Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Case study: Valerie Anand's The House of Lanyon

When I read this summer that Valerie Anand would have a new book out soon, a regional saga set on Exmoor in England's West Country in the mid-15th century, I immediately knew two things: (1) I had get my hands on a copy as soon as possible, and (2) many members of the American reading public wouldn't know what to do with it. Excitement and disappointment, simultaneously; I worried that such a novel wouldn't find its proper audience.

I read and reviewed The House of Lanyon for November's Historical Novels Review, and now that the issue is appearing in subscribers' mailboxes, I'm republishing the review at the end of this post. The House of Lanyon is much in the same vein as the earlier novels in Anand's Bridges over Time series, although (as far as I know) it's complete in a single volume. It's the story of several families, their relationships with the land and their neighbors, and their day-to-day lives on Exmoor beginning in the year 1458. The Lanyons rear sheep, grow corn, and sell wool; the Weavers, as one can guess, weave wool into cloth; and the Sweetwaters, the Lanyons' landlords, are minor gentry on social terms with Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon.

The House of Lanyon is, as far as I'm able to tell, historically accurate. The characters' names, realistic and frequently utilitarian, reflect the time. Readers will learn much about the operations of a medieval dyeworks, marriage customs in a rural village, and the construction of a proper manor house. These descriptive sections are the parts I enjoyed most. The novel's three families have lived on the same plots of land for generations. The Lanyons rarely venture beyond the nearest village, Clicket. They have no need to. They discuss political matters among themselves, but events in faraway London don't affect their daily lives, at least not until much later in the book. (I don't want to give too much away.)

In this lies the issue some readers may have (and are having) with this novel. It has no "marquee names" or "marquee events," not for a good long while. All of the major characters are fictional, and their lifestyles aren't glamorous. Regional British sagas are rarely published in the States anymore - I buy them from the UK - as they're not very popular here, aside from in the library market. I'm willing to bet that most of today's readers (the distinguished company reading this blog excepted, of course) haven't even heard of Bridges over Time. The second-to-last volume was published in the US in 1996, and the final volume never appeared here at all. If you haven't read it, you're missing out. Her Wikipedia entry lists the titles in order.

Do readers need historical figures, names of battles, and/or major historical events inserted into a novel in order to enjoy it as historical fiction? That's what worried me about the concept behind The House of Lanyon. And so when I read the Publishers Weekly review ("There's not enough historical detail to place the Lanyons in their time and place") and an Amazon review with similar sentiments ("What I was reading could, by changing a few sentences, have been [set] anywhere from, say 500AD to 2007, and the location almost anywhere in England, Canada, the U.S., etc") I both shook my head in amazement and nodded sadly. There's plenty of historical detail in the novel, but it's not of the right type, it seems - either that, or it's too subtle to be appreciated by these readers.

All reviewers are entitled to their opinions, of course. Here's mine, below. If you've read the novel, I'd be curious to hear what you think - on the content itself, its marketability, and/or its audience. I'm also going to be watching the UK reaction to this novel, when it's published there by MIRA next April.

THE HOUSE OF LANYON
Valerie Anand, MIRA, 2007, $24.95/C$29.95, hb, 586pp, 9780778325024

In her afterword, Valerie Anand mentions it was her dream to pen a novel set on Exmoor, the rolling countryside and woodlands around Somerset. She combines a wonderful sense of place with an engrossing family saga set between 1458 and 1504, with the Wars of the Roses as a mostly distant backdrop.

The Lanyons are tenant farmers on land belonging to the Sweetwaters, minor gentry living on Exmoor. Relations between them have always been frosty, but true enmity sparks when two Sweetwater sons disrupt the funeral procession of family patriarch George Lanyon. Richard, George’s middle-aged son, swears to improve his family’s station in life henceforth. He begins by arranging his son Peter’s marriage to Liza Weaver, the well-dowered daughter of a neighboring family in the wool trade. After much heartache, both Peter and Liza abandon hopes of marrying their lovers and agree to wed one another. And Richard, for all his pride and bluster, closely guards a secret from his own past that could destroy everything he’s built.

Liza and Peter develop a strong marital bond, raising a family and suffering Richard’s ambition to rebuild Allerbrook Farm as a manor house that will put the Sweetwater residence to shame. They deal with business disputes, family squabbles, and personal losses as best they can, with outside events rarely intruding until Lancaster and York force everyone to take sides.

With its descriptions of local trades, customs, and family life, The House of Lanyon is a fascinating social history of the medieval West Country as seen through the eyes of sympathetic characters. Though nearly the entire book takes place on a small plot of land, I was never bored. The sort of novel you can comfortably wallow in for days, it’s a gift to readers who, like me, loved Anand’s Bridges over Time series and wanted more.

20 comments:

  1. I haven't read any of her books under the Valerie Anand name, only the Fiona Buckley books.

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  2. I've read one Fiona Buckley novel and thought it was so-so. It's been a while, so find it hard to say now what I didn't like about it, but I prefer the ones she writes as Anand.

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  3. I read some of Anand's novels a few years ago, and particularly enjoyed King of the Wood and the ones that came before it chronologically - one was called Gildenford, can't remember the name of the other one. I didn't know she wrote as Fiona Buckley too.

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  4. There's another one called The Norman Pretender I particularly enjoyed as well - it's been over 20 years since I read it, but from what I recall, most if not all of the characters are historical figures. If you read it alongside Morgan Llywelyn's The Wind from Hastings you'll get a slightly different view of Harold's wife Aldith.

    The tone of House of Lanyon is lighter than any of these.

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  5. This is new to me, but from your description it sounds as if it belongs to a long tradition of novel writing. RF Delderfield's novels spring immediately to mind - also, by chance, set mainly in the West Country. Are the objections to the absence of 'glamour', or is the story itself considered to be dull?

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  6. Carla - yes, it does fall into the same tradition as Delderfield. It is somewhat old-fashioned in that respect, but I found it refreshing, because few modern authors write novels of this type anymore.

    I didn't find it dull at all, because there's plenty of drama going on within the families to carry the story, but readers looking for political intrigue, glamorous characters/settings, and major historical events will likely be disappointed. The objections center on there not being "enough of a historical sense," but given all the historical detail Anand includes (albeit of a different type than some readers want/expect) I don't really see that. In fact, when XX (major historical figure everyone here will recognize) makes an appearance over halfway through the story, to me it felt artificial. At least at first.

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  7. "few modern authors write novels of this type anymore"
    It may be the case that they are still being written, but that few modern publishers publish them any more. But whatever the reason, they do seem to be a near-extinct species. Pity.

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  8. Yes, this is true.

    What I find interesting here is that, according to her author's note, Anand wrote this novel by invitation. Paraphrasing: she'd always wanted to write a book set on Exmoor, and when her agent phoned her with the news that a publisher was looking for a historical novel with a regional English setting, she finally got the chance to write it.

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  9. Thanks for the heads up on this Sarah! I love this type of book and I might have missed it.

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  10. I think you would probably like it too! It's brand new as of this month, so it's not surprising if you missed seeing it before.

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  11. Well, your blog entry and your review convinced me to buy it! I got it yesterday from the local bookstore, and will read it after New Year's.

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  12. Hi Laura, please let me/us know what you think after you read it!

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  13. I finally read The House of Lanyon and I liked it a lot. Enough to buy the next book in the series. I was reminded of Ken Follett's books, but I thought this was better - much better. She didn't ramble, nor did she go into graphic detail regarding intimacy - which I very much appreciated. Good story!

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  14. Hi Laura, thanks for reporting back, and I'm glad you enjoyed it also. I agree that it does resemble Follett, both in terms of setting and the relatively simple style of her storytelling (but it's less sprawling and more historically accurate!). I've just finished House of Allerbrook, which is just as good, though political matters play a much stronger role in the characters' lives.

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  15. valerie--coincidently,
    me also from north india is dalip anand

    read first times about you,
    lot of regards
    da

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  16. I throughly enjoyed the Fiona Buckley series. Never knew she had this other series. Sorry I never heard of the Bridges series, but I have now put it on my TBR. Historical fiction for me takes place in a period of time, with conventions and descriptions and such. I don't need famous people in my books.

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  17. If you've never read the Bridges over Time books (I sounded kind of obnoxious about it, reading over what I wrote :) you're in for a treat. The first book is The Proud Villeins, and the series traces several branches of the same family over 800+ years of British history as they rise up out of serfdom and steadily regain the social status they had before the Norman Conquest. Great descriptions of medieval life.

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  18. Anonymous11:55 AM

    Have just finished reading the House of Lanyon and I marvelled at its sense of place and history. I came across your site by accident and was horrified by your reference to comments that said it could have been set anywhere, anytime. I suppose those readers haven't had a UK education and, being part Welsh/part English I revelled in the references!

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  19. Hello and thank you for your comments - glad you agree on House of Lanyon. I wish there were going to be more than just the two in the series, but I haven't heard about any others to come.

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