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April 22, 2008 10:00 AM

HELEN'S HEROINES: Nell Dysart

Helen Redfern's weekly column on the fictional females she loves...

Nell Dysart. Wow. Where do I start? As research for this heroine I took pages and pages of notes and quotations which I thought were relevant to the character of Eleanor (Nell) Dysart, heroine of Jennifer Crusie’s Fast Women. There is so much to explore as she goes on an exciting journey to a new life, uncovering crimes in the process.

First published in 2001, Fast Women is my first and only (so far) Jennifer Crusie novel. I bought it, tempted by a great review by Sarah here on Trashionista a few weeks ago. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel for many reasons, but what captured me most of all was Nell. All the time I was reading it I was thinking, here is a great character for Helen’s Heroines.

In the first few pages she comes across as passive, depressed, letting her ex husband ride all over her. Even before she knew the real reason for his desire to divorce she ‘wanted to be mad’ with him. Instead she didn’t allow those feelings to surface as they wouldn’t be ‘productive’ making things ‘more difficult for everybody.’

In the same week she starts working at the detective agency she discovers the real reason behind their marriage break up and she releases these feelings in the form of a good smash up in her ex-husband’s office. She states that she doesn’t feel better after doing this, but it is a turning point in her life, allowing her to move forward. You get the sense for the first time she lets her real self come to the fore. She starts to shake up her life and the detective agency. The real Nell, who hasn’t looked after herself in months, and who has been suppressed for years, is emerging.

Along with smashing up her ex's office, in her first week on the job she also steals a dog, extorts money from her predecessor in the agency, tries to sleep with a client’s husband, actually sleeps with Riley, one of the detectives, and really gets under the skin of Gabe, her new boss. Not bad for someone who ‘didn’t [appear to] have a pulse’ when Gabe hired her. He thought he was getting a hardworking, efficient but quiet secretary.

Stealing the ill treated dog is significant for Nell. Riley tells her not to. She knows it’s wrong but, in her own words, ‘this is bigger than the dog.’ It represents so much. The start of her new life, doing what she wants, not allowing others to control her, rescuing herself but most of all ‘People kept doing lousy things and getting away with it.’ She was ‘mad’ and wanted to right all the wrongs that she could.

As the book progresses Nell gets stronger and stronger. She tests boundaries with her boss, she moves apartments into somewhere she chooses, stands up to her ex-husband, brings the agency up to date, helps out her friends, falls in love, and helps solve a huge crime. Her old passive ways change dramatically, instead of accepting life as it is she states, ‘I have to move toward something.’ Which she does - in a big way.

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Posted by Aigua Media on April 22, 2008 | Permalink

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