Fishnet a novel by Kirstin Innes
Publisher Black and White Publishing
Twenty year old Rona Leonard walks out of her sister Fiona’s flat and disappears.
Six years on, worn down by a tedious job, child care and the aching absence in her life, Fiona’s mundane existence is blown apart by the revelation that, before she disappeared, Rona had been working as a prostitute. Driven to discover the truth, Fiona embarks on an obsessive quest to investigate the sex industry. As she is drawn into a complex world, Fiona makes shocking discoveries that challenge everything she believed, and will ultimately change her life forever.
Bittersweet, sensual and rich, Fishnet is a story of love and grief, interwoven with a empathetic, controversial take on the sex industry and its workers. An out standing novel, it challenges assumptions about power, vulnerability and choice.
MY REVIEW
Unsettling and seductive , this tale of two sisters is moving, gripping and unforgettable. First of all I have to express that all the characters in this novel are very convincing. I don’t think I’ve read a novel where characters have been so very believable. The author Kirstin has added adverts which sex workers have printed about them. One advert by Sonja, Have you been very, very bad? Would you like to be? I’m Sonja, a pierced, tattooed Scaninvian blonde who just wants to have fun. This novel explains a lot, things nice girls don’t do and a girl having sex for the first time for money. But nobody talks about what nice boys do or don’t do. I still think that men get away with far more than a woman in this kind of work. I found this quite a really sad read, how some women end up as prostitutes. How this story came together is that the author Kirstin Innes did a lot of research. In 2008 Kirstin was working as a journalist and was asked to interview women who did edgy sexy jobs for a feature. Adventurely Kirstin clicked on blog sites to some sex workers and discovered that one agreed to meet Kirstin, much later Kirstin Innes realised that she was writing her first novel about this world.
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