The Dress Lodger

The Dress Lodger (2001), Sheri Holman’s historical novel takes place during the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution amid the cholera outbreak of 1831. Set in Sunderland, England, a riverside city quarantined by the epidemic, fifteen-year-old Gustine, street smart and defiant, works as a potter’s assistant by day and a prostitute by night. Part character study and part thriller, The Dress Lodger is a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a pick for New York Public Library Books to Remember. It was long-listed for a Dublin IMPAC award. The Dress Lodger is Holman’s second novel.

According to the story, dress lodging is defined as a poor prostitute being loaned a fancy dress to attract a wealthier clientele. The more money she makes, the higher her own status. In return, she is given a place to stay. Each night, Gustine wears a stunning blue gown to attract men. Out of necessity, she wears it to make as much money as she can to care for her illegitimate child, a son born with a rare anatomical defect. Her pimp, Whilky Robinson, is her dress sponsor, and each night, he sends his employee, a one-eyed old cantankerous woman known simply as the Eye to track Gustine’s movements to make sure she earns enough and doesn’t make off with the dress. Gustine can predict in exacting detail, what kind of lover a man will be. It is a useful skill in her profession but her back-alley encounters put her at risk everywhere she goes.

During Gustine’s working hours, Whilky’s young daughter, Pink, watches Gustine’s son who was born with his heart on the outside of his body, making him a medical anomaly. His defect becomes the obsession of Dr. Henry Chiver, a surgeon. Henry and Gustine cross paths early on when they both realize that each has something the other one wants. Henry wants Gustine’s access to the corpses she encounters while working on the streets. For Gustine, Henry represents her best chance at saving her fragile child. Gustine secures the bodies for Henry’s medical school until his greed and his increasing obsession with her child threaten Gustine’s loyalty to him.



Henry’s sordid past includes him having to leave his home in Edinburgh in disgrace after his part in a grave stealing scandal involving two other anatomists convicted of murder. He is painted as a selfish and arrogant man, concerned only for his own gain. He doggedly pursues science at any expense, even death.

Sunderland is a miserable, decaying backdrop full of sleazy characters, impoverished citizens, and a number of minors. The city’s economy is strapped due to the quarantine. Most of the residents believe that the epidemic is a conspiracy by the government to frighten the poor. Many of the city’s inhabitants do not believe in the notion of deadly disease, and in working-class minds, the doctors, with their grave-digging and crude dissections, are the true evil villains.

The novel is chock-full of vivid detail. The language is richly descriptive and vibrant. Sights, sounds, and smells are sharply defined to give the reader a heightened experience. The body snatchings, dissections, and other medical horror scenes serve as a warning to readers with weak stomachs. The writing is a cross between Charles Dickens and Stephen King. It infuses the grim sign of place and time with grotesque horror.



Holman graduated from The College of William and Mary with a master’s in theater. After graduation, she worked as a literary agent assistant. Her first novel, A Stolen Tongue was published in 1996. She is also the author of Sondok, Princess of the Moon and Stars and The Mammoth Cheese. Holman grew up just outside Richmond, Virginia. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.