The London Séance Society: A Novel

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-14

Chapters 15-24

Chapters 25-33

Chapter 34-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Evie’s Journal & Exposé

The London Séance Society focuses on the idea of hidden histories: the untold women’s histories that have been buried by patriarchal systems past and present, as well as the LGBTQ+ histories (especially those of women) that have been omitted from the narratives of Victorian England. Evie’s journal, in which she details the events of her daily life and her investigations of the Society, represents the embodiment of these hidden histories, for Morely and the men of the Society actively attempt to hide Evie’s journal and exposé, literally locking it away in a hidden drawer just as real-life histories of marginalized people are often obscured or destroyed. Likewise, Lenna’s investigation of Morely and her eventual discovery of the journal represent the struggle to uncover and honor a hidden history.

Significantly, the novel ends with the completion of Evie’s exposé, with Lenna taking up the work that Evie was unable to finish. This act is a culmination of the network-building work that Lenna, Vaudeline, and Evie have created throughout the narrative, for each of these women is dedicated to exposing the harmful ways in which patriarchal systems construct and maintain power. By publishing Evie’s suppressed history and showing it to the world, Lenna completes this process and exposes the lies that the Society has used to shroud its darker deeds.

Evie’s Apportation

There are many elements of the séance that Lenna finds difficult to believe are real, from ghosts and possession to the possibility that the dead can communicate through a flickering candle. One aspect of the séance that Lenna finds especially unbelievable are “apportations,” or objects such as coins, seashells, and feathers (86) that appear randomly during the séance. As a skeptic of spiritualism, Lenna does not believe that apportations could exist, but the possibility of finding an apportation also appeals to her because it would provide tangible proof of the existence of the supernatural.

The only apportation that appears in the novel comes at the end of the climactic séance, when the feather that Lenna brings as a gift for Evie is replaced by an amber stone “void of inclusions, more beautiful than any in Lenna’s existing collection” (316). This apportation fuels Lenna’s belief in spiritualism and represents the mended relationship between Evie and Lenna. The apportation can be read as an exchange of gifts; Lenna offers Evie something that was important to her, and Evie responds by giving Lenna an object that she knows will relate to her sister’s interests. The quality of the amber that Lenna receives is also notable, for Lenna’s interest in geology as a means of uncovering buried histories has already been established. When Evie gives her a pristine piece of amber resin—one that does not preserve any foreign bodies within it, the amber’s lack of any secret history suggests that Lenna is finally released from the obligation to solve Evie’s murder. She can now live only herself, just as she can enjoy the flawless amber for what it is.

Ghosts

Ghosts are a common and almost compulsory feature of the supernatural séance novel. Just as in Gothic fiction, ghosts in the séance circle typically represent the persistence of a past that refuses to be forgotten and must be confronted by the narrative’s protagonists. Ghosts are also representatives of the liminalities between living and the dead, the remembered and the forgotten.

The ghosts of The London Séance Society engage these themes in a variety of ways, but Sarah Penner also uses the motif of spirits to explore themes that are specific to the novel’s characters and narrative concerns. At the start of the novel, for example, the notion of a ghost is tainted by Lenna’s ambivalent attitude toward spiritualism. To Lenna’s rational mind, ghosts are intangible, and their existence is therefore unprovable. They represent everything that Lenna detests about spiritualism, namely that the practice asks its followers to believe in the supernatural without evidence. Conversely, spirits also represent that which Lenna craves the mostly deeply—contact with the ones she has lost and the possibility of mending unresolved wounds.

Lenna’s relationship to the concept of ghosts shifts over the course of the novel. In the climactic séance, Evie’s ghost does offer Lenna everything she’s hoped for: concrete proof of the supernatural, and the opportunity to reconcile with Evie even after her death. By the time Lenna finally encounters Evie’s ghost, she no longer needs “proof” of the supernatural to understand her relationship to spiritualism and to Vaudeline. By the time the climactic séance arrives, she no longer craves tangible certainties.