Girl Waits With Gun, Amy Stewart

Girl Waits With Gun is based on the real story of Constance Kopp and her sisters, and draws inspiration from the real facts of her life — newspaper articles, family documents, etc — but it’s definitely a fictionalised version, giving Norma Kopp the hobby of looking after pigeons and so on. As a story, it’s entertaining, but perhaps more so knowing that Constance was a real person and this is one attempt to interpret her thoughts and feelings, her hopes and fears, during the time she was menaced by a mill owner who refused to pay for crashing into her family’s cart and wrecking it.

I thought it might turn out dry, but actually I got pretty into it, and on putting it down I was frustrated that a particular character didn’t know a particular fact — I won’t say what, because of spoilers. It’s enough to make me want to hurry up and pick up the next book as soon as I can. It’s obviously speculative, and it’s anybody’s guess what the Kopps would have thought about it, but it makes for a good story.

Rating: 4/5

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