Jean

Rafferty's

Books

Savage Stories is a collection of #metoo stories, mostly about man’s inhumanity to women through the ages. They range from Viking times to the battle of Wounded Knee to a stoning in modern day Iran and are written as dramatic monologues, a little used form that gives the stories immediacy.

A novel that dares to look unflinchingly at a subject the media have turned away from.

Alma Black is a campaigning journalist who travels to Orkney to interview Hugh Watts, a troubled survivor of childhood Satanist abuse. Through listening to the terrible details of his story, she is forced to confront the demons in her own past.

As the summer solstice approaches, Alma is drawn into events she can’t control. Not all that happens on Midsummer Night is a delicious Dream…

‘A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world.’ So said Agatha Christie, ambiguously; for the bond between mother and child is deep, but sometimes, motherhood does not come naturally. This is hinted at in references to the Four Marys ballad by Virginia Woolf and Joan Baez, both of whom feature here. Obsession, longing, deceit and even murder feature in this quartet of provocative novellas, which gives a modern twist to tales of women for whom all is not necessarily as it seems or as each woman would want her life to be. Drawing on universal themes of womanhood and on history, culture and lore, ‘The Four Marys’ is a riveting exploration of the complexities of motherhood: edgy and engrossing, moving, yet at times, disturbing.

Alan Bissett and Jean Rafferty write in informed dialogue, assessing contemporary law as it pertains to freedom of speech. Taking the Leveson Inquiry as their starting point the writers discuss the state of freedom of speech across the world, local sectarianism, and the press’ ability comment on world events like no other medium can. Published in partnership with ScottishPen.

SHORT-LISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN LITERARY PRIZE
LONG-LISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN NOT THE BOOKER PRIZE

After multiple unsuccessful appeals, infamous Moors Murderer, Myra Hindley died in prison…or did she?

What if the authorities lied?

What if the embarrassment from her constant appeals for release forced a deal and Hindley was granted a new secret identity? What sort of person would she have become? How would she live her life with her newfound freedom?

Myra, Beyond Saddleworth attempts to answer these questions in what is being considered the most controversial book in recent years. Not only does it explore questions of morality and personal responsibility, its feminist author engages with the uncomfortable suggestion that women can be just as violent and cruel as men.

The book was written to celebrate the first 100 years of the women’s game and tells the story through the personalities of the women who cut through the pressure to win the Wimbledon title. They were serve and volleyers, baseliners; nervy like Louise Brough or nerveless like Helen Wills; obsessional like Suzanne Lenglen or instinctive and joyful like Evonne Goolagong. From Maud Watson to Martina Navratilova here they are, different in temperament and talent yet all equally fascinating and all contributing to make women’s tennis the most popular and highly paid women’s sport in the world today.

Available in hardback and paperback, secondhand editions.

Blood on the Corset is the ebook version of Ladies of the Court, first issued by Pavilion Books in 1984. The first women who played tennis wore corsets – they bled for their sport. The corsets would be splattered with blood when they took them off. Dramatic French champion Suzanne Lenglen freed them from the tyranny of whalebone, though they still wore long dresses to below the knee.

In 1980 Jean Rafferty was commissioned to write a book about a year on the snooker circuit. The game then was on the cusp, still with elements of the old days of smokey backstreet halls, louche characters and money changing hands, but beginning to move into a more professional mode, with managers, sponsors, and the bright television lights flooding the game with scrutiny. The book explores the tension between the two worlds of snooker, from the top players to the old timers left behind by the demands of the modern game. From Hurricane Higgins to Steve Davis and his Romford retinue, Rafferty tells the story of a snooker year through the unforgettable personalities involved in the game.