Girl In A Blue Dress, by Gaynor Arnold

In an era when major publishers seem scared to take on any author who will not turn a very fast buck, it is increasingly smaller independent publishers who bring out interesting work. Tindal Street Press in Birmingham is an exemplary case. It has welcomed authors whose work has often been rejected by the big houses – in the case of first novels by Clare Morrall and Catherine O'Flynn, with considerable success. Although remaining close to its Midlands roots, Tindal Street has long outgrown the unfair label of a "regional" publisher. The Man Booker-longlisted Girl in a Blue Dress is up to its highest standards.

The novel is narrated by Dorothea, widow of Alfred Gibson, the most famous novelist of Victorian times. It opens on the day of his funeral, from which she has been excluded. She and her husband have not lived together for many years and, while thousands of his adoring public watch his cortège arrive at Westminster Abbey, she waits in the modest house to which she has been banished and thinks back on her past life with the great man.

Alfred, and the rest of the cast of the novel, are based closely on Charles Dickens and his family. Gaynor Arnold sticks closely to Dickens's life. Here is the young man, full of high spirits but already dedicated to long hours of writing. And here is the superabundant energy in the production of books, and the sometimes irritated surprise at the production of so many children. Sometimes the novel is a bit too Dickensian: Gibson's parents are parodies of the Micawbers, and the midwife too Gampy by half.

But some of the best writing is in what Arnold has invented. Dorothea evokes Gibson as a young man, husband and lover. After his death, there are problems with children, a money-grubbing son-in law, and an audience with Queen Victoria. When Dorothea returns to the house from which her husband expelled her there is a finely paced encounter with a sister. At the end,s Dorothea meets Wilhelmina, the young actress who may or may not have been his mistress.

Girl in a Blue Dress is exceptionally well controlled in its playing of past against present. It's best, perhaps, for those who don't know much about the life of Dickens; but its success as a novel lies in working independently of such knowledge.