Z is for Zana

And with this post we come to the end of Historical Tapestry's Alphabet in Historical Fiction challenge.  It's been fun choosing and reviewing these 26 books over the past year and more.  Thanks to my fellow participants and also all of the readers and commenters for keeping me company along the way.

I'm choosing Zana Bell's Forbidden Frontier as my final selection, not only because it fits the pattern but also because it leads nicely into the Nautical Fiction challenge I'll be taking on in 2011.  This one doesn't count for the latter because it's a book I'd read a while ago and had reviewed elsewhere, but it's worth highlighting, and revisiting it may help me find my sea legs a little faster!

Charlotte Badger is a heroine of a type I’d not encountered before. A strapping, self-reliant, and clever woman, Charlotte’s not above a little thievery or whoring if it’ll get her a few more drams of rum. She narrates her story beginning with her transportation from London to Port Jackson in faraway New South Wales in the year 1800. Sharing the harrowing voyage with Charlotte and her fellow convicts are Nathan Wesley, an idealistic missionary, and his distant wife, Elizabeth, whose viewpoints appear in alternating sections. Their paths come together when Charlotte convinces Nathan to make her their house servant.

To their dismay, the Wesleys discover their new home consists of little more than ramshackle huts with earthen floors, muddy roads, and a lumpy, deserted landscape. The social strata amongst the settlers mimic that of their English homeland, with rich landowners at the top of the scale and convict labor and the despised Irish at the very bottom. Charlotte finds a sort of freedom in her life outside prison, while Nathan follows his adventurous spirit to extremes, and Elizabeth hides her feelings under a mask of decorum to preserve her marriage. It’s only later, as each forms new relationships and undergoes difficult trials, that they make peace with their true selves.

The historical record provides the bare bones of Charlotte’s tale: the first recorded white woman in New Zealand, she arrived there in 1806 after staging a mutiny. This leaves plenty of room for speculation on her background and motivations. Bell ably captures the difficulties of eking out an existence on a new frontier, Sydney’s gradual development into a full-fledged town, and the way disillusionment can transform into opportunity, and vice versa, at a moment’s notice. Charlotte’s irreverent, good-humored voice and her ability to seize the best out of every meager prospect kept me reading. I enjoyed this novel immensely.

Forbidden Frontier was published by Mira Australia in 2008 in trade paper at $32.95 Aus. ($37.00 NZ).

Y is for Yellowstone

Based on the cover and title, does this look like women's historical adventure fiction to you?  Me neither, and this dissuaded me from giving the book a second glance until recently.  Maybe I shouldn't pigeonhole it to such a degree, but it's one of the better examples in the subgenre.

Linda Jacobs' Lake of Fire takes place in and around Yellowstone National Park in June of 1900.  It's the beginning of tourist season, and Laura Fielding, a banking heiress from Chicago, defies her father's wishes by traveling alone to Yellowstone by stagecoach.  After Cord Sutton rescues her from a violent robbery in which her driver is killed, the two make their way together from Jackson Hole to the park, a three-day journey.

They grow steadily closer as they cross treacherous waters, face dangers from local wildlife, and camp out in Wyoming's magnificent high country, but both are keeping secrets.  Cord claims to be a rancher, which is true, but he also has plans to purchase Yellowstone's elegant Lake Hotel - an ambitious scenario for a man whose grandmother was Nez Perce.  Laura's rich father is backing a different buyer.  Hank Falls has been managing the hotel for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and now that the railroad has decided to sell, he wants to own it outright.

Jacobs doesn't make the mistake of dragging out the misunderstanding between Laura and Cord.  Although they're forced to see one another in a new light, they don't suddenly change their personalities once they arrive at the park.  It's a foregone conclusion that they'll fall in love, but many obstacles stand in their way, including Cord's previous attachment and Forrest Fielding's intent to make a match between his daughter and Hank.

There's a lot more going on than just Laura and Cord's growing love story. While this aspect is emotionally gripping, the novel's much meatier than that, and the richness of the background makes the romance even more poignant and real. Subplots reveal the park's complex history and the U.S. government's shameful treatment of the Nez Perce, or the Nimiipuu as they called themselves.

Although I can appreciate the author's attempt to provide a panorama of regional history, she sacrifices some clarity in the process. The sheer number of viewpoints and flashbacks to past events is disorienting at times. One thing that remains clear, however, is the author's deep love for Yellowstone.  She vividly recreates its breathtaking imagery: the bountiful forests, the surprising geologic formations, and the beauty of the sunrise as it tints the snow-capped mountains in rose.

Lake of Fire is an exciting glimpse into how refined society adapted to the park's rugged wilderness in the early 20th century.  It also serves as a reminder of the brave Western women, both white and native, who dared to live against the grain.

Lake of Fire, a finalist for the WILLA Literary Award from Women Writing the West, was published by Medallion Press in 2007 in mass market paperback (540pp, $6.99 US/$9.99 Canada).  Quite a bargain, in my opinion.  This is my pick for the letter Y in Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge.  Incidentally, the title fits the pattern of the author's previous books, which are set in modern-day Yellowstone.  It does have a connection to the story, though it's a slim one, imho, and you'd have to read it to see why.

X is for Xenia

“Two offenses ruined me,” wrote Ovid, “a poem and an error.”

Using the technique of many successful historical novelists, Jane Alison takes a mystery that has remained unsolved through the ages and provides an intriguing solution. Ovid, the Roman poet best known for his masterwork The Metamorphoses, was exiled to the remote island of Tomis in 8 AD for reasons unknown. In Alison’s haunting interpretation, the poem is Medea, of which only two lines remain, and the error involves a witch and mystic from the far reaches of the Empire who becomes Ovid’s tragic muse.

After incurring the wrath of Emperor Augustus, who was upset by the indecency of his recently published erotic book, The Art of Love, Ovid travels to the Black Sea’s eastern shores for respite and inspiration. There he meets Xenia, a young woman with yellow-grey eyes and wild, glassy hair who seems to personify his most heartfelt fictional creations. Xenia, who lives apart from the native Phasians in this already isolated country, has the ability to glimpse the future, and what she foresees for Ovid’s legacy is extraordinary.

Enraptured by his poetry as well as by the man himself, Xenia wonders what it might be like to be “loved by the love-artist,” to be the woman who inspires his next masterpiece. She’ll soon get her wish. Ovid, craving the immortality that Xenia seems to promise, brings her back with him to Rome. There he'll craft his new work under the secret patronage of the emperor’s granddaughter, Julia, who hates Augustus for forcing her into an unwanted marriage. Ovid has never written a tragedy before.  But with Julia’s vengeful ambition urging him on, and Xenia’s apparent willingness to serve his interests, he believes he may have what it takes…

Ovid has the name recognition to attract readers to the story, but the novel as a whole belongs to Xenia. Trapped in a web of mutual obsession, she finds herself led towards a devastating finale -- unless she can use her mystical talents and innate intelligence to break away and save herself. Her journey, as she slowly awakens to Ovid’s plans, is suspenseful and engrossing. The atmosphere is dark, eerie, and electrically charged.

Alison shapes her language in ways that create striking and sensual impressions in the mind. Her carefully chosen images brilliantly illustrate Ovid’s hunger for the theatre of Rome: “The stage would be glowing saffron red, and there would be the murmur of all the voices, and the intricate hairstyles, and the bare shoulders, and the messages flying, and the swift, appreciative glances, and the limb-weakening applause, which has often been for him…”

In exploring the dangerous intersections between art and life, between the poem and the poet, Alison has created a highly original work that evokes the majesty of the imperial Roman world and the price exacted in the quest for literary fame.

The Love-Artist was published by Farrar, Straux, & Giroux in 2001 (currently out of print).  This is my pick for the letter X in Historical Tapestry's Alphabet in Historical Fiction challenge.

W is for Wishnia

Kenneth Wishnia's historical mystery takes place in late 16th-century Prague, a setting that has inspired several other novelists (Frances Sherwood's The Book of Splendor and Lisa Goldstein's The Alchemist's Door are also set there).  Perhaps the fascination is thanks to its ruler, Kaiser Rudolf II, whose support of fine art and scientific discoveries led his empire into the scientific revolution.  He also took an interest in alchemy and astrology and experimented with both - some may say too much.

In Wishnia's The Fifth Servant, the Jews of Prague find the city a contradictory mix of tolerance and repression.  While Rudolf has granted them his protection, they're forced to live in a walled ghetto and wear yellow badges whenever they leave it.  Rumors of their wealth and magical practices are pervasive, causing Christians to eye them with suspicion.  And this, in a crowded, multiethnic capital still reeling from the Reformation. While Catholics view the Jews as misguided, they see Protestants as heretics.

The entire plot spans a three-day period, from Passover to Easter Sunday, in the year 1592.  Benyamin Ben-Akiva, a Talmudic scholar, has just arrived in Prague from rural Poland. An outsider with no connections, he's very grateful to be offered a post as shammes, or sexton, at the Klaus Shul (synagogue) under the great Rabbi Loew.  He also hopes to reunite with his estranged wife, who has returned to join her family in the ghetto.

After the butchered body of a young Christian girl turns up in a Jewish merchant's shop, Christian mobs accuse the shopkeeper of killing her for her blood - the classic lie, the blood libel, that has followed Jews for centuries. Benyamin believes him innocent. The sheriff allows him three days to uncover the killer, or else everyone in the Yidnshtot (Jewish town) will be held responsible.

Benyamin approaches his task with intelligence, wry humor, and chutzpah, and he'll need all three.  His down-to-earth, slang-filled voice enlivens the narrative; that, plus his knowledge of Christian doctrine, surprises officials who are all too ready to dismiss him.  Key to his investigations is the help of other freethinkers like himself: a Christian butcher's daughter who works as a Sabbath maid to the ghetto's mayor; a Bohemian herb-woman; and his supervisor Rabbi Loew.

The novel is a sometimes uneasy balance of entertainment, enlightenment, and erudition. Wishnia's knowledge of the city, its geography, and the literature and beliefs of its 16th-century residents gives his book a strong sense of period. All the content on Talmudic scholarship, Jewish folklore, and German and Yiddish vocabulary can be hard to work through, but I felt the effort paid off.  The map at the beginning helps, as does the glossary at the end.

Benyamin's can-do attitude and amusing remarks keep the pages turning, and the way he and Rabbi Loew use the words of appropriate Jewish sages to justify unorthodox decisions (it's their bad luck to have to work on the Sabbath) is a clever touch. Finally, the themes of religious tolerance, the courage to explore others' beliefs, and the importance of opposing censorship - which are all interlinked - have clear relevance for today. 

I started The Fifth Servant wondering if it would be a book I admired more than I liked, but came away feeling sincerely impressed by the way it was all put together.  The ending was satisfying and appropriate. Well done.

The Fifth Servant was published by Morrow in March 2010 ($25.99, 387pp).

V is for Victoria

Victoria Hislop's The Island has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for the past few years, for no particular reason, and it caught my eye again while I was considering my letter V pick for the alphabet challenge.  A former Richard & Judy Book Club selection, it hit #1 on British bestseller lists and has recently been made into a miniseries for Greek TV. It even has its own Wikipedia page. 

Living in the U.S., I missed all the hoopla.  The Island came out here in 2007 to little fanfare, but its broad appeal is understandable.  In many respects, it hits the right notes: a multigenerational saga focusing on women's relationships, its near-400 pages overflow with incident and drama.  Along with the modern-day heroine, readers uncover the painful family history that her mother has kept hidden for decades, an engrossing story gradually revealed. Such are the ingredients for a typical beach read, but it's made notable by its skillful evocation of a previously little-known setting, Spinalonga, an island off the coast of Crete that served as a leper colony for most of the 20th century.

While on a vacation to Greece with her arrogant and annoying fiancé, Alexis Fielding leaves him behind for a few days to visit Plaka, in northwestern Crete, the village where her mother Sofia was born. Here an old family friend, Fortini, spells out for Alexis the reasons behind Sofia's desires to leave her homeland behind and start anew in London.  The majority of the narrative spans from 1939 through the late '60s, explaining how Sofia's family story intertwines with that of Spinalonga.  It begins as Alexis's great-grandmother, Eleni, is banished to the island after contracting leprosy, leaving her great-grandfather, Georgiou, to raise their daughters on his own.  The tale proceeds through World War II, a time when residents of Spinalonga were spared the traumatic occupation by German forces that Cretans were forced to endure, and continues as Eleni's children, Anna and Maria, follow very different paths in romance and in life.

Victoria Hislop writes with warmth and sensitivity about Spinalonga's residents and the self-contained community they build together.  Although few expect to leave - a cure for leprosy seems far distant - the island, with its vibrant flowers and bustling storefronts, is far from the prison most of them envisioned.  The coming of a movie theatre and the founding of a newspaper means their minds are kept occupied and entertained. Georgiou, the boatman who ferries supplies out to the island, never forgets his beloved wife, though many of Plaka's other citizens feel ashamed of their connections with Spinalonga.  The island becomes a place of acceptance for people rejected by their home, and Eleni's determination to give its children a proper education is one of many moving triumphs.

Where The Island falters is in its characterizations, which aren't exactly nuanced, and its occasionally awkward writing style. The constant point-of-view switches, sometimes within the same paragraph, ensure a well-rounded epic story but startle with their abruptness.  Anna, Eleni's elder daughter, grows from a selfish, hateful child into a gorgeous, vain, and self-absorbed woman; it's a wonder anyone tolerates let alone loves her, but they do. Maria, her polar opposite, is a pure, gentle, and self-sacrificing soul, the epitome of kindness in all situations.  And Alexis's boorish fiancé, Ed... it's clear she'll ditch him in the end, but why would she have stayed with the guy for five years?  Despite the revelation of many family secrets, some mysteries still remain. 

After I settled in with it, the flaws became less noticeable, and I finished it in two days, which says a lot.  Other readers  have objected to the plethora of details on daily life, but I felt they enlivened the plot rather than dragging it down.  Not the tragic, depressing book one might expect with such a somber topic, this is a thoughtful, relaxing, even uplifting read for a lazy weekend.  If you're planning a trip to Greece, I'd definitely recommend it.

The Island appeared from Headline Review (UK) in 2005 and from Harper (US) in 2007.

U is for Uruguay

For the letter U in Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge, I chose Carolina de Robertis's The Invisible Mountain, a century-spanning literary saga about a mother, daughter, and granddaughter and the difficult paths they tread at different stages of their country's history.

I knew little about Uruguay before before beginning this novel.  Its capital, Montevideo, reportedly got its name from a Portuguese sailor's first words upon reaching the land:  "Monte vide eu," or "I see a mountain."  As the story reveals, the meaning is ironic, because the city is relatively flat, boasting little more than a rounded hill.  Each of its three protagonists spends much of her life yearning for something invisible and unattainable, but eventually finds contentment of sorts through another avenue.

Those who enjoy the rich, descriptive language of Allende or Márquez will find much to delight in here.  De Robertis carefully aligns her prose style with her heroines' personalities and the prevailing spirit of each era.  Pajarita, daughter of a gaucho, is born in the tiny town of Tacuarembó in 1899.  An unwanted child whose birth killed her mother, she vanishes from her father's home as a baby and mysteriously reappears nine months later in the branches of a tall tree, or so legend has it.  The chapters detailing her youth and marriage to Ignazio Firielli, a gondola-maker from Venice, are full of vivid metaphors that evoke the colors and textures of nature:

There, through the window, the soft slash of the moon.  There it falls, making silver light on the ground.  This place is home. And it is good.  But it is not the world.  The thought surprised her.  It felt fresh, an unknown herb against the palate of her mind.

No, the whole novel isn't written in this poetic style, but for me, these sections fell in as a natural part of the tale the author tells.

Pajarita becomes a renowned healer, a woman sought out for her knowledge of herbs - one of the few things, along with her indomitable spirit, she brings with her to her new home in the growing city of Montevideo.  Her daughter, Eva, endures a traumatic childhood after her father insists she take a job to help support the family.  A young woman with the soul of a poet, her journey takes her to the heart of Perón's Buenos Aires and back before she finally finds the love she's long deserved.  Eva's daughter Salomé comes of age in a country full of political turmoil; she falls prey to the communist fervor sweeping through Central and South America in the '60s and pays a terrible price.  The final section loops back toward the beginning, with Salomé writing a letter to her own daughter.

The tone shifts from magical realism to sharp reality over the course of the century as Uruguay endures economic hardship, labor unrest, and urban guerrilla warfare and emerges, not unscathed, as a modern, democratic nation. Threaded throughout is Uruguay's complex relationship with the United States.  All of this well-crafted history intertwines with the themes of the inner strength of women and their relationships with one another and the men in their lives.  At the risk of making it sound trite, which it isn't at all, this really is more of a women's book; most of its male characters (adventurers, hot-tempered machismo types, and worse) don't come off looking real well.  And one of the men even decides... well, that would be saying too much.

The Invisible Mountain is a deep and involving work, and I found myself reading slowly in order to absorb the nuances of the author's creative phrasings. Uruguay might not immediately come to mind as a desired setting for historical fiction, but it turns out that this small country tucked into the underside of eastern South America contains a fascinating world worth discovering.

The Invisible Mountain was first published by Knopf in August 2009.  The paperback was published this past August (Vintage, $15.95, 448pp).

T is for Thomas

It's unusual—and daunting—to take on a novel from a small press that arrives complete with glowing commentary from novelists such as Bernard Cornwell and Cecelia Holland. At its conclusion, I was relieved to find myself in complete agreement.

In A Bloodline of Kings, a historical epic about Philip of Macedon, the story begins with one birth (that of Philip himself) and ends with another (his son Alexander, later called the Great). In the intervening pages, Sundell takes us through the life of an extraordinary man, Philippos of the Makedones, whose brilliant military career during the 4th century BC was overshadowed by that of his more famous son.

It is Philippos who earns Macedon a place on the political playing field of the ancient Hellenes and makes it the equal of powerful city-states such as Athens and Thebes. This is not only a military saga, however, for the women are as strong and ambitious as the men. In fact, some of the most emotional moments occur as Kleopatra, former Queen of the Makedones and Philippos' great-grandmother, secretly trains her young charge to be a future leader, not knowing that his older brothers' early deaths will make her wishes come true.

The author's research is well evident; its thoroughness is, in fact, astonishing. As the novel does not always wear its research lightly, newcomers to the period may find it intellectually challenging, but the education they receive as a result will make their efforts worthwhile.

I reviewed Thomas Sundell's A Bloodline of Kings for the Historical Novels Review in 2002, when it first came out, and part of this post was taken from my original writeup.  I spotted the novel on my basement shelves while doing some book shifting this afternoon (happens a lot around here) and decided to feature it for the letter T in Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge.

Because it's been a while since I first read it, I thumbed through it again to see if I still had the same opinion.  One thing I neither remembered nor remarked on back then: it's written in the present tense.  This didn't feel artificial or faddish then and it didn't after a reread of the first chapter.  It surprises me that I didn't mention it in my original review, but I guess that means that it didn't bother me. Also, it's self-published, and slightly more expensive than other hardcovers of similar length, but there's a lot of action, characters, and story packed into its near-500 pages.  For readers who enjoy well-rounded depictions of the ancient world, this one's worth seeking out.

Thomas Sundell's A Bloodline of Kings was published by Crow Woods in 2002 at $28.50 (484pp, hardbound). It's still in print and available.

An interview with Susan Holloway Scott, author of The Countess & the King

Today I'd like to welcome Susan Holloway Scott back to Reading the Past to talk about her latest novel, The Countess and the King, which recounts the dramatic early life of Restoration-era royal mistress Katherine Sedley.  While Susan's most recent biographical novels focused on mistresses of Charles II – Barbara Palmer (Royal Harlot), Nell Gwyn (The King's Favorite), and Louise de Keroualle (The French Mistress) – Katherine was closely associated instead with the Merry Monarch's brother, James, Duke of York, who ascended the throne in 1685 as James II. 

Although she was born the only daughter of a wealthy family – her father is one of the king's dearest friends – Katherine is known simply as "Miss Sedley," for she bears no title herself.  A woman of average looks amid a sea of great beauties, Katherine develops a talent for bold repartee at a young age; while this makes her popularity rise at court, it also earns her others' enmity.  The relationship between Katherine and the Duke of York puzzles other courtiers, who can't fathom the attraction between a plain-faced Protestant commoner and the king's unpopular, Catholic, and less charismatic younger brother. But opposites have a way of attracting, and Katherine stands by him during a period of intense political and religious turmoil in England. 

I enjoyed being able to observe the Restoration court through a different set of eyes; Katherine has a unique perspective on her lover, James II, who hasn't exactly gone down in history as the most popular or successful monarch.  Katherine makes for an appealing heroine, and I can imagine her clever banter (the girl has quite a mouth on her at times!) was as fun to write as it was to read.  I couldn't resist asking Susan about this aspect of Katherine's character, as well as her research methods, the historical background, and details on other personalities who played significant roles in the courts of Charles II and James II.

The Countess and the King was published by NAL in September ($15.00, 384pp), and the publisher has provided me with a spare copy for a giveaway.  (Thanks!)  I hope you'll enjoy the interview, and please read to the end for details on how to win yourself a copy.  Because I've managed to squeeze this interview in on the last day of September, I'm also making this my entry for the letter S in Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge (S is for Sedley or Susan – take your pick).

Katherine's barbed, ribald wit is especially shocking when you consider her youth. You don't hear much about the children who grew up around Charles II's bawdy Restoration court, which made me wonder if her childhood was unique in that respect. Was it? How did you go about researching such a topic?

Researching Katherine’s childhood – and, really, her entire life – was a challenge. There has never been a full-length biography written about her, nor have her letters been collected and published. If she kept a diary or journal, it has been lost. Like most women of the past, Katherine remains defined by the men in her life, and as a result, most of my research began with them: her father, poet, dramatist, and courtier Sir Charles Sedley; her most famous lover, James II; and the various other gentlemen who were her friends, enemies, and suitors. It’s a true testament to the strength of her personality that when she does appear in their letters, diaries, or biographies, she often quite steals the scene.

While I don’t doubt that 17th c. folk loved their children as much as modern parents do, the pattern for English aristocrats was to have their offspring raised by nursemaids and tutors, often in the healthier country. Yet because Katherine was an only child with distracted parents, it seems that her education and supervision were scattered at best. While few noble-born girls received much schooling (even the royal princesses, Mary and Anne, were woefully undereducated), Katherine’s haphazard upbringing, and the unusual freedoms that her indulgent father granted her, were considered quite scandalous at the time. And a good thing, too. If people hadn’t been shocked, they wouldn’t have written about Sir Charles’s wicked small daughter, and she would have been entirely forgotten 300 years later.

Along the same lines, I found Charles Sedley to be a curious character. I wasn't sure what to make of him, and I imagine Katherine could have felt similarly. Though a doting father at times, he was also rather immature and, considering his own marital arrangements (so to speak), hypocritical in his reaction to Katherine's role in the Duke of York's life. Did the nature of his character puzzle you as well?

Everything I read about the relationship between Sir Charles Sedley and Katherine as a girl reminded me of certain Hollywood versions of parenting: the child as an amusing accessory, a sidekick rather than a daughter, a pet to be carried about rather than a child who needs discipline and guidance because, really, I’m too cool to be a real father. By the time Sir Charles remarries (bigamously, but that’s another story) and becomes that most tedious of creatures, a Reformed Rake, it was much too late for the wild adolescent Katherine to become a meek and dutiful daughter. Instead Katherine continued to act up (and out) for the rest of her life – perhaps unconsciously hoping to regain her father’s attention, or perhaps simply behaving as he, too, had as a younger man. I agree that Sir Charles’s disapproval of Katherine’s place as a royal mistress did seem hypocritical, but more likely I suspect that he didn’t wish her hurt; he’d seen court politics first-hand, and knew all too well the perils of dallying with kings.

All of your previous Stuart-era heroines make appearances in The Countess and the King, though some don't make the best impression! Katherine finds Sarah Jennings (later Churchill) to be an odious woman, for example. Have you ever discovered new things about your previous heroines in the course of writing about them from a rival's perspective?

Oh, all the time! With each book I’ve discovered new things about the history as well as the people that I’d wished I’d known earlier. Research is an on-going and never-ending process. Fortunately, publishers don’t let authors rewrite books once they’ve been published, or I’d never move forward.

But I do enjoy the changing points of view with each book, and how it affects the story. As you noted, the Sarah Jennings in The Countess & the King is a very different animal from the one who’s the heroine of Duchess – but then the Katherine Sedley in Duchess isn’t nearly as charming as she is in her own book, either. *g*

You've made it easy for readers to picture Windsor Castle, the Palace of Whitehall, and their multitudes of richly decorated rooms. Do you do any of your research on site? With regard to Whitehall -- which I understand burned down (for the most part) in 1698 -- did you find it any more of a challenge to re-create in fiction?

Alas, I’m not one of those fortunate writers who can afford to travel for research – kids in college take care of that! On the other hand, many of the places that my 17th century characters visit are very different today, or, like Whitehall Palace, have been lost entirely. Charles II spent most of his reign repairing and remodeling the interior of Windsor Palace into an English version of Versailles; by 1800, almost all of his efforts were gone, obliterated by successive remodeling. Even the modern Thames is a much-changed river from what it was during the Restoration. So while I do study modern photographs and videos, I rely much more on contemporary drawings and descriptions of buildings and places to create an accurate version of the past.

James, Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, comes across as an overconfident, misguided soul who gambles on his uncle's forgiveness and pays the ultimate price. Do you share Katherine's opinion of him? How do you think Monmouth would have fared if his father had lived longer?

Monmouth is one of the more maddening personalities in 17th c. England, and also one of the most tragic. I suppose he could also be called another victim of bad parenting. The illegitimate son of the teenaged Charles Stuart and his mistress Lucy Walter, Monmouth was born while his father was in exile. As soon as Charles was restored to the throne, he brought the boy to court, made him a duke, and gave him an heiress for a wife. Charles continued to spoil Monmouth, always excusing his often outrageous behavior and forgiving him even when his misbehavior reached the point of treason. It didn’t help that Monmouth wasn’t very bright, nor that he could be easily led by others. Charles sadly understood this, too, and even indulgent royal fathers have their limits. I suspect that after Monmouth’s involvement in the Rye House Plot to assassinate both Charles and James, his banishment would have been last, even if Charles had lived longer. Monmouth had simply gone too far, and when his less tolerant uncle James became king, his foolish ambitions cost him his life. (One of my favorite historical novels tells Monmouth’s story: The King’s Touch by Jude Morgan.)

I don't want to ask if any of your royal mistress heroines are your favorites (an impossible sort of question to answer!) but are there any whose dialogue you especially enjoyed writing?

You’re right: it would be impossible to choose one lady over another. But I will admit that I’ve really enjoyed writing the dialogue for the ones known for their wit and bawdy humor: Nell Gwyn in The King’s Favorite, Barbara Palmer in Royal Harlot, and Katherine Sedley in The Countess & the King. The Restoration was a great time to be clever. Charles II liked to be amused, and he enjoyed – and admired – smart, funny women. I loved the challenge of incorporating their surviving quotes with my own sense of these women, and creating dialogue that I hope was worthy of them.

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Thank you, Susan, for taking the time to reply to my questions!  For readers who'd like the chance to win a copy of her latest novel, simply leave a comment on this post.  Deadline is next Friday, October 8th.  This giveaway is open to international readers.

Book review: Daphne Kalotay's Russian Winter

Toward the beginning of Daphne Kalotay’s wonderful debut novel, a secondary character makes a perceptive observation. “You have that past buried inside you that most people can’t see,” says Zoltan Romhany, a Hungarian poet and refugee, to Grigori Solodin, his colleague and good friend. This is a theme carried through the entire book. When we first meet them, the three protagonists of Russian Winter are struggling to deal with traumatic events from their pasts. They’ve all experienced heartbreak which they haven’t quite overcome, and each has a personal connection to Soviet Russia. Their shared background becomes the drawstring that pulls them all together in a fascinating mystery with historical significance.

In the present day, Nina Revskaya, a former prima ballerina of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater, lives alone in her Commonwealth Avenue apartment in Boston, with her feisty West Indian nurse her only real company. Nearly eighty, and confined to a wheelchair, Nina decides to free herself of emotional pain by auctioning off her extraordinary jewelry collection.

Taking charge of the details is Drew Brooks, a confident but lonely young divorcée who works as an associate director at the Beller auction house. One-quarter Russian, Drew has never fully investigated her ancestry. And for Grigori, the Foreign Languages department chair at a local university, Nina’s decisive action brings unsettling feelings. Since childhood, he has owned a large amber pendant that forms a matching set with two of Nina’s own pieces. He knows it can’t be coincidence, yet she’s always rebuffed his attempts to connect with her.

When Drew encourages Nina to reveal how some of the jewels were brought out of Soviet Russia, as back story for the auction house’s brochure, she runs into resistance; the details are too troubling for Nina to revisit. “People think I fled Russia to escape communism. Really I was escaping my mother-in-law,” she tells Drew. There’s some truth to this, but Kalotay gently uncovers the underlying tale by alternating perspectives and time periods. Without jarring transitions or any loss of reader interest, the novel shifts between postwar Russia and contemporary Boston, and among the viewpoints of Grigori, Nina, and Drew. The historical parts are recounted with present-tense verbs, and the modern-day bits are told in past tense, cleverly establishing that this is a single interconnected story unfolding as we go.

Nina’s tale begins in the 1940s, when as a nine-year-old child she tries out for ballet school – a privilege granted to ordinary girls thanks to "Uncle Stalin" – and continues through her marriage to poet Viktor Elsin and her rise to stardom at the Bolshoi. In addition to depicting the emotional highs of her performances, Kalotay also captures the tangible reality of Nina’s life as a dancer, from the grueling hours at the barre to the constant reinforcing of her toe shoes. Ambitious and career-driven, Nina remains focused on dance, her closest friends other artists – in particular Vera Borodina, a dark-haired ballerina, and Vera's lover, Gersh, a Jewish composer who dares challenge the status quo.

In clearly written language, Kalotay brings readers into the little-known world endured by dancers under the Soviet regime, the glamour of elegant receptions with high-ranking Party members contrasting with the deprivations of their lives at home. While in the company of her fellow artists, Nina’s eyes open to life’s uncomfortable reality: how carefully one must maneuver in a country where everyone knows someone who was taken away in the night; and what it takes to survive in a place where one’s fate can turn on perceived anti-patriotic activity, unconscious betrayals, or random bad luck. Without being didactic, the novel poses questions on the complex interplay between repressive government and the creation of art. Despite the hardships she endures, Nina’s love for Russia and its people remains, even long after her defection in 1952.

Kalotay describes the modern-day Boston art world as vividly as she does a glittery, snow-covered St. Basil’s Cathedral. Those who hunt out symbolism in their fiction will find it aplenty, and others, Russophiles especially, can sit back and enjoy a richly evocative multi-period story about love, art, and the power they have to transform one’s world. Her characters’ plight is evoked in thoughtful phrasing, and she simultaneously gives us the pleasure of a completely engrossing story. A true literary page-turner, Russian Winter also offers a heartfelt tribute to those whose lives were lost behind the Iron Curtain, and the legacies they left for us to discover.

----

Daphne Kalotay's Russian Winter was published on September 7th by Harper at $25.99 (hb, 466pp).  Arrow will publish it in the UK next February. Since the title fits, I'm also calling this my entry for the letter R in Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge.

Q is for Quito

Rather than choose a biographical novel about a famous European queen for the letter Q in Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge, I thought I'd write about a real-life heroine from Quito, Ecuador. South American settings don't figure much in English-language historical fiction, which is exactly why Jaime Manrique's Our Lives Are the Rivers first caught my attention. That, and the cover model's unique hairstyle.

History recognizes Manuela Sáenz, mistress of the brilliant revolutionary and Colombian president Simón Bolívar, as one of South America’s earliest feminists and greatest patriots. She earned the nickname “La Libertadora del Libertador” – the liberator of the liberator – for helping her lover escape an assassination attempt in 1828. In his bold and lyrical fourth novel, Manrique vividly portrays the passionate woman whose love affairs with one man and his vision were inseparable in the end.

“I was born a rich bastard and died a poor one,” Manuela tells us, beginning her tale with her childhood schooling at a convent in Quito. The nuns’ cruel treatment of Manuela, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy criolla by a Spanish nobleman, turns her against Catholicism for life. In her eyes, the Spanish remain a symbol of repression and slavery, and she grows up intensely admiring Bolívar and his ideals. Although her father recognizes her at last, he forces her to marry a wealthy Englishman; this cements her negative opinion of his countrymen. Manuela’s all-too-brief relationship with the legendary Bolívar, the great love of her life, is the culmination of her dream to unite with the revolutionary cause.

In alternating between the viewpoints of Manuela and her African slaves, Jonotás and Natán, Manrique gives us further insight into Manuela’s character. His prose is direct yet evocative, full of the vibrant color of colonial South America – its flowering plants, its wild fauna, its horrible, bloody violence. Romantic and tragic in equal measure, Our Lives Are the Rivers is well worth reading by anyone familiar with South American history, and especially by those who aren’t.

Our Lives Are the Rivers was published by HarperCollins/Rayo in 2006, and the paperback is still in print ($13.95, 384pp). The original Spanish title is Nuestros Vidas Son Los Rios (same publisher and price). Parts of this post appeared previously in the Historical Novels Review.

P is for Performers

P is also for Paddington, the beginning of the title of book 3 in Claire Rayner's 12-volume series The Performers, which traces the rich, dramatic history of two London families from the early 19th century through World War II and after.

I picked up books 1-4 of The Performers when we were visiting my aunt and uncle up in Cadillac, Michigan, a few weeks ago. The Book Nook, a huge used bookstore in the center of town, has been around for decades, and visiting there is always a highlight of the trip. It contains rows and rows of shelves filled with older, out-of-print paperbacks you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else besides online. The Performers series has been reprinted a few times since the original publication dates (1973-88) and is currently in print from the UK publisher House of Stratus (who have reprinted a number of older UK historicals; see their website for details). The covers here come from the new editions, though mine are the Fawcett Crest paperbacks from the '70s.

The series follows the Lacklands and the Lucases as they rise from rags to respectability and end up solidly amid the middle classes. Their story begins, in Gower Street, when Jesse Constam, a former street urchin turned wealthy gentleman, decides to adopt a dirty ragamuffin of a boy whose daring and high spirits he admires. An orphan who never knew his real name, the boy is given the name Abel Lackland and grows up in the Constams' household on proper Gower Street alongside Jesse's nervous and eager-to-please stepdaughter, Dorothea. Abel's heart, however, belongs to Lil Burnell, a beautiful young girl from the slums who wants to become a great actress. She uses all she's got to achieve her ambition, reinventing herself as Lilith Lucas, an undisputed star on the London stage known for her wit, charm, and irresistible attractiveness to men.

The next two books, The Haymarket and Paddington Green, continue the saga over the next two generations. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, and the family trees at the beginning of each book reveal only as much as you need to know. There are flawed and full-blooded characters aplenty, and their interpersonal dramas play out against a skillfully rendered backdrop of London's vibrant theatre scene and growing medical community. Through his friendship with Lil, young Abel gets trapped into making secret nighttime jaunts to graveyards in the company of resurrectionists - described with enough creepy gruesomeness to be realistic - which piques his curiosity about human anatomy.

Rayner's dialogue is especially good, conveying the social background of each character through dialect and artfully chosen slang. Expect your vocabulary of colorful expressions and creative insults to increase in the most delightful of ways.

The Performers books are great fun, and even though I've been reluctant to start new series (one of these days I will make it to v.2 of Poldark), I've already read the first three volumes and am looking forward to the next nine. Here's a bibliography, repeated from Fantastic Fiction:

The Performers
1. Gower Street
2. The Haymarket
3. Paddington Green
4. Soho Square
5. Bedford Row
6. Long Acre
7. Charing Cross
8. The Strand
9. Chelsea Reach
10. Shaftsbury Avenue
11. Piccadilly
12. Seven Dials

This marks an entry for the letter P in Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge.

O is for Outer Banks

I chose this novel for Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge for several superficial reasons: the newly-arrived galley was sitting on my desk; I'd just returned from a short vacation by the water and wanted to extend the feeling a little longer; and the title started with O, the letter of the fortnight. Also, Lady Q's review of The Outer Banks House had me looking forward to a thought-provoking escapist read. Happily, it fulfilled my hopes on these counts.

Diann Ducharme's debut novel operates within a standard framework: an upper-class young woman spends a summer at the shore with her family and falls for a local boy, derailing her promising future with the wealthy doctor her parents want her to marry. Will she follow her duty or her heart?

The Outer Banks House falls into some stereotypical traps along the way, while stepping nimbly by others. Both a coming-of-age story and a romantic historical novel, its plot has a firm footing in its place and time. Adding period details with appropriate measure, Ducharme rounds out her characters' development by way of a secondary storyline involving the era's racial tensions, still raw three years after the Civil War.

In June of 1868, Abigail Sinclair's plantation-owner father brings his family from the North Carolina mainland to Nags Head, a small town on the barrier islands known as the Outer Banks. Their summer home, constructed by the Sinclairs' former field slaves over the past two seasons, is a precarious-looking wooden structure built on the sand at the ocean's edge. Abby, red-haired and freckled and seventeen, adores the seaside location and the fresh breezes flowing through the windows of their rustic cottage. Both she and it prove more resilient than the doubtful locals expect of them.

Abigail's father, a man who delights in killing animals for sport (never a good sign in a novel), hires Benjamin Whimble to be his guide to the best hunting and fishing spots. Nineteen-year-old Ben is good-natured and handsome, but filthy, smelly, and illiterate, and Abby recoils when her father asks her to teach him to read. Nonetheless, Abby and Ben grow closer as he learns his letters and they discuss Robinson Crusoe, the racial overtones of which had previously escaped Abby. Both are passionate about education, and their shared love for life comes through in exuberant scenes where they explore the islands together.

Various factors conspire to keep Abby and Ben apart. A blatant racist whose fortunes dwindled with the loss of the Confederacy, Mr. Sinclair has plans in mind for nearby Roanoke Island, and he uses Ben's poverty against him in his schemes. A number of black men, women, and children had settled on Roanoke during the war, and one in particular has a past he'd prefer to keep hidden.

Some characters are too lightly sketched in, while others hold surprises. Neither Abby's stuffy doctor beau, he with the "feminine quality about his lips," nor Ben's sour-tongued girlfriend Eliza stand a chance with their erstwhile partners, and Abby's bigoted dad comes straight from Central Casting. Her mother Ingrid, a Swedish immigrant's daughter stifled into wifely obedience, proves more complex than expected, however, and Abby and Ben have appealing and distinct narrative voices — even if Ben's folksy slang (lots of "I reckon" and "not a-tall") is laid on a bit thick. Both grow and change as the novel progresses, though after a while Abby seems to forget that Ben walks around everywhere barefoot and smelling like dead fish. Okay, that sounds crass. But still, I wondered about it.

Ducharme has a gift for writing quirky, colorful expressions, with the waves "sweetly lapping the shore like a cow licking salt" and Abby's long dress "whipping backwards like a yellow flag" in the wind as she stands atop the sand dunes. But despite the homey sense of place created by the language and seaside atmosphere, there's a grittier tale sitting beneath. One of the novel's most meaningful scenes involves the proud residents of Roanoke Island's Freedmen's Colony, and not only because it shows Abby's maturity more clearly than a tale of summertime romance could.

This would be a good read for the beach, both for those already there and those who wish they were. Although it ends at a satisfying point, some subplots remain unresolved. I'd enjoy reading a sequel should Ducharme decide to write one.

The Outer Banks House was published by Crown in June at $25.00 ($29.95 Canada).

N is for Némirovsky

Getting one thing out of the way... I'm sort of cheating by including this book as part of the Alphabet in Historical Fiction challenge. I hope I'll be forgiven, because it's very much worth highlighting.

Technically, Irène Némirovsky's Fire in the Blood doesn't fit the definition of a historical novel, as it depicts the period when it was written, or at most a few years beforehand. However, it never got the chance to be read as a contemporary work. As her biographers note in the foreword, only a fragment was known to exist until recently. Decades after the author's death at Auschwitz, two pages of the manuscript were found in a suitcase that Némirovsky's daughter Denise carried with her into hiding. The remainder, in the form of handwritten sheets, was discovered by her biographers in a French archive. Even for a work in progress (she was still completing the manuscript when she was arrested in 1942), it's a miniature masterpiece. You can read it in an afternoon, as I did. Succinct yet intense and packed with emotion, it's one of the best books I've read this year. What an excellent writer she was.

The scene opens in a village in rural Burgundy in the 1930s as Sylvestre, a middle-aged bachelor, looks back on his life. A prodigal son who spent his younger years traveling the world and spending his inheritance, he lives alone in a large, drafty farmhouse, keeping occasional company with his cousin Hélène and her family. He tells stories of his restless youth to Hélène's daughter Colette, a young woman soon to be married. But despite his affection for his cousins, he writes of finding the greatest satisfaction in a quiet evening in front of a crackling fire with his pipe, dog, and a bottle of red wine.

In this part of central France, families have resided on the same plots for generations, and this insularity emerges in their personalities. "Everyone lives in his own house, on his own land, distrusts his neighbours, harvests his wheat, counts his money, and doesn't give a thought to the rest of the world," Sylvestre says. These people work hard and aim to achieve contentment, a feeling they call happiness, seeing little distinction between the two.

Brilliant at evoking a sense of place — one can easily picture the pastoral beauty of Burgundy as the seasons change — Némirovsky applies the same sharp-eyed insight to her characters. Tension builds as the unexpected death of a newlywed throws the idyllic little village into turmoil. One person's determination to reveal the truth about the young man's demise brings long-suppressed feelings bubbling to the surface, along with revelations of illicit affairs, dark secrets, and unspoken regrets.

The overexposed cover photo of a rural couple, shown as if they've spent too long in the sun, perfectly fits the novel's themes. Which is one's true self, Sylvestre wonders, the "fire in the blood" that burns out quickly, or the serenity gained after youthful passions fade? The novel's pacing is marvelous, with successive layers of the plot uncovered little by little. The dust jacket calls it a "morality tale with doubtful morals," and I love that incongruity about it.

On the strength of this book, I have the rest of Némirovsky's novels (those translated into English, anyway) on order. Her English translator is Sandra Smith. Fire in the Blood was published by Chatto & Windus (UK) in 2007, and Knopf (US) in 2008.

M is for Morgan

While I wait (and wait) for my BEA loot to show up in the mail, here's my latest entry for Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge.

A while ago I had a request to include more Canadian content, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity. Earlier this spring, thanks to the wonders of Netflix, I rented Random Passage, an eight-hour miniseries based on Bernice Morgan's epic novels about the early settlement of Newfoundland. The scenery was breathtaking, the acting first-rate, and the situations depicted both heartwarming and brutally realistic. Most of the actors were new to me, but it was a surprise to see Colm Meaney, who I knew best as transporter chief Miles O'Brien on Star Trek: The Next Generation, cast as the male lead in the role of Thomas Hutchings, a gruff storekeeper with a secret past.

Even given the length of the miniseries (on two DVDs you have to rent separately), the storyline from the novels has been condensed to some degree. The Vincent and Andrews family trees have been simplified, and the producers must have decided that Irish firebrand Mary Bundle made for a better heroine than pensive Lavinia Andrews, who comes across in the film as a bit cold and closed-off, at least at first. The TV series is based on both Random Passage and its sequel, Waiting for Time, and I watched them over about a week. After seeing the video, I felt compelled to read the books once more.

Bernice Morgan's two novels, relating one family's struggles and triumphs in Newfoundland from the early 19^th century until the present, were originally written as one book. Not surprisingly, in order to get the fullest appreciation for the characters (and because it ends with a cliffhanger), readers of Random Passage will be compelled to read the sequel.

Random Passage begins as members of the Andrews family are forced to make their way from Weymouth, England, to unknown prospects in the remote, uncivilized, God-forsaken place known as Newfound Land in the early 1800s. There, on the island of Cape Random, the Vincent family introduces them to their hardscrabble way of life. Lavinia Andrews, the pensive seventeen-year-old daughter, records their experiences in her journal.

The story of the Andrews family's settlement is gritty and utterly unromanticized. Only the strong survive, but in this story, even great strength isn't always enough. All characters have unique personalities, from the dreamy Lavinia and her fun-loving brother Ned to the lusty, determined newcomer Mary Bundle and mysterious storekeeper Thomas Hutchings. The dialogue is plain-spoken, rustic, and authentic. The storyline jars at first as Morgan attempts to tell the story from too many different viewpoints, but it soon settles into easy, fascinating reading.

Waiting for Time looks back at the same story from the viewpoint of Mary Bundle, who at seventeen has barely escaped a life of thievery by finding passage on a ship to Newfoundland. Her life spans nearly a hundred years. Events formerly seen through others' eyes in Random Passage are retold from Mary's point of view, and the difference is at times remarkable. Many events hinted at in the earlier book are finally revealed. Mary's tale is introduced through the discoveries of a modern-day Andrews descendant, but these modern bits were for me the least compelling parts of the novel.

My one complaint is that I was left wanting more. I wanted to read of Mary's great-granddaughter Rachel and of the lives of other Andrews and Vincent descendants. With its impressive characterization and unusual setting (for this American reader, anyway), this is far from your average family saga. A worthwhile read for Canadians and non-Canadians alike.

Bernice Morgan's Random Passage and Waiting for Time were originally published by Breakwater Books in Canada. Amazon.ca doesn't show any copies in print, which is kind of hard to believe, as they're modern classics. However, the US edition of the first book, retitled Cape Random, is available from Shambhala at $16.95. Parts of this review appeared originally in a different form in the Historical Novels Review.

L is for Lavinia

I'd meant to post a review of Kathleen Grissom's The Kitchen House long before now. I took it as my plane reading for a trip to San Diego in mid-April, but I didn’t expect to be so glued to the pages that I'd carry the book around with me everywhere. It traveled with me on the train heading north to San Juan Capistrano, meaning that I spent the 90-minute ride on an 18th-century Virginia plantation rather than gazing out at the ocean and palm trees. I read it in the evenings and on meeting breaks and sadly turned the final page on my last day there. Unfortunately, I have difficulties composing reviews at 30,000 feet, and then I got caught up in other assignments, so this review is a bit delayed. But better late than never.

The Kitchen House is the most absorbing book I've read this year. I became completely immersed in the lives of the characters; Grissom creates a world so tangible and real that I felt like I was living right alongside them.

The novel is told from the dual first-person perspectives of Lavinia, a white indentured servant, and Belle, a mulatto slave who's the secret illegitimate daughter of Captain James Pyke, owner of a large tobacco plantation. In 1791, seven-year-old Lavinia, orphaned after her Irish parents die on the voyage across the Atlantic, is sent to live and work with the kitchen slaves on Captain Pyke's estate. They quickly absorb her into their large extended family. Over the next decade, Lavinia grows up alongside the other children of Papa George and Mama Mae: doing chores, preparing delicious Southern meals (there's one recipe in the back of the book), and acting as house servants to the Pykes at the big house.

Few major historical events penetrate the characters' daily lives; this isn’t a political drama but a social one. Despite her low status, Lavinia thinks of the kitchen house as her home, and she loves her fellow servants as her own family. She takes comfort in their presence, and their warmth and closeness permeate the novel. However, everyone’s isolation from the wider world on this large, self-contained estate serves to enforce their powerlessness. This holds true even for those with white skin. Captain Pyke’s despondent wife, Miss Martha, and her son, Marshall, react differently to the unbearable situations they're forced to confront. The way they express their frustrations warps everyone’s relationships with one another. Eventually, after her period of indenture ends, Lavinia must choose between her family and her race, and the consequences don't become fully clear until it's too late. Likewise, Belle hesitates to ask her father for her freedom, and her decision leads to further misfortunes.

Grissom's strong storytelling, full of suspense and tension, keeps the narrative flowing at a good pace. Also remarkable is how she allows readers to envision the social structure of antebellum America from both sides of the racial divide, through the eyes of one young woman caught between them. (There are gradations of status in both the white and Negro worlds, too.) Some of the twists the novel takes are truly heart-wrenching, yet I can’t imagine – given the reality of the times – that things could have happened any other way.

Also, although we know the year the novel begins (1791), we aren’t given the plantation’s name (Tall Oaks) or its location (southern Virginia) until later on. While I found the plotline unpredictable, and Lavinia’s predicament unique, the seemingly ordinary setting made me stop and think. The individual tragedies in The Kitchen House could easily have happened elsewhere, on many real-life plantations in the pre-Civil War South — but if they did, how would we ever know? What evidence would be left behind? And that could be the most disturbing thought of all.

An unusual yet gripping coming-of-age story, this eye-opening novel about racial conflict in early America and the real meaning of home and family is highly recommended.

Kathleen Grissom's The Kitchen House was published by Touchstone/S&S in February at $16.00, and I appreciate their sending me a copy for review. I'm including this one as my L entry for Historical Tapestry's alphabet challenge.

Reviews of obscure books: Diana Norman, King of the Last Days

I chose this novel for the letter K in the A-Z challenge, figuring there was little point to owning an obscure book if I never got around to reading it. King of the Last Days was a serendipitous pick; I soon discovered its surprising connection to my interview with Tony Hays, covered in my last post, and also to Norman's first novel, Fitzempress' Law (reviewed in ’06).

Readers familiar with Norman’s work, including the Adelia Aguilar series written as Ariana Franklin, know of her affinity for 12th-century settings and her admiration for Henry II's judicial reforms. This novel is no exception. King of the Last Days opens at the end of Henry’s life. In 1189, Glastonbury Abbey is in a sorry state, victim of a fire that destroyed its monastic buildings five years earlier. Pilgrims are passing it by, and the prior has no money to rebuild. When four obedientiaries secretly uncover the remains of a tall man and a blonde woman in the abbey graveyard – bodies rumored to be those of Arthur and Guinevere – they see better days ahead. And they find a centuries-old sword lying alongside.

(History records the discovery taking place in 1190. An explanation is provided for this deliberate shifting; in Norman's take, it has to do with the unreliability of a certain Welsh chronicler...)

A monk at a nearby Benedictine house, Ancel of Athelney, is recruited to present Excalibur to King Henry, who’s off in France fighting his rebellious son Richard and the French king. The Glastonbury monks desperately need good publicity and want to use the sword as a bargaining chip. Ancel, however, has a more altruistic outlook on his mission; he owes his very livelihood to the king. Thanks to the newly instituted jury system, Ancel’s mother was able to prove he was born a freedman, and thus able to enter the monastic life.

As Ancel crosses the Channel and wends his way south to Le Mans, Excalibur concealed inside a wooden cross, he meets two others on the same path. Joan, the tart-tongued prioress of St. Mary’s du Pré in Hertfordshire, wants Henry to annul a pesky lower-class Celt’s legitimate claim to her abbey’s property. And Roger Sans-Avoir, a knight tormented by his experiences on Crusade, seeks to rejoin Henry’s entourage because he has no other options. In serving as protector for Joan and Ancel, Roger hopes to absolve himself of an unspeakable sin.

At this point the themes and characters started to seem oddly familiar. A peasant turned monk, a solitary knight, a woman of religion… hmm. Then it hit me: this book isn’t so much a retreading of the same ground as Fitzempress’ Law as an indirect sequel. After the 20th-century interlopers returned to their time, their medieval counterparts live on.

The three protagonists trudge through the northern French countryside, moving from Caen to Fontevrault to Chinon, encountering many colorful characters and a variety of dangers – crafty brigands, deadly illness, and other distractions from the task at hand. Although they unite in a common cause, they don’t always have each other’s best interests at heart. The sword changes hands many times, as does Prioress Joan’s cranky mare. By the end, after their respective journeys have transformed their attitudes, their goal hasn’t changed, but their motives have.

It’s a pleasure to read Norman’s from-the-ground-up presentation of medieval France: the unfamiliar flora and fauna, the heat rising from the landscape as the trio heads south, the rhythms and rituals of its people’s daily existence. The plot branches off in multiple directions, with perhaps too many viewpoints to keep track of, but even minor characters spark into life during their brief time on the page.

Norman depicts medieval people’s perspective on life in delightful fashion, showing how they balance their love for God and fear of mortal sin with a plainspoken irreverence toward the world’s realities. Consider Prioress Joan’s mumblings to herself when she first encounters Ancel on the road:

“Glastonbury. What was a monk from Glastonbury doing with a sword hidden in a cross? They’d always been odd at Glastonbury, too old, too mystic, too much holy thorn and well. Too much Arthur.”

But despite the many insertions of sly humor, the novel has an underlying solemnity. Though a fiercely intelligent man who accomplished many reforms, Henry never learned to share his power, and that has been his undoing:

"The trouble with Henry II of England is that he eclipsed people. He had eclipsed Philip's father, Louis, and taken Eleanor of Aquitaine away from him, and then eclipsed her and the sons she gave him. He had eclipsed Becket. He refused to delegate power to those of lesser vision, and they never forgave him for it."

At the end of his life, only his illegitimate son Geoffrey stands by him. His personal failings have become England’s as well, and Norman impresses upon readers the tragedy of it all. Nonetheless, Henry Fitzempress has reigned long and competently; his passing will mark the end of an era, just as the death of Arthur spelled the end of Camelot. It’s a brilliant character study of a man and the world he created, as seen through the eyes of those who experienced it.

A splendid evocation of medieval life, with wit and calamity in equal measure.

King of the Last Days was published by Hodder & Stoughton in hardcover in 1981. Non-obligatory FTC disclosure: the publisher did not provide me with a free copy of this book to review. Don’t I wish! This one’s so obscure that it's currently unavailable except via interlibrary loan. Rather, I should thank the Nottingham Libraries for selling their copy (for 30p) some years ago. Perhaps one day we'll be lucky enough to have a publisher bring Norman's backlist into print again. Judging by the number of people who find this blog by googling for her books, there's a real demand for them.

J is for Janice

Janice Woods Windle's Hill Country is not only a favorite historical novel of mine, but it's the first review copy I ever requested - something I remember well. I had just taken on the job as American editor for the Historical Novels Review and, although I read a lot of historical fiction back then, I didn't know much about publishers or imprints. As soon as I learned that a sequel to True Women was out, I made my way to the Simon & Schuster website and discovered their online review copy request form. I typed in the information for Hill Country along with my mailing address, and within a week, a beautiful new paperback arrived in the mail. I read the book immediately, and it didn't disappoint.

When I had first picked up True Women, Janice Woods Windle's first novel about the passionate, tumultuous lives of her Texas ancestors, I was fascinated by the family tree on the endpapers. Among the photos included on the tree was one of the author's paternal grandmother, Laura Hoge Woods (1870-1966). Since Laura wasn't mentioned in the earlier novel, I had assumed - wrongly - that her life might not have been exciting enough to record.

Hill Country is Laura Woods' life story, one she herself might have written - and, indeed, did write, as this novel is based on the typewritten and handwritten memoirs she left to her granddaughter to complete. Born when the Texas Hill Country was still wild and untamed, Laura grows up in a ranch family living alongside the Blanco River. She and her siblings survive several dangerous encounters with Indians, but some of their neighbors aren't as lucky.

Choosing domestic stability over wild romance, Laura marries an older man with a love for horses - Peter Woods. If you've read True Women, you'll know that her husband's family was full of strong and strong-minded women, and Laura is no exception. Her strength comes through time and again: in order to increase their land holdings, Laura homesteads alone in a cabin for six months with only a drunk trapper for company.

The life of the Woods family closely intertwines with that of the Johnsons, their longtime neighbors. Rebekah, later the mother of US President Lyndon Johnson, becomes a lifelong friend of Laura's, and one interest shared between the two women is the exciting world of Hill Country politics. Though they cannot participate fully in politics themselves, they seek to hold power first through their husbands, and later through their sons. Reading Hill Country, one cannot help but wonder how many decisions of national importance first originated in the minds of Laura Woods or Rebekah Johnson, two women who rarely left the Texas hills where they were born.

Throughout Laura's long, eventful life she never backs down from a challenge, and with every word the author clearly expresses her admiration for her grandmother without being overly sentimental. Still, you might want to keep a few tissues handy as Laura's advancing age forces the story to rely more and more on the author's memories. In all, the story flows effortlessly from start to finish. One can't help but think that Laura Woods herself would be proud.

Leila Meacham's Roses, another meaty family saga set deep in the heart of Texas, has been receiving accolades since its publication earlier this year. If you loved Roses, as I did, I strongly recommend you pick up Janice Woods Windle's heartfelt fictional accounts of her courageous ancestors from the Texas Hill Country. All three books intertwine family reminiscences with documented historical fact, and the result is a triumph of storytelling that I found impossible to put down. Despite her close relationships to her novels' protagonists, Windle doesn't let nostalgia get in the way of character development. Will's War (2002) is the third volume in Windle's saga, and I wish that there were more.

Janice Woods Windle's Hill Country was published in paperback by Scribner in 2000 (currently out of print). Portions of this post, written up for Historical Tapestry's A-Z challenge, appeared previously in the Historical Novels Review.