Elaine Thomson's books subject of scientific papers

Since 2016, Elaine Thomson has written a series of mystery novels featuring an apothecary in mid-Victorian London: Jem Flockhart. Born biologically female as Jeremiah Jemima Flockhart, Jem bears a striking port-wine stain across the eyes and nose, resembling a mask. After the death of her twin brother and mother during childbirth, Jem is raised as male to assume the social role of the lost son.

The character of Jem Flockhart is clearly inspired by James Barry (1789–1865), who was born Margaret Bulkley. Barry lived as a man in order to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in the 1810s and went on to serve as a military doctor. It was only after Barry’s death that her biological sex was revealed.

Neither Barry nor Flockhart can be accurately described as cross-dressing in a performative or sexual sense, nor as intersex in a biological sense. Rather, both figures represent determined and resourceful women navigating a rigidly male-dominated society—one in which women were widely considered unfit, intellectually or psychologically, for professions such as medicine or pharmacy.

Thomson further acknowledges this historical inspiration by borrowing Barry’s father’s name, Jeremiah, as the “original” name of Jem Flockhart.

In recent years, Thomson’s novels have attracted academic attention, particularly within the framework of heterotopic spaces[1][2]. The concept of heterotopia describes spaces that are “other”: sites that are unsettling, contradictory, or transformative. These are worlds within worlds—spaces that mirror society while simultaneously subverting it. Classic examples include ships, cemeteries, prisons, bars, brothels, prisons, gardens, fairs, and many more.

Within the grim and often brutal landscape of Victorian London, where filth, grime, and depravity were rife,it is quite understandable that Jem Flockhart and her companion William ('Will') Quartermain often find themselves in precisely such heterotropic spaces. Hospitals, asylums, prisons, brothels, anatomical theatres, graveyards, slums, ships, and even colonial outposts serve as recurring settings. These spaces intensify the narrative’s tension while reflecting the fractured moral and social order of the time.

Scholar Marie-Luise Kohlke attempts to draw broader conclusions about the role of heterotopia in Thomson’s work but ultimately struggles to define a singular interpretive framework. This difficulty is perhaps unsurprising. Heterotopic spaces are a staple of crime fiction more generally, employed by authors ranging from Agatha Christie to Alistair MacLean. Such spaces function narratively to isolate characters, heighten suspense, and delineate boundaries between insiders and outsiders.

And that's the crux of many social studies: there are hardly any hard facts that can be molded into a comprehensive theory.

Whatever my misgivings about these two papers, you really should read all the books of Elaine Thomson, including those of Elaine di Rollo, her alter ego. All are reviewed on this weblog.

[1] Kohlke: Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson's Jem Flockhart Series in Humanities – 2022. See here.
[2] Kohlke et al:: Heterotopic and Neo-Victorian Affinities: Introducing the Special Issue on Neo-Victorian Heterotopias in Humanities - 2022. See here.