The Hyena’s Daughter tells a story of sisterhood between the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft: Fanny Imlay and Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, as well as their stepsister Claire Clairmont. The novella spans the period of three years in the early 19th century, but reads very fresh and modern.
The main perspective in the book is Fanny’s – perhaps on account of her being the oldest daughter, able to oversee her sister’s lives – and the novella deals with the family’s financial and health difficulties of that time period, as well as the two younger sisters’ involvement with Percy Bysshe Shelley (“How could we not love him, with his lofty ethics and words that flew like birds?”) whileexploring the fleeting themes of humanity, soul, creation, and complicated motherly love.
Jupiter Jones, a northern English author living in Wales who has also published other novellas and short fiction, was awarded the Weatherglass Novella Prize – judged by Ali Smith, no less – for The Hyena’s Daughter, with this publication the prize. And it was clearly a worthy winner: the book is so self-assured, with no word out of place or superfluous. It’s also pacy and fresh, despite dealing with historical matters. There are some glorious, jaw-dropping sentences throughout, and the relationship between the sisters is penned with clarity and depth.
