The year is 1862, and nineteen year old Dol McQueen is going places. As a worker in a brothel – or flash-girl, in Dol's own irrepressible vernacular – she knows that her career will be short-lived, and is determined to make her fortune and never have to worry about the future again.
To this end, Dol sets off from California with three other girls from the saloon where they had all worked, heading for the boom towns of the American West. Ness is big and gentle, "as solid and dense as fog; not stupid but slow; all around you, somehow," whereas Dol herself is the opposite - "small, quick, and a funny colour." Then there's Cordelia, just fifteen years old and not yet working the saloons, and therefore dependent on the fourth member of their party, Sadie Marx.
A Crate Full of Opium
Their journey takes a dramatic turn when Dol comes across a man hanging from a tree; she saves his life, only to find that he is a violent pimp with a crate full of opium – the "missy" of the book's title. The girls continue on their way, but this is not the last they will see of him.
Nor does life run smoothly once they reach their destination. They quickly find work, but a series of events conspire against them: the threatening presence of the pimp; the antics of Dol's alcoholic mother and the persistent attentions of a one-armed chief of police; Ness' desires to settle down and open a dry-goods store; and Dol's own opium addiction, which threatens to spiral out of control.
This all makes for a highly entertaining read, particularly as Dol herself, the first-person narrator of the novel, has a great way with words. She is often witty: when comparing her profession with other, supposedly more respectable careers, she comments "us girls might take off our shirts for six (dollars) but only after we've squawked about it; we generally earn more per diem than a senator, and our reputations are less spotted in the eyes of the public." She can also evoke a memorable image, saying about her mother that "her face collapsed like a marquee when they take the main pole out."
Becky Sharp and Moll Flanders
Dol is never less than convincing as a character, and has deservedly drawn comparisons with literary predecessors such as Thackeray's Becky Sharp and Defoe's Moll Flanders. Hannan's great skill is to make her both difficult and likeable, and the reader will devour this book in a matter of hours simply to find out what befalls her.
Missy by Chris Hannan is published in paperback in the UK by Vintage Books (a division of Random House), 2009, ISBN 978-0-099-50155-8.
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