Tag: historical fiction

Review 2430: The Other Side of Mrs. Wood

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In 1873 London, Mrs. Wood is the most successful medium in society. She is worried about the future, though, because her patrons are getting older and at 40, she doesn’t seem to be appealing to the younger folks. To make things worse, Mr. Larson, who takes care of her money, has just informed her that a large investment in a mine has been lost. Things are going to be tight until some ships he invested in arrive.

Mrs. Wood cuts where she can, but unfortunately her profession requires her to have an appearance of respectable wealth.

A girl has been hanging around outside her meetings, which are invitation only. When Mrs. Wood catches her, a Miss Finch, she learns that Miss Finch would like to become her student. She says she has some talent. Without consulting her friend and assistant, Miss Newman, Mrs. Wood decides to take her on, thinking that as a young, attractive girl, she will attract younger patrons.

Miss Newman distrusts Miss Finch, but Mrs. Wood goes ahead with her plans, even excusing some costly mistakes that Miss Finch makes. What she doesn’t know is that Miss Finch’s intentions are bad ones and that she knows more about Mrs. Wood’s past than Mrs. Wood thought anyone knew.

Without remembering any synopsis of this novel, I immediately distrusted Miss Finch, getting a growing feeling of dread that stalled me a bit in my reading. I also felt that the middle part of the novel went on a bit too long. However, when Mrs. Wood pulls herself together, the culmination is very satisfying. I think the very end of the book, though, was a bit unbelievable.

If you read my blog, you know I’m a stickler for accuracy in a historical novel, although not an expert in the details. However, just as a side note, Barker uses the word “twee” on page two, not in conversation but in the main character’s thoughts. I thought that seemed like a modern word, so I looked it up. Sure enough, it was not in use until 1905. Oops!

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Review 2424: The Bookbinder

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Pip Williams revisits the Oxford University Press and the themes of World War I and rights for women in The Bookbinder. Again, she shows her skill as a storyteller.

Peg Jones has grown up around the Oxford University Press, but she’s a representative of town rather than gown. She works at the press as a bookbinder, but she has always yearned for more education and an opportunity to attend Somerset, the women’s college. Aside from the social and educational restrictions, she has been held back by a feeling of responsibility for her special needs identical twin sister Maude.

World War I has just started, and Peg gets an opportunity to apply for one of the positions on the men’s side, but she doesn’t take it. In a link back to The Dictionary of Lost Words, Peg helps Esme’s lover bind a printed copy of her collection of women’s words.

After the invasion of Belgium, Belgian women come to work at the press, and Maude becomes close to one of them, Lotte. Peg goes to volunteer at the hospital and is teamed a reader/letter writer with Gwen Lumley, an upper-class girl who becomes her friend.

Peg is torn between her feeling of responsibility for Maude and her resentment of it. She is both grateful to Lotte for helping with Maude and jealous.

Her contact with Gwen along with the help of her supervisor, Mrs. Stoddard, leads her to an opportunity to apply for a scholarship to Somerset. But she must pass two series of exams.

Williams is skillful at involving readers with her characters’ ups and downs as well as their self-development. I enjoyed this novel very much.

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Review 2423: #1937 Club! An Infamous Army

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I was planning to read Witold Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke for the 1937 Club, but I got about 70 pages in and just wasn’t in the mood for it. I may never be.

Georgette Heyer is usually a good bet for me, and I conveniently had An Infamous Army on my shelf. I remembered, though, that it was not one of my favorites despite featuring characters from or related to those from some of my favorites. I decided to try to read the novel by pretending I had never read a book by Heyer, just judging it as a historical novel.

The novel is set in Belgium in the summer of 1815, so if you know your history, you know what’s coming up. The military of all the countries allied against Bonaparte are gathered in Brussels, as are the fashionable. Colonel Charles Audley, brother of Lord Worth of Regency Buck, is on Lord Wellington’s staff, so he is busy but occasionally has time to spend with Lord and Lady Worth. And everyone attends the frequent balls and parties.

Judith, Lady Worth, has found a girl she considers perfect for Charles, Lucy Devenish, a pretty, demure, heiress whose only detraction is a vulgar uncle. Society is being scandalized by the behavior of such young women as Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Barbara Childe, a shocking young widow whose Alastair heritage (see These Old Shades and The Devil’s Cub) has given her quite a temper. Nevertheless, as soon as Charles sets his eye on her, he is in love. Unfortunately, thinks Judith, so is Barbara, and they are engaged in no time.

It’s no surprise that this is a rocky love affair. However, Heyer’s purpose is to depict the Battle of Waterloo and the frivolous months that led up to it.

Heyer was a serious historian, but her books aren’t often serious, and when they are, I miss the brilliant conversations and her humor. Sticking to my decision to try to forget about that, here are my observations. At the parties, there is too much enumeration as Heyer tries to list all the brilliant people attending. I felt like I was reading the beginning of The Iliad when Homer lists all the Greek commanders plus how many ships, men, and horses they brought.

Then, the social season seems to drag on a little too long. Things get going when the war starts, but when Heyer begins explaining troop dispositions and geography, I got lost. I could have used a map. Finally, although parts of the battle are brilliantly described, I felt as if Heyer was trying to include every anecdote she ever read about. There was just too much.

I have read battle scenes in other novels that were so clearly explained that I understood exactly what was going on. Here, there were so many different types of soldiers, so many leaders’ names, most of them only briefly described. There was too much going on for me.

As for the love story, while I didn’t much like Barbara, I was disappointed in how judgmental Judith, who had her own mishaps in her youth, was. It was nice, though, to have a brief appearance of Barbara’s grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Avon, once Vidal and Mary of The Devil’s Cub.

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Review 2327: Chenneville

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John Chenneville, a Union officer, awakens in a field hospital in Virginia to find that the Civil War is over and he has been lying in a coma for months. He has a healing wound on his head where a chain hit him after an explosion. The war is over, but it takes him months to be well enough for the journey home to Bonnemaison in Missouri on the Mississippi.

Once home, he can tell something bad has happened, but he has to wait for his Uncle Basile to arrive from New Orleans to learn what it is. In the meantime, he occupies himself with trying to restore his ravaged estates. Finally, his uncle tells him that on another one of the family estates further south, his sister, her husband and baby have been murdered. His mother has gone to live with Uncle Basile and has not spoken since the event. After waiting longer to improve his strength and coordination, Chenneville sets off to avenge them.

He finds it is an open secret that they were murdered by a man named Dodd. Dodd was a deputy, and it’s clear that the sheriff is going to do nothing about it but has warned Dodd that someone is after him. After going on a wild goose chase, Chenneville learns that Dodd has fled southwest to Texas. He is killing people on the way, and Chenneville eventually finds himself a suspect for one of the murders.

Jiles seems to like writing about people on journeys, and she likes the setting of post-Civil War Texas. Chenneville finds in East Texas an area once more populous and prosperous, now wild and desolate. This novel is involving and eventful as you wonder how Chenneville can avenge his family without destroying his own life.

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Review 2325: Homestead

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In her research for Homestead, Melinda Moustakis incorporated her grandparents’ stories of homesteading in Alaska. Yes, in 1956, you could still receive a homesteading grant in exchange for working and making a home on the land. That was a surprise to me, too.

Lawrence Beringer is a withdrawn and hard man who has just filed homesteading documents for 150 acres of land when he meets Marie. Marie has traveled from Texas to stay with her sister Sheila and Sheila’s husband Sly with the plan of finding a husband so that she never has to return home. Within hours of meeting each other, Lawrence and Marie are engaged.

The couple live on a bus the first year while Lawrence clears land, plants a crop, and finally builds a cabin. Life is difficult, but for Marie, most difficult is understanding Lawrence, who is very withdrawn. For Lawrence has found he cares too much and must stay away to keep himself together. A miscarriage when Marie is almost at term doesn’t help, especially because Marie understands that her part of the bargain is providing children.

Conditions begin to improve, but even when things are good between them, Lawrence is aware that he’s keeping a secret from Marie.

I felt some distance from both of these characters but found the story fascinating nonetheless. It is written telegraphically, in short, sometimes partial sentences. Despite the descriptions of such activities as plowing, building a cabin, or planting potatoes, this novel is mostly a study of two distinct characters.

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Review 2323: Literary Wives! Mrs. March

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Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

This month we welcome a new member, Kate of booksaremyfavoriteandbest! She will join in for the next review in June.

My Review

Set in an undefined time that is probably the 1950s or 60s, Mrs. March is a character study of a woman disintegrating. This all begins at her favorite pastry shop. Mrs. March is a woman highly concerned with appearances. She is married to George March, a writer whose most recent novel is a hit. She is figuratively torn asunder when the shop owner asks her if she minds being depicted in George’s book as the main character, Johanna. Mrs. March hasn’t exactly read the book, but she knows that Johana is an ugly whore whose clients don’t even want to be with her.

Mrs. March immediately becomes obsessed by the idea that he has portrayed her and that everyone is talking about it. She doesn’t read the book, which might be a reasonable reaction, but she destroys a few copies and roots through George’s desk trying to discover his secrets. There she finds an article about a missing teenager in Maine and immediately begins to believe that George, who periodically visits a cabin in the same town, has had something to do with it.

This novel takes a deep look at the psychological behavior of a woman who is unraveling. At times it is darkly funny, sometimes tipping nearly to absurdism. Mrs. March is not likable, her behavior is often outrageous, yet it’s hard to turn away from the page.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

It’s hard to answer this question, actually, because we don’t see much of George. You have to wonder in the first place what would make George give such an unpleasant character as Johanna all of his wife’s rather distinct mannerisms, especially since most of the time he seems affectionate and soothing to her. Artists can be clueless, but it also seems clear that Mrs. March is so self-obsessed that she is detached from everyone, even her son.

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What does the poor woman have to do all day except clean up things she doesn’t want her maid to see and prance around town in her fur coat shopping? It’s enough to drive anyone mad. Yet is seems that no one is stopping her from doing whatever she wants to except, possibly, the notion of how it would look if she, say, got a job.

And how things look seems to be the dominating force in her life. We get a few glimpses into her childhood where her cold mother taught her this priority.

George has his secrets, but he is really not at all important in this novel. Mrs. March is able to adjust her notion of George instantly, thinking he’s a murderer while preparing his birthday party. What a book!

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Review 2319: Trust

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Trust is like a stack of nesting dolls. It is the story of a fabulously wealthy couple set in New York of the 1920s and 30s. First, it is written in the form of a novel published in 1937, Bonds by Harold Vanner, in which the couple are called Benjamin and Helen Rask. While the husband makes money, the wife is a patroness of the arts who dies in an insane asylum.

The second section of the novel consists of chapters and notes from Andrew Bevel’s unfinished “autobiography.” Bevel is the actual tycoon depicted in Bonds, and his biography reveals a controlling and almost megalomaniacal personality. In this section, the biggest difference is how unequal the couple are, with Mildred Bevel being treated as the little wife who has the harmless hobby of loving music and encouraging a few musicians. There are also sections about what a financial genius the husband is. This section was so overbearing that I could barely stand to read it.

Patience is needed for this novel, because more is revealed at each level. In the third section, we meet Ida Partenza, the ghost writer of Bevel’s biography. Her narrative is split between two time frames, the “present” of 1985 in which she is an older lady who has just heard of Mildred Bevel’s papers being available for study at Bevel House, and her memoir of working with Bevel on his book as a 20-year-old woman just after World War II. Bevel’s main concern seems to be to refute the novel Bonds, especially in regard to how it depicts his wife, and it’s true that it depicts her as dying in an insane asylum instead of a health clinic. However, to Ida’s confusion, instead of sharing with her memories of his wife or letting her interview Mildred’s friends, he seems to want her to invent things. It is in this section that the novel begins to be really interesting. Who was Mildred Bevel? What are Bevel’s secrets?

The final section is Mildred Bevel’s journal, brief passages written when she was dying in Switzerland.

This is the kind of novel that unfolds more in each succeeding section. It is about money, power, and control but especially about control. It is like glimpsing an image in a sliver of mirror that reflects differently as it moves.

I read this novel for my Pulitzer project. Trust was a cowinner for 2023 with Demon Copperhead.

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Review 2307: The Geometer Lobachevsky

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In 1950 Ireland, Soviet citizen Nikolai Lobachevsky has been working in the western bogs, trying to help a team survey the bog lands. He receives a letter from the Soviet government summoning him home to take up a “special assignment.” He knows that probably means execution, so he hides on a remote estuarial island.

Readers who look for a rousing plot aren’t going to find one here. Nothing much happens except for work and exact observations. First, Nikolai is helping with the surveying. Later, he helps farm seaweed. But he is homesick, and once he hears of Stalin’s death, he decides to return to Russia, taking a gamble that Malinkov, for whom he used to work, will pardon him for whatever sins he’s supposed to have committed.

I just felt meh about this novel, which I read for my Walter Scott project. It excels at descriptive passages, but it was hard to know Lobachevsky. Also, I am not that into strictly contemplative novels.

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Review 2306: The Midnight News

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Is The Midnight News a love story? a murder mystery? an espionage tale? a story about a dysfunctional family? an exploration of how the stress of war affects people psychologically? I’m not telling.

Charlotte is the daughter of privilege. Her father is a peer and a member of Parliament with an important war job. But Charlotte has chosen to work as a typist in a government office and live in a respectable but middle class boarding house.

It is the Blitz, and Charlotte’s home is in a dangerous area south of the Thames. She and the other residents of the house have been spending their nights on the lowest level of the house.

The novel starts slowly. Charlotte spends a day with her best friend, El, who has been elusive lately. Then El is killed in the Blitz. Charlotte goes to visit her godmother, Saskia, after she hears that a well-known actress, a schoolmate, has also been killed. Then Saskia dies, too. Charlotte has noticed a square gray man in several different places and comes to believe he is following her and killing people she is close to. This may seem like a wild idea, and since Charlotte has begun hearing the voices of her dead friends and has a history of mental illness, we begin to worry about her.

Then there is Tom, the son of an undertaker whom Charlotte has noticed feeding the birds. He is waiting to hear about a scholarship and a place at King’s College, but notifications are delayed because King’s has been hit in the Blitz. He is in love with Charlotte but thinks she is above him.

Is Charlotte being followed or is she paranoid? Is there something else going on? This novel eventually because a fast-moving, tightly plotted, and satisfying tale.

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Review 2298: Libertie

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Libertie is an African-American girl growing up in pre-Civil War Brooklyn. Her mother, Mrs. Sampson, practices as a homeopath and has been training Libertie in the use of plants. Her great desire is for Libertie to study medicine and become the first African-American woman doctor.

But Libertie seems to be a person who only knows what she doesn’t want. She doesn’t want to study medicine, but her mother arranges a course of study for her at a college in Ohio for African-American students, without consulting her. She is the only girl in the science department. There she decides to punish her mother for sending her away by neglecting her studies. She spends her time trying to figure out how to fit in with one group or another and finally settles on girls nicknamed the Graces, two women with beautiful singing voices.

The novel is mostly concerned with the relationship between the two women—the mother constantly pushing, disapproving, eaten up with ambition for her daughter but with no regard for what her daughter wants, the daughter seeking approval but rebelling at the same time, with no ambitions for her own life. This relationship becomes even more difficult when Libertie comes home after a year at college, lying about her results, and meets Emmanuel Chase, her mother’s protégé from Haiti.

I was uncomfortable with this book, I think, partly because of its first-person point of view. I don’t like historical fiction that makes its heroines modern, and there is nothing 19th century about Libertie’s narrative, especially when it comes to sex. But even more than that, it didn’t help that neither Libertie nor her mother is a particularly appealing character or that all of Libertie’s life decisions are poor ones. A 21st century young person might fritter away the opportunity that her mother is struggling to provide her, for example, but I can’t imagine a 19th century one, with her knowledge of what her people have been through, would. Libertie behaves more like a spoiled 21st century child than someone who in the 19th century would be considered a young woman.

Finally, Greenidge says this novel was inspired by the first African-American woman doctor in the States, but I kept wondering who it was meant to be. Mrs. Sampson herself is not a qualified doctor, and Libertie purposefully sabotages her opportunity in pre-med.

I read this novel for my James Tait Black project.

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