Shakespeare wastes no time on Lear’s backstory; we meet the brutal old autocrat as he divides his kingdom between two devoted daughters. Learwife begins where the play ends. The mad, broken old man and three daughters are dead; but why has a messenger brought the word to a remote nunnery where a forgotten woman paces the cloisters? She looks the reader in the eye:
I am the queen of two crowns, banished 15 years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three… I am 55 years old. I am Lear’s wife. I am here.
Other writers, such Jean Rhys, Margaret Atwood and Pat Barker, have given a voice to marginalised women. J.R. Thorp goes further: in her debut novel the lyricist and prize-winning short story writer brings to life a woman who never existed on the page.
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