“Bodies of light” by Sarah Moss (Granta, 2014)

Manchester, 1850s. Artist Alfred Moberley marries Elizabeth whose mother is a feminist/socialist (active in the Manchester Welfare Society) and whose younger sister is Mary. They honeymoon in Wales - "There is birdsong but no visible birds, as if the day sings to itself". They settle into a new house whose interior he has designed. But he's an aesthete and meanwhile they lack furniture.

He wants to painted her. She knows that he paints nudes. She has a baby, Alethea (Ally). She resists getting help because her mother thinks it's indulgent. She get depressed, has suicidal thoughts. He sleeps with a customer.

When Ally is 10, Elizabeth takes her and May to see The Home (though Alfred's against it). The girls talk about Aubery (their father's business partner) and RDS (an artist) staying in Venice and seeing a ghost. They start at a little school for girls only (previously their mother had home-taught them). The plan is for Ally to become a doctor. She models for Aubery and is photographed by him.

Elizabeth is moralistic, wearing jumpers rather than lighting fires. When Ally collapses - an attack of nerves? - her mother is angry. Religious texts and domestic chores are prescribed by the doctor. Alfred is more fun. Aubery is more fun still.

Elizabeth campaigns against laws in France (and later England) which penalizes whores (and single women out at night) while letting their clients off. She asks May to act as bait, so she can collect evidence. Amy refuses.

Amy goes to a Scottish island to be a midwife. Ally go to London to become a doctor, staying with aunt Mary, whose way of bringing up George and her other children shocks Ally. Amy dies at sea. Ally becomes a surgeon. George wants to be an engineer rather than going to Cambridge. He invites Tom, a light-house designer, to the house. Amy works at the London Women's Asylum. When patients die because of operations, she wonders if it's for the best, saving later suffering. She wonders how much the state of mind affects physical health and decides to work in an asylum. She and Tom marry. Her mother's disappointed that she's sacrificing her career.

Chapters are begun with entries about paintings (by Alfred and others), plus a description. Perhaps the most significant narrational feature is that the set-pieces are generally not dealt with in the present, if at all.