RRP: $32.99
Publication date: 2 May 2023
