From the very beginning his empathy towards women was a powerful influence on his work. H.E. was only 20 when he wrote his first novel, The Two Sisters, an intimate portrait of two young sisters oppressed by their father following the death of their mother. His publishers assumed it must have been written by a woman.
Many of his early novels reflect the struggles and determination of the women in his family. The Feast of July was inspired by his broken hearted grandmother who died of grief when her lover refused to marry her following the birth of their child. In The Poacher, A House of Women and The Fallow Land he also returns to the landscapes of his youth and the stories of women whose families survival depended on them alone.
Bruno Shadwell’s epic story in the novel Spella Ho is also the story of the women he befriends, loves and betrays on his journey from poverty to riches, to prison and riches again. Ambitious, admired, feared and hated, he is the epitome of an age greedy for industrialisation and power.
