Manchester 1849. Elizabeth Gaskell, newly famous author of Mary Barton, visits a young Irish prostitute in Manchester's New Bailey prison. The girl is about to be discharged onto the Manchester streets, where her old life of poverty and violence await her. Elizabeth is determined to help her, but few people will employ an ex-prostitute from prison. In desperation, Elizabeth writes to Charles Dickens for advice. Inspired by the real correspondence between Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens, Elizabeth and Ruth tells the unforgettable story of two very different women whose lives become inextricably intertwined.
"(on previous work) Michael is rare in taking on the ethical gravity of evil, turning it over and over in her stony prose … what more can we ask for in our fiction writers than such honesty, such fierceness."
Literary Review
"(on previous work) Livi Michael takes the shoddiness of the world and transmutes it into grace."
Literary Review
"(on previous work) Confronting themes of memory, trauma, childhood violence, criminality and responsibility … to give voice to our hidden, "unspoken" pasts."
