Emmett Farmer is trying to resume his normal life; illness has not only robbed him of his memories of the previous summer but his strength, leaving him unable to work on the family farm. Then a letter arrives, summoning him to begin an apprenticeship with the local Bookbinder. However, in Emmett’s world, books aren’t works of fiction but real people’s real memories. Is there something you want to forget? A secret you need to hide? A Bookbinder can make you a beautiful, handcrafted volume into which your memories will be recorded and stored away safely forever, and, however traumatic, you’ll never remember. It’s a vocation that stirs up fear, superstition, and prejudice – the local Bookbinder Emmett is to be apprenticed to lives alone in a house on the marshes and is frequently referred to as a “witch.” But, with her, Emmett begins to face the prospect of recovery until the arrival of a stranger who may not be so strange and the discovery in the Bookbinder’s vault of a volume with Emmett’s name on it.
Tracy Chevalier has compared Bridget Collins’s adult debut to a slice of dark chocolate cake and this is a very good comparison; in fact any dark, rich, dense confectionery (Gothic Literature’s food equivalent) is an apt comparison. Set in alternative nineteenth century, The Binding is a gorgeous love story – as steamy and as full of anguish and sweetness as any of the best Gothic Romances – and a meditation on memory. In a piece for the Foyles online blog, Collins states that one of the inspirations for The Binding was her time volunteering with the Samaritans:
“I had the privilege of hearing people’s stories, which were often traumatic or painful, and ‘holding’ those stories for them, feeling that my act of listening somehow helped them to heal. But occasionally I’d come across someone who was ‘stuck’ – whose whole life had become defined by a narrative where they were a victim or a villain – and I began to wonder what would happen if I could simply reach out and take that memory away from them, leaving them to begin again. Would I do it, if I could? What would it be like? And what would the wider implications be?”
This leads onto an important theme: the nature of power and consent. Although a person must give consent to be bound, but people can be manipulated or subtly coerced into giving consent. In a society where abuses of power can literally be erased, what does true consent look like? It’s also not just those that are inflicted on the poor by the rich as Emmett’s family, for example, despite their fear and hatred of binding, their willingness to consider it if it will mean Emmett would come back “as he was” is an abuse of their familial obligation and duties. Is the nature of binding itself immoral, despite the fact it can and does alleviate people’s suffering by taking away memories that are too traumatic for people to bare, or is it merely true of those who use their trade for profit? The answers, such as they are, are as grey as the cobbled sooty streets portrayed within.
This emphasis on memory also adds depth and complexity to the love story, which is told from the point of view of both characters but they remember different things at different points. Therefore having more or less knowledge than the other at the different points adds to the drama and creates a real sense of urgency during the later parts of the book and leading up to the climax.
The Binding is many things: a story about the literal power of books; the power memory wields over us and our sense of identity; the perils of consumerism when it’s something personal to you that’s the commodity; that what binds us together can set us free as well as tear us apart: learning to know and accept yourself, and others, for who they are and an unapologetically romantic love story. All of which have combined to make it one of the bestselling titles of 2019, an epithet it’s definitely worthy of!
The Binding is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Imagine you could erase grief.
Imagine you could remove pain.
Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret.
Forever.
Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice among their small community but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.
For as long as he can recall, Emmett has been drawn to books, even though they are strictly forbidden. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to hand-craft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, a binder can help. If there’s something you need to erase, they can assist. Within the pages of the books they create, secrets are concealed and the past is locked away. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, rows upon rows of books are meticulously stored.
But while Seredith is an artisan, there are others of their kind, avaricious and amoral tradesman who use their talents for dark ends—and just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: one of the books has his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten.
