Soho

by Fiona Mozley, Agnieszka Walulik (Translator)

W zgiełku londyńskiego Soho, wśród teatrów, sex-shopów i pubów, stoi pewien budynek. Siedemnastowieczna kamienica przy anonimowej ulicy nie robi wielkiego wrażenia, może jednak poszczycić się doskonałą lokalizacją, a Agatha Howard – młoda milionerka z fortuną tajemniczego pochodzenia – postanawia, że to idealne miejsce na wybudowanie apartamentowca. Najpierw jednak musi pozbyć się dotychczasowych lokatorów.

Problem w tym, że Precious i Tabitha, które mieszkają i pracują w spornym budynku, nie zamierzają odejść po cichu. Przez „Soho” przewija się wraz z nimi korowód innych bohaterów, których losy splatają się z sobą w niecodziennych okolicznościach: Robert – dawniej członek skrajnie prawicowej grupy, egzekutor pracujący dla ojca Agathy; Bastian – bogaty i niezadowolony z życia imprezowicz tęskniący za byłą dziewczyną; Jackie – policjantka dążąca do tego, by Londyn był bezpiecznym miejscem dla wszystkich kobiet; oraz Cheryl – jedna z wielu osób w kryzysie bezdomności, które zamieszkują piwnicę tego budynku. Ich historie się krzyżują, a na jaw wychodzą zaskakujące, dotychczas ukryte relacje łączące bohaterów powieści. Wojna o nieruchomość w gentryfikowanym Londynie wybucha z wielką siłą.
Łotrzykowska, zabawna, ironiczna i doskonale skomponowana powieść Mozley podejmuje problem bogactwa i dziedziczenia, władzy i gender, oraz tego, co muszą robić kobiety, by przetrwać w niesprawiedliwym świecie.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, LGBT, London, Feminism, Novels

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 2021

About the author

Fiona Mozley grew up in York and went to King's College, Cambridge, after which she lived in Buenos Aires and London. She is studying for a PhD in medieval history. Elmet is her first novel and it has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017.

Reviews

[Vee 27 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't usually leave bad reviews for books, but I felt so disheartened and upset after I read this that I wanted to warn others.

I'm a sex worker and I've worked across London, like a few of the characters in the book. I'm used to seeing myself represented in an unflattering, offensive and patronizing light but this book was different. Maybe because it tried to be written from the perspective of a sex worker, maybe because Mozley thought it was satire. Maybe Mozley thought she was doing sex workers a favour by "giving a voice to the voiceless." I thought maybe it would be different so when a friend offered to lend me a proof copy, I took it. Honestly, I wanted to like it.

The language Mozley uses is archaic and offensive. She makes out that sex workers sit around making crude comments about being too stupid to work in Tescos unless they can give blowjobs to customers. She glosses over the entire sex worker rights movement, even though the Soho raids (which she writes about) were led by the English Collective of Prostitutes, a huge sex worker rights organization which started in the 1970s. She clearly knew they existed because she has lifted imagery straight from their archives, but she never thought to actually research them.

Maybe Mozley's fans will tell me this is fiction, it's not supposed to be real, I'm looking too much into this. But she takes real situations, real historical moments, and doesn't even do her research properly. Sex workers fight tooth and nail just to be acknowledged as humans. We need all the help we can get. She uses hateful language - language that sex workers are trying to get people to stop using - and dresses it up as comedy. As a sex worker who has been on the receiving end, it genuinely upset me to read. Add in the clunky and unconvincing story and vacant characters and there wasn't much else to keep me engaged.

Mozley clearly doesn't give a shit about sex workers struggles and sees them as fodder for her crappy book. Fine. Sex workers will write her off as a hack.

[Paromjit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fiona Mozley's debut novel which I enjoyed, Elmet, was shortlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize, her latest shifts from the rural setting of Yorkshire to the bustling urban milieu of Soho in London. Whilst these are markedly different places, there are common themes of identity, community, class, wealth, power, gentrification, political activism and inheritance in the two books. Here, we are given the vibrant history of change and the distinct development of Soho, and the contemporary challenges it faces in retaining its diversity, soul and character against the relentlessly powerful, driving forces of capital, the developers and the profiteering that is shaping the London of today. Agatha has inherited a property portfolio from her gangster father, which includes a crumbling Soho house and its tenants. Her father's ex-driver, Roster, is her right hand man, and her ruthless agenda is to evict everyone, a process of displacing and replacing, and turning the house into luxury flats and up market restaurants.

There is a wide cast of disparate but interconnected characters, and we get to learn of their stories, including those wanting to be actors and more privileged graduates. There is a brothel, the sensitively portrayed Nigerian Precious and Tabitha are sex workers by choice, not facing the hazards and dangers of working on the streets. Unlike the desperate and exploitative world of sex trafficking and pimps, with clients like ex-enforcer Robert, they have power and income that they now stand to lose. They decide to fight and campaign against the development, drawing in others into the battle. In the basement cellar are those who exist on the margins of society, like drug addicts, who have lost their real names and are known as, for example, Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee. The narrative takes an unexpected direction into the fantastical, the underworld of the darkest fairytales, in stark contrast with the rest of the novel.

Mozley handles the intricacies and connections of the varied characters with skill, although perhaps there is a weakness in her creation of clearly defined heroes and villains rather than more nuanced individuals. This is a beautifully written book, fun and entertaining, dealing with the issues and challenges that affect our contemporary realities regarding urban development in our capital city, the tensions that simmer and arise with class, property, power and wealth, along with looking at the context of sex and the nature of sexual politics, although I was not a fan of some of the author's writings on sex. Many thanks to John Murray Press for an ARC.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like her breakout debut Elmet, Mozley's sophomore effort deals with questions of ownership, gentrification, and inheritance. This time though, the author takes us to present-day Soho, where a rich heiress named Agatha (her mother a golddigger with a humble background, her deceased father an infamous crime lord) tries to gentrify buildings, but didn't expect the sex workers of an old brothel to fight back. Mozley gives us a large cast of characters in order to investigate questions of class, power, gender, and agency, from the vagaonds who live in the basement of the brothel, to the privileged son of Agatha's lawyer, to Robert, a customer of the brothel who used to do the dirty work for Agatha's criminal father, Lorenzo, a struggling actor who befriends the much older Robert, to Tabitha and Precious, two sex workers who are the stars of the cast, and many others.

And it's the vivid portrayal of these people and the dynamic between them that makes the novel such a joy to read. This especially goes for the sex workers: Although the text makes a point that many prostitutes are victims of human trafficking and pimps, the characters the narrative focuses on are women with agency who chose their occupation themselves, they are strong and show solidarity towards each other. And while some parts of the text are slightly drawn out and overly descriptive, the people who populate the novel guarantee that the reader doesn't lose interest in the trials and tribulations of the various characters (who are also easy to distinguish, because most of them are well written).

Another strength of the book is that while it starts out as realistic fiction, it later introduces a surreal storyline that reads as if it was taken from a dark fairy tale (and I am sure that this part will prove controversial and many readers will detest it); I don't want to spoil the part, but it has to do with a dark hole, the literal underworld of the contested area in SoHo - I'm not sure in how far this is the case in English-language literature, but there is quite a lot of German lit that works with people and objects hidden underground to discuss the subconscious (recent point in case: Das flüssige Land, but most famously Kafka's The Burrow, and of course my favorite author, Kracht, with Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten). In Mozley's book, the underground becomes a multi-layered metaphor, and I found that pretty clever - but the reader has to accept that this part breaks off the realist approach.

But then again, the novel has quite some weaknesses: The world depicted is far too black-and-white, with the evil rich lady attacking the good societal outsiders - this stark contrast ultimately undermines the author's point, as it's just too crude. In this context, some twists just seem bizarre (this sex scene...I mean: come on) and fit too snugly into a certain worldview. The text would be more challenging if Agatha was more complex.

Although Mozley still doesn't quite live up to her potential, I had fun reading the book, because it breathes the joy of storytelling. The most sophisticated novel ever written this is not, and some parts are even intellectually lazy, but hey, sometimes a fun, smart book is all you need.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know that the word “stew” is Elizabethan slang for brothel? Given that tid-bit, the title “Hot Stew” brings on a whole different idea of what this book is about. And yes, it’s about a brothel, or the survival of a certain brothel in Soho London.

This is a quirky novel, not one for the masses. Those who are familiar with London will enjoy the backdrop of the story. I am not a London expert, so I think I might have missed a lot. London isn’t necessarily a character, but it weighs heavily in the story.

The story is about the gentrification of a poorly maintained building in Soho. The owner of the building wants it torn down so she can make more money updating it and commercializing it. The inhabitants, one being a brothel and one being a flop house for homeless people(in other words, the marginalized people in society), supply the story with clever insights and storylines. Of course the brothel background is the best, although those homeless were entertaining as well. That said, author Fionna Mozley writes the homeless authentically and there are some very sad parts…drinking liquids from the trash, eating food from the trash.

The brothel in this story is a collective. There is no pimp or matron of the house. The girls work when the want. If a man behaves badly, they are kicked out. The girls are safe and they enjoy their work as much as any office worker. They decide to protest the destruction of their building, and the protest is a bit fun, sort of mocking the feminist.

This is a basic story of eviction and the battle between landlord and tenants. But there is so much more with all the zany characters. It is a literary beauty, although a bit choppy here and there. When I was a bit disinterested in a part of the story, the writing alone kept me reading.

I enjoyed reading this one. It’s a bit odd, so I wouldn’t recommend it to all readers.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize

After her debut novel “Elmet” was unexpectedly but deservedly longlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize – the author was asked by the Booker Prize website what she was working on next and answered

“Another novel. It contains similar themes to Elmet – property, ownership, gentrification - but the setting and characters are very different. It also has many voices, so there has been a stylistic shift too”

In a TLS 20-question interview after her shortlisting, when asked what subject she found it most challenging to write about and answered

Sex, both explicitly and implicitly. Sex doesn’t feature in Elmet but it also appears on every page. It’s something I struggle to write about though, both through prudishness and because it presents such a complex confluence of physicality, emotion and politics. You cannot write about the politics of sex without capturing the physical and emotional elements. Equally, you cannot describe the physical activity (or activities) without drawing on the social context or the power-dynamics that are present in any sexual encounter. At least, I’m not sure you can write about sex well without considering all those aspects.

This, her sophomore novel, is the novel that is referred to in her Booker interview – and also one that takes head on the challenge of the TLS interview (not I would say always successfully – one sexual scene would be far better excised from the book I think).

The book is set in 21st Century Soho – and features a Dickensian number of people connected to a building and pub (the Aphra Behn) there – as a cross-section, and non-too-subtle examination of trends in London life. I was reminded a little of John Lanchester’s “Capital” in that respect.

The cast includes:

- Precious (daughter of a Nigerian pastor, now a sex worker) and her companion and “Maid” Tabitha who live on the top floor and roof garden of the building – and various other sex workers who rent rooms in the same building

- Agatha – the ruthless last born daughter of a local gangster via her Russian mother Anastasia )(appropriately seen as a gold-digger) – who has inherited (to the disgust of his middle daughters) and now manages his extensive property portfolio – including the building which she wants to redevelop into luxury flats and restaurants (leading to a protest by the sex workers that is a reminder of the rent strikes in “Elmet”) . Her minder is her Father’s ex-driver and right hand man Roster, and her companion a borzoi dog Fodor

- Bastian – the Cambridge educated son of Agatha’s lawyer (his girlfriend Rebecca, ex-flame Laura)

- Robert – a one time enforcer for Agatha’s father via (hard not to be reminded of Mr Price and Daddy) now a customer of the sex workers and drinker at the Aphra Bern

- Lorenzo an aspiring actor who ends up playing a Brothel owner in a Game of Thrones rip-off – and who is a friend of Robert as well as of Glenda – Laura’s best friend now squatting above the pub

- A group of down and outs who occupy a basement and who include The Archbishop as well as a man nicknamed Paul Daniels (as her performs magic tricks for small tips) and his sidekick (inevitably Debbie McGee).

As an aside their introduction in the second chapter made me wonder if the novel should be set in (Mrs) Merton rather than Soho ……

- A suburbs-based policeworker concerned with a rise in Missing People and possible sex trafficking (who fixes on the case of Debbie McGee) and her boss who has designs on a run for the Mayor and on any funding that Agatha can provide for his ambitions

- Not to forget a snail …. (who comes at the end of what is an excellent first few pages and sweeping history of Soho including the likely basis of its name which of course - something I always find fascinating - is not the same as the derivation of the New York SoHo)

As an aside Aphra Behn was (in real life) a Restoration playwright – who (per Wikipedia) was groundbreaking for being one of the first English women to earn her living by writing – and both the challenges for women to earn a living (and to have agency over their own fate) and the idea of groundbreaking are rather key to the novel.

Because as well as a book about buildings and about property rights and the history and evolution of an area – this is also a book about what goes on below ground – as both Crossrail and the ultra-rich tendency towards basement cinema/swimming pools feature in the book.

And there are frequent references to earth/dirt – for example we are told (of Fedor as he sniffs the soil) that “Through its nose, a dog deals with history”, the one section in the suburbs contrasts the good dirt (soil, compost, organic matter) there with the grime and residue that is the dirt of Soho.

My review from Elmet containts a quote “The soil was alive with ruptured stories that cascaded and rotted then found form once more and pushed up through the undergrowth and back into our lives.” – and this actually serves to capture one of the key parts of the novel – and in particular one of its more fantastical element. Jjust like “Elmet” this is a book with an almost fairy tale and rather implausible element to it – as well as one with a rather black and white, hero/villain view of capitalism.

And similarly to “Elmet” the book ends with a property based show down which turns rather apocalyptical.

Nevertheless (and perhaps in contrast to “Elmet”) it is fun to read – if anything too expansive (some story lines and characters seem largely incidental) compared to the almost claustrophobic “Elmet” .

So given one of the characters – my overall conclusion for literary fiction fans rather writes itself

You’ll like this .... Not a lot, but you’ll like it.

My thanks to John Murray Press for for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars
I really enjoyed Mozley’s first novel Elmet, I didn’t enjoy this one. It is set in a run-down section of Soho. The word stew in old English means brothelIt concerns a clash of cultures. The novel centres around an old building in Soho, the top floors of which are a brothel. The owner of the building has inherited her father’s wealth and property at a young age (he is a deceased criminal/gangland figure). She wants to tear the building down and redevelop it as upmarket flats/restaurants etc. There are nods to the history of the place and the changing nature of the population:
“After the war, the concrete came, and parallel lines, and precise angles that connected earth to sky. Houses were rebuilt, shops were rebuilt, and new paving stones were laid. The dead were buried. The past was buried. There were new kinds of men and new kinds of women. There was art and music and miniskirts and sharp haircuts to match the skyline.”
The rampant capitalist is called Agatha, she inherited her father’s minder (Roster) and has a rather elegant Borzoi (there is a very unpleasant incident with a Yorkshire Terrier in this which seemed entirely gratuitous). The brothel consist of a number of women, but the main players are a Nigerian sex worker called Precious and her maid Tabitha. There are also a number of people who primarily live of the streets who congregate in the basements and on the streets around. Two of them have the sobriquets Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee. The local pub the Aphra Benn also features and in particular Robert, an aging ex-enforcer who is a regular at the brothel. Floating around all this are a group of twenty somethings who are just starting to make their way in life. Their links to the central participants are very tangential and it isn’t at all clear why they are actually in the novel.
There is a fair amount of what is meant to comic ribaldry. I felt that the attempts to introduce a comedic element did not work. The portrayal of the sex workers is really problematic and a lot of the humour of the novels comes from them, but also feels like it is at their expense. When Vollmann writes about sex workers he gives them agency (or has in those of his works I have read), but here I’m really don’t think that happens. They are the underdogs and the reader is meant to feel sympathy, but they are also the butt of the jokes.
There have been issues like this in Soho over recent years with police raids and the like and protests from sex workers; all this is well documented. Mozley uses this, but this is far from a plea for the marginalised and the issue of trafficking is not addressed at all. What happens here is that a story about gentrification is spiced up by the addition of sex workers who make jokes about “blow job counters at Tesco”. I think Mozley misrepresents genuine dilemmas and a genuine history of protest. And the ending is a complete mess.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hot Stew is Mozley's sophomore effort. Her debut Elmet reached critical acclaim earning nominations for both the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Award. Agatha Howard is the sole beneficiary of her father's wealth. She has decided to renovate his properties so that she can turn over the properties for a hefty profit. But first she must clean up the area by evicting the "undesirable" tenants who have long standing leases. At the same time she must contend with her half sisters as they fight for what they believe is their rightful portion of their father's inheritance.

The Aphra Behn is a pub in the soho section of London that houses a brothel upstairs and a homeless camp in its basement. Among the colorful people that live there is a couple of drug addicts nicknamed Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee named so because of the magic tricks they play with customers' money and Tabitha and Precious who are sex workers.

"All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn . . . for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."

 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Indeed a hot stew is brewing as these women join forces to protect their home. Protests break out and draw the attention of feminists, religious zealots, politicians and the press. Mozley is pretty clear cut on who the good guys are in all this as she examines power and gentrification.

Perhaps the best part of the book for me was when Precious discusses the agency of women and ownership of our bodies. It was a different take on sex work. None of these women were being "pimped out". They have come to this life through different avenues, but work as a collective to protect and take care of one another. There is one scene where Precious and Tabitha are asked whether they are a couple. Tabitha responds that not only do they share a bed but they share finances. They go on vacations together. When one is sick the other nurses her back to health. If they have a rough day the other is there to listen to them vent and run them a bath. The depth of their relationship is beautiful. But Mozley tells us early on that their relationship is not sexual. The problem comes in how we view and define "couple". If you define couplehood by sex then you are reducing it to something so very basic, as sex is a fundamental need. What really makes a couple? Our ideas about sex are constantly being tested in this book. I was with Mozley when she was talking about how women can choose to have sex, that we can desire and enjoy sex, that we can define what it means to us. But when I got to that one sex scene - EWW! All I can say is that it was really awkward and even if I ascribe the concepts of choice and control to it , I did not see how it added anything of substance to Mozley's message.

For the most part the other women were rather ancillary and do not get much treatment in the book. In fact there are so many characters that I had to draw myself a map. At first I was getting frustrated, but then I thought about how fantasy novels are constructed and the time authors take for world building. The way I'm seeing it now is that Fiona Mozley is building up this world so that while the action is brewing and old secrets are bubbling up to the surface we can see more clearly the extensive impact that these power struggles have on this community.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Agatha considers this half of the exhibition to be bland, predictable. The themes illuminated by the photographs draw upon standard modes of leftist disaffection. The usual moaning. Perhaps these people think they’re being very clever, but as far as Agatha is concerned, the work is derivative.

Hot Stew is the second novel from the previously Booker shortlisted Fiona Mozley. It begins with a history of Soho, showcasing the many changes over the centuries, which concludes:

Trade and commerce and common sense and common decency prevailed, and men and women availed themselves of all opportunities. New roads were laid; office blocks shot up. And luxury flats stood on crumbling slums like shining false teeth on rotten gums.

This could have set the scene for a novel about a brave property developer helping to bring the area into the 21st century, and tackle climate change into the bargain by improving energy efficiency, but instead this is a novel where the property developer is cartoonishly evil, and the 'heroes' are on the other side, lamenting the replacement of bulbs with LEDs or praising houses that leak heat:

The building stood on this street when Samuel Pepys walked along it. Or, if not Samuel Pepys, then never-bored Samuel Johnson. The floors are warped from years of use, so dropped pencils roll from one side to the other. The door frames are tilted, and, rather than having been mended or propped up, the doors have been shaved and sanded to the new shape. The windows are single glazed and the wooden window frames are chipped and draughty. In winter, wind sneaks through.

In a TLS interview after her first novel, Mozley said, in response to what defined good literature the following, which set off double alarm bells in my mind.

Innovation is overrated. Our obsession with innovation – literary or otherwise – is part of the capitalist project.

And the implied politics (its the sort of novel where characters argue that “volunteering denigrates the value of labour and that charities prop up capitalism”) are very present here, as well as a novel that certainly doesn’t attempt to push literary boundaries, with lines like:

The pressures of finals got to them both, and they were ‘on a break’, like Ross and Rachel from Friends.

and

She turns the camera over in her hands and presses some buttons on the back. Lorenzo and Robert hear a beeping sound and assume the photos have been deleted.

In the same interview when asked what she found it most difficult to write about the author replied “sex, both explicitly and implicitly” and indeed one scene in this novel has already set a high bar for the Literary Review’s Bad Sex awards.

It is a novel that two of my other Goodreads friends have highlighted as “fun” to read, but I’m afraid I found rather tedious.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC, but this was very disappointing for me.

1.5 stars

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fiona Mozley's first book Elmet was a surprising but welcome inclusion on the 2017 Booker shortlist, so in a sense this is her difficult second novel. Although parts of it work quite well, and it is admirable in trying to do something very different to the first book, I am not convinced it really came together.

Perhaps I am just a little bored with novels set in London (most of this one is set in Soho) and books that follow disparate characters alternately a chapter at a time. One thing the book does capture quite well is the fragility of London lives, the gulf between rich and poor and the growing impossibility of life in London for those on the margins.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Did you know in Tudor times all the brothels were south of the river in Southwark and it was only much later that they moved up this way to Soho. Stews, they were called then.”
“Yes, you have told me that before.”

Like her Booker-nominated novel Elmet, Fiona Mozley’s followup — Hot Stew — concerns issues of identity, ownership, gentrification, and those on the margins who get pushed out as the ultra-rich move in. But where Elmet was set in an idyllic and seemingly ageless hinterland, Hot Stew occurs in the seethe of modern-day London, mostly focussing on one crumbling Soho townhouse and the goings-on therein. Along the way, Mozley explores classism, gender politics, sexuality, and money, money, money. The social commentary is still pretty black and white this time around (the poor are good and the rich are evil), but there are some surprises around who holds the ultimate power and there are some nicely funny bits. This was an easy, character-filled read and shows an author building on her strengths; but perhaps not in the direction of more literary awards. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

“It’s named for the sound the men and the animals made when there was hunting afoot,” the Archbishop states. “A so and a ho from man and beast. A so ho, a so ho. That’s what they shrieked when they got on their horses and chased deer through the forest. Before there were bricks and windows and sewers, there were grasses and roots and trees and deer. Deer deer deer that brought the men out of the city on horses with a so and a ho.”

In this centuries-old Soho townhouse, there’s a trendy French restaurant on the ground floor, the upper stories serve as illegal flats and a brothel — the highest floor and roof garden are occupied by what may be considered the “main” characters in this book of many; the Nigerian sex worker, Precious, and her “maid” and companion, Tabitha — and the unfinished cellar is peopled with drug addicts, kooks, and other discarded people. All live in a sort of communal harmony until Agatha — the upperclass businesswoman who owns this building, having inherited it along with the rest of her billionaire gangster father’s fortune — decides it’s time to “blank-slate” the building (blank-slating meaning “evicting people from their homes or businesses, gutting the buildings and employing a fashionable architect to redesign them from the inside-out”). Most of the plot involves Agatha’s efforts to evict the tenants, and those tenants fighting back.

Roster puts on the handbrake and turns off the engine. He speaks from the front seat without turning his head. “The business might be taking a new direction, but the world is much the same as it ever was.”

It was interesting to see Precious approach her sex work with dignity — although there is mention of sex-trafficking, pimps, and other forms of exploitation elsewhere, the women in this building have power, choice, and agency; this is simply the work they choose to do and are grateful they have a safe place to practise their arts. More heavy-handedly, we also see an actor getting his big break playing a Medieval brothel-keeper in a Game of Thrones knockoff (and the actresses in this television show seem more debased than Precious and her friends), a heroin addict from the cellar bears the scars of what she has done for her fixes, we learn that Agatha’s mother was a Russian emigre who has supported herself (from the age of fourteen) as the mistress of very wealthy men, and even college girls might turn to escort work in order to pay their fees. There are several upper-class characters trying to figure out how to live a meaningful life, old men trying to forget the past, and while everyone is chasing money as the pinnacle of happiness, no one seems to be able to find love. All of this was highly interesting — if a bit too pat in the end — but it wasn’t terribly deep or insightful. Still, an overall enjoyable read; I’ll round up to four stars.

[Debra - can't post any comments on site today grrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A little slow to get into but then it became entertaining with a big cast of interesting, quirky and strange characters.

Agatha Howard has decided to put up condos up in middle of London's soho district. She has a building picked out. It will be perfect but first she needs to get rid of the tenants. Easier said than done! These tenants are not willing to go, they will not go easy, nor will they make it easy for Agatha to follow through on her plan.

The building houses a pub, a brothel, and a homeless camp in the basement. This makes for an interesting mix of people. There are drug addicts, the homeless, the women who live and work in the brothel. Again, lots of characters and a lot going on. There are connections between the characters but what are they? This was not a straightforward read for me. It took a little work. But I did enjoy her take on power, on what makes a community and a family, on bonding together, sex, class, on privilege, on gentrification, and social status to name a few.

This was interesting, bizarre, and intriguing. I don't think this will be for everyone, but it worked for me after the slowness of the beginning for me.

Thank you to Algonquin Books who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com

[Amy Imogene Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A complicated story with some beautiful writing. The "hot stew" of one community's complex and layered peoples amidst conflict? Indeed.

Writing: ★★★★★
Emotional connection: ★★
Plot/Pacing: ★★★★

So this is a doozy of a novel. I'm going to do my best to synthesize my feelings for it here, but as it was so complex and rich with social commentary, I'm sure I'll accidentally overlook at least one thing.

In modern-day Soho, where sex workers, restauranteurs, drifters, old hanger-ons and more all coexist on the same street, "community" is a blended thing. For sex workers Precious and Tabitha, their community is a rich tapestry of clients, coworkers, neighbors, and old acquaintances—and each other. For Robert, one of their older regulars, his memories of a time as a gang leader's heavy-hitter are an unwelcome reminder of the past and the people around him at all times. For Agatha, the complicated daughter of Robert's billionaire gang leader and the property owner of Precious and Tabitha's building, community is a concept that she shuns and tries to bury in cold distance and money.

Those are just a few of the perspectives we're following in Hot Stew, Fiona Mozley's sophomore novel. A complex, ever-shifting perspective of one community's simmering landscape...this was intense.

The inciting incident is Agatha's decision to force out those who live in her properties, but it quickly becomes a different animal to read—this isn't just about a property, or even an address. It's about the soft ties that bind a bunch of (seemingly) unconnected people.

For those who love literary fiction with an edge, this is a great novel for you. It is scintillating in its perusal of womanhood and ownership. It also tackles multi-generational conflicts and lasting impacts. It is also an introspective of a geographically-based community.

However, I as a reader was not the perfect audience. While I enjoyed and quickly became engrossed in the storytelling, Hot Stew failed to cross the barrier between awareness and involvement for me on a character level. I am a very character-driven reader. Due to the focus on almost a dozen distinct POVs in this slim novel—and the intention of the author to focus on the community itself as a singular "POV" of sorts—I felt perpetually held at a distance from the characters themselves.

Overall, personal lack of connection aside, I found Hot Stew utterly compelling. Do pick it up if any of the above has interested you—you're in for a memorable reading experience.

Thank you to Algonquin for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

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[Peter Boyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

"New roads were laid; office blocks shot up. And luxury flats stood on crumbling slums like shining false teeth on rotten gums."

This tale of multiple interconnected characters is set in the infamous London district of Soho. Precious is a prostitute who works in a local brothel. Agatha, the building's billionaire owner, wants to evict her tenants and develop the property. She's the daughter of Donald Howard, a notorious gangland boss, who left his empire to his youngest child, much to the consternation of her older siblings. Bastian is the son of Agatha's lawyer, a public-school educated fellow who is in a steady relationship, but can't help thinking back to a girl he knew at university. Robert is a retired gangster and frequenter of the aforementioned brothel. And Cheryl Lavery is a member of the area's homeless population, who goes missing. These are just some of the people whose lives will intersect in unexpected ways before the story is through.

Hot Stew is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to Elmet, Mozley's Booker shortlisted debut. And the setting couldn't be more different, swapping the fields of Yorkshire for the busy streets of Soho. She does a good job of addressing the problems of the district, like homelessness and the unstoppable gentrification. But I think she has been over-ambitious with the sheer number of the characters in this sprawling story. With so many plates spinning, it's difficult to keep the plot humming, and I found some members of the cast more interesting than others. However, Hot Stew is an entertaining, energetic story with a real sense of place. I like that Mozley has tried to do something completely different with her second book, and I'm intrigued to see what she attempts with her third.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, rounded down.

Mozley's debut novel was one of my faves of the Booker list the year it made it to the finals (2017), so was eagerly awaiting her follow-up - and though this is MUCH different, equally, if not even more enjoyable. Most reviews invoke the term 'Dickensian' and it's certainly apt, with an engrossing, sprawling, yet somehow tightly knit plot, and fully developed, quirky characters with surprising, internecine connections. Her prose style is effortlessly readable, and I raced through this in just a few days.

Not everything quite works - the entire section of Debbie/Cheryl in the ... bomb shelter? underground lair? - didn't quite fit or make much sense. Some of the minor characters were difficult to place when they resurfaced 75 pages on (but I blame that on my 'mind like a sieve' - if I'd read on the Kindle, I would have been able to use the search feature, so can't blame the author). Mozley wraps up the story with most of the multiple threads tied up, and the surprise ending was a treat. Highly recommended, and Mozley might very well be a double Booker nominee with this gem.

[Nadine in California · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suppose this book is technically more of a 4 star read - not mindblowing, but really satisfying - but it hit the spot so perfectly for me that I have to throw in the extra star. I love books with multiple viewpoints, and Mozley did a great job alternating them in a kind of dribble-and-pass style, where the characters hand the story back and forth to each other at just the right moment for just the right reasons. I love the more and less tangential ways the characters are linked to each other and to the building and Soho in general.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has been described as a comedic, Dickensian tale of life in contemporary Soho but I'm not sold on it all. Taking its title from the name for brothels in Tudor times, Hot Stew follows a host of disparate characters - from rich property developers to prostitutes - living in a rapidly gentrifying London where property is the ultimate commodity and what ties the characters together: the developers are trying to boot a group of prostitutes out of their brothel in Soho so they can re-vamp the building and make a ton of money.

The short chapters mean this reads quickly, but also meant I felt little attachment to any of the characters given that in the structure Mozley employs we spend just a few pages with each character/plot line before the next chapter goes on to a different one. I also didn't mind the novel to be as satirical as promised. Not for me!

Thank you Netgalley and John Murray for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hot Stew referred to is the uncontrollable amalgam of personalities that make up a vibrant neighborhood, in this case a 17th century building in London's Soho district that has survived many incarnations throughout its history. From the down-and-outers residing (if it can be called that) in the basement to the vibrant pub scene in the presciently titled Aphra Behn, and then there's the brothel occupying the top floors that provides its services and protects its workers and gives the novel its impetus. The problem is there are so many characters, and while I usually like a large cast with distinctly drawn personalities, I don't feel these characters rose above their cardboard facades. Which is the reason for the low rating. However, there were sections I've underlined and would read again, the writing is so good.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant young British writer Fiona Mozley turns her keen eye from the gothic woods of Yorkshire to the streets and pubs and cafés of contemporary London in this much-anticipated follow-up to her debut novel, Elmet. In the middle of the bustle of Soho sits a building. It isn’t particularly assuming. But it’s a prime piece of real estate, and a young millionaire, Agatha Howard, wants to convert it into luxury condos as soon as she can kick out all the tenants. The problem is, the building in question houses a brothel, and Precious and Tabitha, two of the women who live and work there, are not going to go quietly. And another problem is, just where did Agatha’s fortune come from? The fight over this piece of property also draws in the men who visit, including Robert, a one-time member of a far-right group and enforcer for Agatha’s father; Jackie, a policewoman intent on making London a safer place for all women; Bastian, a rich and dissatisfied party boy who pines for an ex-girlfriend; and a collection of vagabonds and strays who occupy the basement.

As these characters—with surprising hidden connections and shadowy pasts—converge, the fight over the property boils over into a hot stew. Entertaining, sharply funny, and dazzlingly accomplished, Hot Stew confronts questions about wealth and inheritance, gender and power, and the things women must do to survive in an unjust world. A witty and thoroughly entertaining story but one in which Mozley does not shy away from contemporary issues of gentrification, race, class, wealth and power, to name a few. She weaves together a rich tapestry of London life, particularly related to Soho, and populates it with multilayered, three-dimensional characters who come alive on the page; I became invested in them with consummate ease. Mozley is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to writing scintillating works of art. A captivating, absorbing and gripping story, Hot Stew keeps your attention throughout with an endlessly intelligent, sardonic and acutely perceptive narrative. Highly recommended.

[Ari Levine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up. A really enjoyable, gently satirical, and imaginatively written State of the Nation novel. Starting from a (literal) snail's-eye perspective, Mozley situates the reader in a single aging building on a busy street in London's SoHo, housing a high-end brothel on the upper floors, a French restaurant for tourists, and a homeless squat in the cellar.

Billionaire Agatha, the mustache-twirling villain, has inherited the building from her gangster father, and applies legal and illegal pressure to evict the sex workers upstairs, including the lovingly-drawn protagonists, Precious and Tabitha. Along the way, we encounter Londoners from various walks of life, sexualities, and ethnicities: an aging ex-gangland enforcer, a posh Oxbridge-educated lawyer's son, an underemployed actor, and a heroin-addicted homeless couple, all of whom Mozley renders with compassion. But the minor characters are reduced to being near-Dickensian caricatures of sociological categories, and some of her social observations are unexamined and obvious, even for Guardian readers.

I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that this was written by the same novelist who wrote the belabored Elmet. The only common element between the two novels might be the crude black-and-white moralism that shapes Mozley's own barely-camouflaged views about politics, society, and capitalism.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Rebecca]

I read the first 110 pages and felt a bit puzzled by Mozley’s change in direction: This is the sort of state-of-the-nation (via London) novel that male authors were writing a decade ago: A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks and Capital by John Lanchester; a later example is Number 11 by Jonathan Coe. After the Hardyesque countryside bleakness of Elmet, Mozley appears to have turned to the Dickensian mode of broad characterization and coincidental connection. Her locales range from a brothel and an oligarch’s rooms to a pub and an underground flophouse. You know the whores will have hearts of gold while the Russian billionaire will be merciless. This is pleasant enough to read, but the omniscient, present-tense narration does too much skating over the surface and not enough digging into characters’ individuality and motivation. Ten years ago, I would have happily read the whole thing. Now, I want an author, especially a promising young one like Mozley, to try something more original.

A favorite passage: “Wherever we go that’s not here, I’d miss all the noise, and the sense of being at the centre of things. I like that it’s busy. I’ve always liked it. If we go anywhere else, it will seem so quiet.”

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hot Stew is a surprisingly poignant tale of class, gentrification, and the ways they structure society.

Precious is a sex worker from Nigeria who has, for years, lived and worked out of London's SoHo. When Agatha, a young woman raised wealthy by a poor mother, becomes the landlord over Precious' property, she swiftly begins the process of forcing Precious and her fellow sex workers out of their lease. What follows is a tale of love (between classes), struggle (because of class), and death (from the weight of class oppression.) Each character in this tale stands in as a victim of gentrification and the mindless rush that is turning urban property into endless profit.

The writing in this one could use refinement but he characters are genuine and the story meaningful. Don't sleep on Fiona Mozley and her tact for lending words to the ignored.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took awhile to get going as loads of characters were thrown into the plot to gradually get used to the players in the book, wont be everyone's cup of tea this book but found it more interesting as it went along though.

[Steven Edmondson]

The awful 2015 Tina Fey comedy 'Sisters' ends abruptly. Knowing a conclusion's due, all momentum having stalled, a sinkhole opens up under the house and some of the characters fall in. It's a baffling if memorable moment, albeit literally the only part of the film I remember. It has something profoundly desperate about it, as a sceenwriting hail mary, capping off a film that really clearly had not come together in production.

So anyway I think now that if the only way you can think to tie up your book or movie is a sinkhole opens up and swallows everything, something's not working. It's a principle I'm calling 'Sisters Law'.

So anyway, Hot Stew. I think Elmet's a genuinely quite great novel. Hot Stew has been marketed as 'almost Dickensian' (the word 'almost' doing a lot of heavy lifting there). Elmet was almost Hughisan, from the title on down. And a much more successful encounter with Hughes than Lanny. Hot Stew i think is a stylistic departure from Elmet, but also obviously a companion novel - Elmet's a book about, like, Romantic northern english masculinity, crumbling under late capitalism. Stew is the flipside - about femininity (still under capitalism), and the south.

Problem is though. I dunno. It felt unfinished. Not in terms of beginning-middle-and-end, but in the sense of it just honestly feeling like a complete first draft. Elmet is effortless - I wouldn't say Hot Stew is strained, Mozley absolutely can write - just, for vast sections, thin.

It feels abridged, like sections are missing. eg, the police plotline is introduced via a worryingly-sympathetic policewoman, whose perspective completely vanishes. Maybe that's the point, like it's about how she got sidelined by her superiors - but actually no, not really. I think if that's the angle the collapse of the police operation needs more detail. Like, there could be something to how this apparently sympathetic character mishandles things, but it kind of just evaporates. In a book that in no small part is about police violence and cynicism, about how policing makes sex workers less safe, it feels like a major loss of nerve to have the most robustly sketched cop be sympathetic- especially when she serves no narrative purpose beyond that of a sympathetic entry point. In the context of the broader novel it feels outright bizarre.

Hot Stew's marketed as a story about sex workers trying to rescue their brothel from a redevelopment scheme, but the marketing’s a bit misleading really. Hot Stew aims to be more panoramic than that, tracing the practice across continents, models, layers of the economy. For vast sections the Soho stuff is kind of peripheral. Which is a problem I think. It comes off as light, unfocussed. The novel is as much about annoying Cambridge grads navigating, like, i think literally just their own immaturity as it is anything else. There's a few-chapter long subplot about someone from Cambridge being rude to his gf years prior that could've been cleaved out and turned into something vaguely Rooney. But no it actually did need cut out entirely.

I think it's too slight and vague a book to operate with such a wide scope. It feels unfocussed. The other b-plot, about a gang of semi-mystic homeless people (?) is honestly weak as piss. It is a bit unsurprising that it all led to 'and than a sinkhole happened' to tie things together. Like, I think probably the biggest problem with Hot Stew as a novel is that it sketches out a vast array of characters, with surprising links, who then proceed to never really interact. Maybe that's the point and it's a statement about class polarisation or whatever, invisible strings and all that. But it does not make for satisfying drama. Especially given some of the bigger swings and quasi-magical realist swings the book takes, it could've stood to be more melodramatic really.

I think probably the biggest problem with the sex worker rights stuff, more than any big, obvious, puts-her-foot-in-it missteps, is just that the characters feel thinly sketched and peripheral in a book that is ostensibly completely about them. It's more obviously political than Elmet, but feels so much less substantial. Probably something to be said for how Mozley positions sex worker rights and protections as common sense, but the intellectual tradition and active movement there is much deeper and richer than Mozley is able to paint it. Outside of Tabitha and Precious, the rest are basically caricatures. Low-key a sad irony to the section where a character, a sex worker, is disappointed by how incomplete she feels an artistic representation of her is. I don't think it's a hurdle Stew passes really.

And Hot Stew's soho is just a bit odd to me, out of date. Feels oddly like this would've functioned better if set in the 90s, as much as it is apparently about Crossrail or whatever. I probably sound quite down on it if anyone's read this far down but, tbh, it's feels like a failure in the editing process more than anything.

There's a couple sections that are a bit more polemical - an actor character realising a show that is essentially 'Game of Thrones' is rude, and a bit about people having kinky sex - which also probably could've been lost in an edit quite happily. I think probably the problem is, if you cut out all the bits that obviously should have been cut out, you don't really have a novel. It's kind of thin gruel.

[Emily Davies (libraryofcalliope) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this novel's prose was like sinking into a warm bath. I cannot stress how much I enjoyed Mozley's writing in this book. I was barely 30% into it before ordering her previous book as I want to read everything she's ever written now.

The story itself is an ensemble piece set in Soho, London. There are a huge variety of characters from the daughter of a powerful gangster to privileged Cambridge graduates, aspiring actors, sex workers, and more. With such a big cast I was a little intimidated at first, mainly worried I would forget them all but each characters' storyline was complicated and distinct enough for you to have a clear picture of each one with little trouble differentiating them. The interwoven nature of the characters' lives also worked really well as Mozley threaded the characters into each others' plotlines without making it come across like they were shoehorned in. The patchwork effect she accomplishes really makes the whole story work well, creating a picture of London as seen from a number of perspectives.

The themes of the novel focus on class and gentrification. The driving action focuses on the attempted redevelopment of Soho and the eviction of sex workers to make room for it. It approaches the concept of sex work with sensitivity and nuance, mentioning all facets of the issue at hand. It talks about sex trafficking but mainly focuses on how the women at hand are risking losing their independence and income with the loss of the brothel which allows them to work without pimps and the danger of street walking. As the sex workers fight their proposed eviction and develop a movement, it discusses interesting concepts around political activism and appearance as well as confronting the groups that support them for a variety of reasons; paternalistic, patronising or sincere. It approaches the topic with appropriate nuance all without neglecting the characters in the story. They aren't just mouthpieces for buzz words and the topic is used very effectively throughout the novel.

It talks about so many things that I won't go into all of them, from racist casting calls to the mental health of those at the very bottom of the social ladder and how the police treat them. It is a novel that is very concerned with social issues but never at the expense of the plot. Instead, the result is an interesting portrayal of how these different societal issues intersect and play into each other rather than acting like they are independent of each other. Of course, Mozley cannot discuss everything but she packs so much into this book that it would be unfair to criticise her for the things she didn't.

I really loved this book and I highly recommend reading it when it comes out in March 2021. Thank you so much to Netgalley and John Murray Press for an ARC of this ebook!

[Nursebookie · Rating 4 out of 5]

HOT STEW is a riot of a read that is highly entertaining, addictive and propulsive. The story begins in the neighborhood of SoHo London where the dilapidated building’s owner Agatha, wants to rebuild to make room for high-end restaurants and luxury apartments. That means that the brothel and all the tenants are going to be evicted. Well, they are not going without a fight and the stir causes a hot stew of a situation.

I enjoyed this fast paced and thought-provoking read that brought these amazing and quirky characters together. The varying POV’s of the story brought a glimpse into the lives of these diverse and eccentric characters, that I found engaging. The writing was witty, and the characters were weaved together and connected brilliantly. The story in its core was about the haves and have nots, the gentrification that affects communities, the unscrupulous landlord vs tenant issues, gender roles, class and inequality. Mosley’s sophomore novel sure packed a punch and was quite the unique and compelling read.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a large cast of characters. Due to the sheer number, none achieve a full sense of multidimensionality. They fall into neat boxes; evil billionaire real estate developer, sex worker with a heart of gold, unhoused woman who is neglected and silent.
The class commentary is strong, if not nuanced.
This book is also strongly rooted in place, namely Soho, London. If you call Soho home, this is probably a can't-miss commentary on the changing landscape, both above and below ground.
Otherwise, I would say, this is a fine romp, but certainly not a must-read by any account.

[Susie]

This isn’t holding my interest at all. I’ll try again if it makes the Booker longlist, which I doubt it will.

[Sonali Dabade · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars!

There are some books which you hear the names of and you think, okay, this is going to be one delicious, lip-smacking book about some delicious, lip-smacking food. Instead, it turns out to be about something else altogether – a headily intriguing mix of the sweetness of the little joys in life, the bitterness of harsh reality, the sourness of anger, the saltiness of sorrow, the bland taste of helplessness, that spicy tang of enthusiastic motivation – and it fills you up with not only emotions, but also with the reiterated knowledge that the world is way more complicated and intricately connected than we think it is.

'Hot Stew' by Fiona Mozley is one such book. This story is set in SoHo, a part of London where women have been working in their own brothels for years, only for the owner of the building, Agatha, to decide to kick them out of their homes, first through sly measures and then by more outright ones. There is a host of characters in this book that are more complex than you realize in the first go.

But as this 'Hot Stew' comes together, you realize that power doesn’t just come from wresting it from others. It also comes from the place where the women in this story stand strong and fight back against eviction. How all of this reiterates the unfortunate fact that power and money is what you need to become visible in society forms the entire story.

Hot Stew is one book that I’ll probably remember forever, thanks to its eccentric and edgy writing style that gives us so many insights into the lives of sex workers and what they go through. Fiona Mozley takes us through life itself in this book by talking us through the uncertainty of living, inherited wealth, regrets, love, the forceful nature of desperation, looking out for ourselves, the connection that laces through us all, and so much more.

Nothing is a coincidence in this book. Everything happens for a reason. Everything and everyone in this novel is interconnected. It tells us that the stories that you think have nothing to do with you, will come back to you in a loop that you will never see coming. And that is one moral of this story: that know people’s stories before you decide to ruthlessly knock them down for your own gains.

Fiona Mozley’s characters ooze humanity. You start to balance the goods and the bads, the pros and the cons – only to realize that the world is merely different shades of grey.

What is superbly empowering to read is how the women of the brothel stand up to save their homes. They are fierce in their defense and to read their words as encourage each other sent goosebumps up my spine. And when this strength clashes with the stubbornness of the developers, all hell’s about to rain down, while throwing light on the fact that money isn’t all that is worth living for.

And Hot Stew, in a bid to talk about power, manages to encompass both forms of power – the raw, fierce one that allows you to take a stand for yourself and defend what you love, and the blinding power that makes some people put themselves on a pedestal.

I’d highly recommend this book. Must, must read!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a bit too black-and-white perhaps when it comes to the characters, but I rather enjoyed this book about gentrification and ownership. It shows us all the different sort of people that live/work/visit/exploit property/people in Soho, London, and all their different lives and point of views. It really makes for an interesting and allround view on class and inequality. More or less similar in theme as Elmet, but totally different in setting.
Thank you Algonquin Books and Edelweiss for the ARC.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story about a wide cast of characters whose lives intersect in various ways in London’s Soho district. Mozley plays with a LOT of themes here (and does so successfully IMO): power, wealth, history, agency, ownership, gentrification, sex, what changes and what stays the same, etc. The writing around the characters and Soho itself is where her talent really shines. It’s rare to have this many characters in a story and find them all well formed and interesting, and Mozley accomplishes that here.