The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez unites a diverse cast of people during the Panama Canal's construction

The Great Divide is the epic novel of the Panama Canal’s construction you didn’t know you’d been missing. This major engineering feat of the early 20th century linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, making international shipping more efficient, but its excavation caused untold hardships for Panama’s people. With this event as a backdrop, Henríquez brings together a large cast whose lives are transformed by it.

Among them are Ada Bunting, an enterprising young Barbadian woman who stows away aboard a steamer to Panama, hoping to earn enough money there to pay for surgery for her ill sister back home. Omar Aquino, a fisherman’s son, seeks adventure and community in signing on as a laborer for the canal, but his decision provokes his father, who hates seeing his country torn up by outsiders, to give him the silent treatment. A caring woman with botanical expertise, Marian Oswald has accompanied her scientist husband, John, from Tennessee in support of his dream of eradicating malaria but finds herself isolated and lonely.

The viewpoint is deliberately inclusive and moves from familiar perspectives to new ones with ease, introducing characters like Ada’s proudly independent mother in Barbados; the fishmonger Joaquín and wife Valentina, whose childhood home at Gatún is the rumored site of a proposed dam; and the Oswalds’ cook, Antoinette, who sends funds back to her children in Antigua.

Henríquez’s style resembles Ken Follett’s in its smoothness and approachability, though her cast is more culturally diverse, the scope not as sprawling, and she avoids crazy coincidences in gathering the different threads together. The novel is a stellar example of how historical novels can bring lesser-known voices to the surface, emphasizing how every person has a story worth listening to.

The Great Divide appeared from Ecco/HarperCollins in March, and I'd reviewed it from an Edelweiss copy for the Historical Novels Review's May issue.  Fourth Estate is the UK publisher. The novel was a Read with Jenna book club pick. A Spanish-language edition, Entre Dos Aguas, translated by  Martha Celis-Mendoza, will be out in August.

Bits and pieces of historical fiction news: awards, reviews, and more

A short roundup of recent news about historical novels and their authors.

Jayne Anne Phillips' Night Watch, set in rural West Virginia during and after the US Civil War, was named the winner for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction on May 6th. I had reviewed it last year, and it's nice to see a historical novel get such a prestigious honor.  The announcement in Publishers Lunch (can't link to it as it's behind a paywall) mentioned that up until now, Night Watch had sold fewer than 4000 hardcover copies, a modest number.  Safe to say that many libraries and individual readers will be adding it to their collections now.  It was also longlisted for the National Book Award. The Washington Post review, by Wendy Smith, which called it "beautiful, mournful," is very positive (with one quibble that I happen to agree with). Dwight Garner's New York Times review is decidedly less so. The literary style won't appeal to everyone, but in reading multiple reviews, you can get a sense of whether a novel will suit your tastes or not. Then, if you want to read more about authors and reviews, I recommend Jennifer Weiner's Substack post on the topic, "Revenge of the Panned."

The 2024 Walter Scott Prize shortlist is out, with six historical novels under contention:

The New Life by Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus/Scribner)

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein (Bloomsbury/Ecco)

My Father's House by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker/Europa)

In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas (Viking Canada/Viking US/John Murray)

Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain (Chatto & Windus/no US edition)

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (Canongate/Bloomsbury US)

I've added the US publishers if they exist. The only one I've read so far is In the Upper Country, centering on an Underground Railroad hub in what's now Ontario in 1859, and my takeaway was "while [it] isn’t an effortless read, it makes an original and valuable contribution to the historical fiction genre." The winner will be announced on June 13th.

The category shortlists for the Historical Novel Society's First Chapters competition were announced on Monday. This award is for the first three chapters of an unpublished historical fiction work.

Bestselling historical crime writer C. J. Sansom passed away on April 27th after a lengthy illness, and his fans, peers, and publisher have been posting their remembrances. Among the most moving is that written by his friend Rear Admiral John Lippiett, Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust, speaking about how he came to meet the author and read his works, and his personal experience with Sansom's thorough research into Tudor politics and life over the course of his novels.

On her Substack, Alina Adams shares details about sales and earnings for her newest historical novel, My Mother's Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region, which came out with the micro-press History Through Fiction. This will be an informative post not just for readers curious about the historical fiction market, but also (and especially) for authors interested in publishing with smaller presses and wanting to know what to expect. Spoiler alert: the total sales numbers have been very good.

Kelly E. Hill's A Home for Friendless Women is based on original research into Victorian-era Louisville

Kelly E. Hill’s debut reads like a living, breathing scrapbook about the women from the titular Home, a religious organization from late 19th-century Louisville, Kentucky, that took in unwed pregnant women, attempting to instill them with godly virtues while persuading them to discard their “sinful” ways. Of course, what constitutes sin is in the beholder’s eye, and the line between the oppressed and their female oppressors often hinges on an unfortunate quirk of fate.

In 1878, a brilliant former Oberlin College student named Ruth arrives at the Home after an unknown man sexually assaults her in the campus museum – a place where women students were permitted to clean but not use the microscopes. With nowhere else to go, Ruth puts up with the founders’ obnoxious moralizing, but shocking events have her worrying about the other girls and their babies.

Eleven years later, we hear from the witty Belle Queeney, who left the brothel several blocks away after she fell pregnant. Belle’s tireless work ethic threatens to make the other “inmates” look bad, but she knows her worth even if society calls her a fallen woman. Belle dreams of reuniting with her lover, Rose, who has gone missing.

And in 1901, the founders’ daughter Minnie Davidson, now a fortyish wife and mother, uncovers a past scandal at the Home just in time for its 25th anniversary celebration. Their accounts appear chronologically, a technique that allows mysteries to build.

Delighting in research but never weighed down by it, Hill’s novel is based around cryptic mentions from the Home’s actual minute books (“Two women have been sent to City Hospital, one to Insane Asylum, one expelled”), transforming these long-silenced individuals into memorable characters, alongside primary source snippets and informative footnotes. Echoing with themes of human dignity, bodily autonomy, and the rights all women deserve, this wise and compassionate work is completely absorbing.

A Home for Friendless Women was published by Vintage in March, and I reviewed it for May's Historical Novels Review. This novel hasn't gotten the attention it deserves!  If not for a review in Booklist, I wouldn't have realized this book was available; afterward, I found it on NetGalley and requested it. And yes, there are footnotes. They often don't work well within historical novels, but I had no problem with them in this one.