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The Spirit Engineer: Winner of the HWA Debut Crown Award 2022

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I’m so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to read something outside of my usual genres. It was the perfect spooky read for October, but honestly, West may have triggered a hidden love of dark gothic stories in me. I’ve already added a bunch of new books to my TBR in the genre – I just hope that some of them are even half as gorgeous as The Spirit Engineer– it’s going to be a tough act to follow. Read The Spirit Engineer for yourself I really enjoyed the overall premise and storyline of this book and felt that A.J. West brought to life in believable ways the seance/spiritual scene of the 1900s in Northern Ireland. His dive into the class structure of the time was intriguing and his overarching aim to depict the lengths one will go to find answers and soothe the pain of loss was a tense and heartbreaking journey to go on. Working at the Belfast Technical Institute, William would have had easy access to potassium cyanide powder, which was used in the electroplating process and also for developing early photographic plates. Stores in both the engineering laboratories and photographic studios likely held quantities of potassium cyanide. Seamus Stoupe, who produced William’s famous photographs, was head of the Art Department and would have had access to the photography stores. WJC’s mother Agnes died of a pulmonary embolism arising from a pre-existing thrombosis. Whilst it may be co-incidental to the birth of the youngest child, I have it on very good authority that PEs are more common in pregnancy/childbirth so your suggestion that she died inchildbirth is not too far off the mark.

I am nervous about but fascinated by how people used to believe in spiritualism and seances in years gone by. The other thing I love to read about is actual historical figures who believed, dabbled in or forwarded the cause. Conan Doyle for example believed that the Cottingley Fairies were real. Not surprisingly, in a book which delves into the afterlife, the epilogue is titled 'the Beginning'. Set in a historical moment where science and spiritualism meet, The Spirit Engineer is an ingeniously plotted debut novel.’ When Kathleen was born, it seems likely her family were already practicisng Spiritualists, though she grew to become the primary medium of the so-called Goligher Circle. KATHLEEN GOLIGHER – SPIRITUALIST PHENOMENON In the case of the Goligher Circle, some might find it curious that a handy ship’s plumber and his poor wife should be managing their young sister as a psychic for money (they were paid by Crawford from 1919 and by Fournier d’Albe), and having spoken to Kathleen’s living descendants, it seems Rebecca Morrison (nee Goligher) was considered – I paraphrase here – a somewhat frosty character, not beloved by Kathleen and her other relatives later in life. A HOAX EXPOSED AND THE END OF THE GOLIGHER CIRCLEMy visit to the Cambridge Manuscripts Archive, while planning The Spirit Engineer, proved to be a fascinating foray into the photographed history of the Goligher Circle. There were all sorts of images buried there, which were new to my eye and didn’t seem to appear online or in any of my books. West has mixed fact with fiction and shrouded it all in a gothic veil of mystery. There are some disturbing subjects and ideas to come from this book. Of course, seances and dabbling in ‘ the other side’ are not going to be easy experiences. I just loved the way you are invited to belief or not, but to experience the world of those trying to understand it all. Ok, now that I vented off, I have to say I’m irrevocably in love with the author A.J.West and I solemnly swear that I will read anything and everything he writes, period. The story of The Spirit Engineer takes place in 1914 and it takes you to amazing places with significant real-life events of the period including Titanic and World War I. You even get a glimpse of two key figures in the story, which was such a pleasant surprise that I still couldn’t recover from the events of that chapter. The style and narration is so witty and charming that I do not remember when was the last time I laughed and felt chills at the same time. The unexpected twists and turns was too much for me, I stopped guessing the end after a while and just went with the flow.

He was a professor of engineering at the old Belfast Municipal Technical College and Queen's University. Crawford was part of an aspiring class in the busy industrial metropolis of Belfast. As a child, Kathleen helped her family pay their way, blouse-cutting for the large factories which made up the city’s world-dominating textile industry. The women of Ulster were renowned for their skilled needlework, though the Goligher family were likely more involved in the less-skilled pattern-cutting trade, trimming linen into shapes to be stitched elsewhere. The remuneration was meagre, though poor families such as the Golighers were at least able to afford food and benefit from a grace and favour home supplied by their employers. It’s no secret that this book has been one of the most anticipated reads of the year. There has been a frenzy building around this book with some very clever marketing. Naturally this makes you excited to read it but also worried it’s just hype; I’m happy to report it most certainly is not hype - it’s beautiful. But when the book concerned manages to include Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Titanic, the Great War, an emerging Irish nation, two real life protagonists and is set in Edwardian Belfast, it became a somewhat irresistible invitation. But as William dives deeper into this world of the unknown, he must tread carefully for it won’t just be the dead that he disturbs when someone he was convinced had left this world years ago, may yet still be alive…This is such a gothic infused and chillingly crafted work of art. I was entranced at the star and that never left me. Maybe there’s some hocus-pocus emanating from the book itself. No, the writing, the scene setting and the characters are good enough to do that on their own.

I was saying only yesterday how receiving proofs is one sure fire way of reading books I may never have come across. If I’m honest, ghosts- and spirits-type stories are not normally a genre I would levitate towards (see what I did there?!), but I can tell you that I am so PLEASED The Spirit Engineer found it’s way to me.

My psychic work was all done before the collapse, and is the most perfect work I have done in my life. Everything connected with it is absolutely correct, and will bear every scrutiny. It was done when my brain was working perfectly, and it could not be responsible for what has occurred.’ He continued: ‘I wish to reaffirm my belief that the grave does not finish all.

Harry Houdini mentions William Crawford’s death in his memoir: A Magician Amongst the Spirits, taking a somewhat condescending tone, belied by the triumphalism of an indiscrete exclamation mark: Gripping from the outset - A.J West immerses readers in the spiritualism of 1914 Belfast with great skill. A wonderful debut." - Sam Hurcom Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Librarians Group is the official group for requesting additions or updates to the catalog, including: Some of the characters are a little too predictable but there is nothing predictable about the end.

With a skilful misdirection that any Edwardian spirit medium would be proud to demonstrate, A.J. West soon turns the screw in this fascinating novel." - Essie Fox This is a fiendishly clever tale of ambition, deception, and power, engineered by some excellent sleight of hand. What a debut – and what a rich, beautifully written, gothic treat.’ I’m honestly having trouble processing a lot of this, partly I think because the whole spiritualism thing is beyond gross, and sadly is not an exploitation of the vulnerable restricted to the Victorians. And, obviously, that’s not the fault of the book. But I did read it in a profound state of permanent flinch. In case, one of the strengths of The Spirit Engineer, as a careful fictionalisation, is that it can, perhaps, be more generous than reality perhaps allows. Not just to its terribly flawed, terribly damaged protagonist, but to the people around him who are, in their own ways, just as exploited as he is: by poverty, by gender, by sexuality, by age, by class, by their own losses. Kathleen, possibly, gets off more lightly than she deserves, given what she does, but it also feels like the right call, given the fact she’s a young woman from a lower class family with very few other prospects that weren’t sex work (there’s also some suggestion, as far as I can tell, from the details of Crawford’s ‘research’ that he might have sexually abused her—he was certainly very interested in ectoplasm from her vagina). The book is about psychic phenomena, mediums, religion. It is about faith, and beliefs. It is also about grief, obsession and exploitation, and about ambition, lies and deception. In any case, it’s just a sad-feeling book in many respects. But it’s also a masterclass in atmosphere, unreliable narration, limited perspective, deft characterisation, quiet horror and slow-building tension. There’s a weight of terrible inevitability to the final denouement, the revelations losing none of their power despite the fact they should have been obvious throughout.

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