Historical Novels Review Editors' Choice Titles

BLOOD ROYAL
Vanora Bennett, HarperCollins, 2009, £12.99, hb, 592pp, 9780007281930
This first in a series is the story of Catherine de Valois, daughter of Charles, King of France. Brought up with her younger brother Charles at the French court, dominated by the temperamental Queen Isabeau, Catherine’s childhood is one of deprivation rather than luxury. Her only friend is the poet and advisor of kings, Christine de Pizan. Catherine longs to escape the intrigues of the French court and does this through her marriage to Henry V of England. Although this is a political marriage, Catherine appears to fall in love with her kingly husband. It is only after his death that all the skills she learnt, from dealing with the insanity of her own father, Charles, and her trouble-making mother, are used in trying to protect Harry, her son, from the political aspirations of Duke Humphrey and the war-hardened Warwick. Henry’s death also provides the opportunity for Catherine to renew her youthful friendship with Owain Tudor, a dispossessed young Welshman. Owain’s understanding and loyalty to both Harry and Catherine enable her to find the peace and love that has always eluded her.
This novel is a skilful blend of fact and fiction. Weaving together all the historically important figures of the time such as Christine de Pizan, Jehanne, who is burnt for heresy, and Cardinal Beaufort, it provides the reader with a glimpse of the hardships of life, even in courtly circles, during a period of war between England and France. Personally, this period is not historically one of my favourites, but Vanora Bennett’s novel has made me think again. Her characters, story, and fluid writing style sweep you along in a pageant of medieval life. This is quite simply an excellent read! -- Myfanwy Cook

THE RED VELVET TURNSHOE
Cassandra Clark, John Murray, 2009, £18.99, hb, 272pp, 9781848540293
    In February of the year 1383 a rain started to fall before Martinmas. It swept through France, Flanders, and Tuscany causing floods and famine. Europe is dangerous. There is plague and the Hundred Years War is causing political turmoil. Hildegard, the nun heroine of Hangman Blind, is sent on a dangerous mission to bring the Cross of Constantine from Italy to York. A disappearance, a murder, and a grisly discovery in Bruges set in action a terrifying course of events for Hildegard. She leaves Bruges accompanied by the young, arrogant musician Pierrekyn, murder suspect, and Talbot, her knight protector. They arrive at the monastery on St. Bernard’s Pass during a snowstorm, and by now the novel’s events are spiraling. For the next two-thirds of this story, the reader is gripped by suspense, the revelation of characters noble and bad, and a deep political secret that endangers King Richard’s crown. Many want Hildegard’s mission to fail, and one character plans a deadly revenge.
    The story is ingenious, the plotting is suspenseful, the characters are portrayed with depth and subtlety, the writing is atmospheric. Cassandra Clark’s novel is literary, detailed, and thoroughly researched, making it a delicious read for any lover of historical writers such as C. J. Sansom or Philippa Gregory, with the added advantage of an original, brilliantly portrayed and unforgettable heroine. -- Carol McGrath

THE GLASS OF TIME
Michael Cox, Norton, 2008, $24.95, hb, 586pp, 9780393067736 / John Murray, 2008, £17.99, hb, 544pp, 9780719597206
Esperanza Gorst is an orphan, raised in Paris by her guardian, the mysterious Madame de l’Orme. When she is in her teens, Esperanza’s guardian places her in the home of Emily, Lady Tansor, as a lady’s maid, and insists that Esperanza find a way into Lady Tansor’s confidence. Though Esperanza is unsure why, Madame de l’Orme promises to reveal the truth of the escapade through three letters, which she will send periodically. As Esperanza receives the letters and begins to learn the truth about her parentage and her relationship with Lady Tansor, she finds there are numerous questions waiting to be answered—and that she isn’t who she believed she was.
This is a ghost story without ghosts, a tale of family secrets revealed, past cruelties avenged, and a young woman who finds herself coming of age in a way she could never have expected. The epic, neo-Victorian narrative style, reminiscent of classic works of 19^th-century literature, made me feel as if I were peeping through a keyhole and sneaking glances at a secret diary as the story unraveled. It helps to have read Cox’s first novel, The Meaning of Night, before beginning The Glass of Time, since the stories are intertwined, and questions left lingering at the end of the earlier book are resolved. All in all, a fantastic, extraordinarily detailed world to lose yourself in, and an essential read. -- Nanette Donohue

THE GREAT LOVER
Jill Dawson, Sceptre, 2009, £12.99, hb, 310pp, 9780340935651
    The island of Tahiti holds a fascination for troubled souls. Gauguin lived there in the 1890s. So too, in the early months of 1914, did poet Rupert Brooke, the subject of this vivid novel. He died in the east Mediterranean the following year of septicaemia, at the age of twenty-seven. Author Jill Dawson has delved into the darkness of his life, at odds with the romantic, lyrical poet of popular imagination.
    The book begins in 1982 with a letter from Arlice Rapoto, Brooke’s daughter in Tahiti. The recipient is ninety-year-old Nell Golightly, formerly maid at the Orchard Tea Gardens, Grantchester, where Brooke stayed before WW1. Arlice wants to know about the famous father she never met: how he smelled and sounded, what it felt like to ‘wrap arms around him’. The main part of the novel takes us back to 1909, the story of Brooke and Nell—an intelligent, practical girl who keeps bees—up to 1914, told in alternating first-person narrative.
    The fictional Nell, inspired by a postcard the author bought when visiting the Orchard House, is a brilliant creation. She is attracted to Brooke, struck by his beauty. He is a seamless fusion of his poetry, letters, travel writings, essays, photographs, and the author’s imagination. He is confused about his sexuality, worried about his sanity and his ‘burdensome virginity’, which he eventually loses to a school friend. He has lots of visitors: Lytton Strachey, Virginia Stephen (Woolf), and other literati. The constraints of social position ensure his relationship with Nell develops at a distance: much observation, musing—she becomes in his imagination ‘a sumptuous nymph … unearthly creature— bolstered by snatched conversations and a naked bathe in Byron’s Pool.
    A touching, engrossing story of a love affair and of a damaged man unable to allow others to reach him. -- Janet Hancock

PALACE CIRCLE
Rebecca Dean, Broadway, 2009, $14.00, pb, 415pp, 9780767930550 / Harper, 2009, £6.99, pb, 608pp, 9780007268436
    It’s been a long time since I was as caught up in a novel as I was in Palace Circle. The action sweeps from London’s glittering debutante balls to the crowded streets of World War II Cairo, with seamless transitions between scenes and viewpoints and never a dull moment throughout. In 1911, eighteen-year-old Delia Chandler marries Viscount Ivor Conisborough, twenty-two years her elder, exchanging carefree days at her beloved Virginia home for a life of privilege at the Windsor court. She adjusts quickly, captivating aristocrats and politicians alike with her Southern charm and outgoing personality. Despite the casual acceptance of love affairs among members of her circle, Delia believes her marriage to be an exception to the rule—until she comes face to face with Ivor’s gorgeous long-time mistress.
    After the births of her children, Delia finds happiness in her own extramarital liaison until her husband’s posting to Cairo separates her from her lover. Ivor’s role as advisor to King Fuad and tutor to his son, Prince Farouk, becomes critical to British interests as Egyptian revolutionaries gain ground and the Nazis rise in power. The two Conisborough daughters, Petra and Davina, grow up in an ethnically diverse prewar Egypt but pursue different paths in life. Their romantic entanglements are complicated by their father’s politics and secrets from their mother’s past.
     Dean writes with a light touch that reflects the freewheeling spirit of the era; notables like Margot Asquith, Wallis Simpson, and Winston Churchill breeze through the narrative as they briefly interact with the fictional characters. Although the pacing is brisk, Dean doesn’t neglect the smaller details that add so much vibrancy to her settings. In all, Palace Circle is a saga both intellectually lively and emotionally satisfying. Its four hundred-plus pages passed by much too quickly; I wouldn’t have minded four hundred more. -- Sarah Johnson

WILD ORCHID
Cameron Dokey, Simon & Schuster, 2009, $6.99, pb, 200pp, 9781416971689

In this retelling of “The Ballad of Mulan” for the young adult reader, told in the first person, Cameron Dokey breathes fresh life into an archetypal story of a cross-dressing young woman who goes to war in defense of her beloved China and in place of her father. We are quickly won to the side of its heroine, who came into the world as the blossom of an unconventional love match. Her grief-stricken father does not come home to meet her until Mulan is a teenager, and he’s forced into retirement by war injuries and an angry emperor. He discovers a daughter who loves climbing trees and learning forbidden skills from her friend, Li Po. Father and daughter struggle through their new relationship, but soon a new, very feminine wife joins the household. She becomes pregnant just as the Huns advance again on China and the Emperor sends out his call. Mulan takes up her father’s armor and warhorse and joins Li Po’s archers. Her skills bring her to the attention of the emperor’s youngest son, and she joins him in a daring attempt to turn the tide of the invasion.
Elegant in its simplicity, Wild Orchid is also deep in its exploration of conventions associated with culture—from expected obedience of children, to the power of a mother-in-law, to gender and class divisions. The novel’s heroine discovers that she is not the only one struggling against expectations. For Mulan, courage is key in facing the emperor, the enemy, or a father, as she asks for the right to live a life based on love. Highly recommended. Ages 10 and up. -- Eileen Charbonneau

TWILIGHT OF AVALON
Anna Elliott, Touchstone, 2009, $16.00, pb, 430pp, 1416589899
    In Arthurian fiction, queens tend to fall into two groups: the powerful and the powerless. Anna Elliott places Isolde among the latter. To a large extent this is because she sets her version of the story of Trystan (as she calls him here) and Isolde in a brutal Dark Age (6th-century) Britain. It is Isolde’s misfortune to have lost her male protectors at a time when women badly need them, and to make matters worse she is mistrusted by almost everyone, for is she not the daughter of Modred, Arthur’s son by incest with his half sister Morgan? And of Gwynefar, who betrayed her husband? And did not her father’s rebellion lead to the disaster at Camlann? And is she not a healer like her grandmother, a reputed sorceress? She was wed to Constantine, Arthur’s heir, but now he lies dead, and the rulers of Britain, gathered to choose a successor, view her with suspicion, if not outright hostility.
    Surrounded by enemies, she is forced to marry the vicious Marche, King of Cornwall, who predictably mistreats her. She desperately needs a protector, but this is no medieval romance. Trystan, when he does appear, spends most of his time in a prison cell, leaving Isolde to struggle desperately for survival, not only for herself but for all Britain as well, in the fortress of Tintagel and on the wild moor to which she flees. Indeed, she helps him more than he does her.
    This, the first book of a trilogy, is a dark vision, inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of disunity and treachery among the British leaders, and it maintains powerful tension throughout as it exposes the suffering of those affected by their cruelty and shortsightedness. Strongly recommended.
-- Ray Thompson

THE PHYSICK BOOK OF DELIVERANCE DANE (US) / THE LOST BOOK OF SALEM (UK)
Katherine Howe, Voice, 2009, $25.95/C$31.95, hb, 384pp, 9781401340902 / Penguin, 2009, £6.99, pb, 480pp, 9780141038117
This is a story that’s easy to lose yourself in. It alternates between the early 1990s, when Connie Goodwin is working on her doctorate in American colonial history at Harvard, and the colonial Salem area, mostly in the early 1690s. Connie has passed her oral exams, and when asked by her mother to ready Connie’s grandmother’s long vacant house outside of Salem for possible sale, she decides she can spend the summer fixing up the house while finding a topic for her dissertation, which she needs to start soon. She has never seen her grandmother’s house before and is amazed to find it is centuries old, hidden by overgrowth. Shortly after she arrives, she finds an ancient key containing an equally old slip of paper with the words “Deliverance Dane” written upon it. Connie is not one to ignore a historical mystery, one which plays out for the reader in the Interlude sections, in which we get glimpses of the life of Deliverance Dane, her daughter, and granddaughter. Goody Dane has the misfortune to live at the time of the Salem witch trials. But what was her role? Why is she not mentioned in the records of that time?
The alternating time periods do not distract but rather interplay neatly. The Interludes, while shorter than the 1990s story, give an atmospheric glimpse into that fraught time and some of its lingering consequences. In Connie’s sections, the research undertaken by the chair of the history department, the story of her grandmother’s house, and the mystery of what happens to the men connected to this house, all interweave with Connie’s search for Deliverance Dane to create a book that is impossible to put down.
-- Trudi E. Jacobson

THE BOOK OF NIGHT WOMEN
Marlon James, Riverhead, 2009, $26.95, 432pp, 9781594488573
The Book of Night Women is a beautifully written, sweeping tale of Jamaican slavery set in the early 19^th century. The story centers on Lilith, a slave born on the Montpelier Estate, a large sugar plantation, where life is ruled by danger and fear. Lilith comes of age and kills a black slave driver who attempts to rape her. This event marks Lilith from the other slaves, who begin to both fear and revere her for they sense that she possess a dark power hidden within. Members of a group which calls itself the Night Women keep their eye on Lilith and bring her into their secret circle. At their meetings, Lilith learns they are plotting a slave revolt of massive proportion that involves several plantations. She hesitates to participate, but the Night Women see her as a force that could really help their cause, and Lilith is torn between her feelings.
James portrays his dynamic and flawed characters in a complex, stratified society where many boundaries, some known and some unspoken, exist between slaves and their masters as well as among the slaves themselves. The authentic voice of the narrator, who remains a mystery until the end, moves the story along at a brisk pace. Strong language abounds, and the entire novel is written in a slave dialect which adds to the story, making it a realistic, engaging read. James portrays the violence as it really was, absolutely horrific, and does not hold back. One of the most satisfying parts of the novel is James’s exploration of the power of love to transform one’s thinking. This tale of freedom, hope, survival, and unlikely love is unique and will continue to make readers think. Marlon James is an extremely gifted writer whose next book I eagerly anticipate. -- Troy Reed

Galway Bay
Mary Pat Kelly, Grand Central, 2009, hb, $26.99US/C$29.99/£18.99, 567pp, 0446579009
    Ireland, 1848: Blight has killed the potato crop for the third time in four years, there’s no work or food, the rents are due, and you are being turned out of your home. Just as you decide you must escape to America, your beloved husband dies, leaving you with four young children and another on the way. So what do you do? If you are Honora Kelly and her sister Maire, you forge ahead, doing what you must to survive and give your children a better life.
    Mary Pat Kelly’s Galway Bay is based on her great-great-grandmother’s life, and what a tale it is. Honora Kelly not only sailed to America with her unconventional sister and their eight children, but she determinedly dragged them all to Chicago in hopes of locating her late husband’s brother, Patrick. Once there, Honora and her sister find work and watch as their sons grow strong in the shadow of the upcoming Civil War, all the while trying to maintain a sense of their Irish heritage.
    Initially, I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy Galway Bay; the author spends the first few chapters being what I thought of as “too Irish”: repeating Irish folklore and using Irish words so often that it became distracting rather than illuminating. However, as the story continued, her characters took over the narration and led me into their lives and hearts; I surprised myself after fifty pages or so at how drawn into the story I’d become. Kelly does an admirable job of giving the grim details of The Great Starvation, and her characters’ desperation for survival literally swept me away. By the end I was cheering them all on proudly and willing the story never to end. This is not a pretty tale, but it is ultimately an uplifting one. Highly recommended. -- Tamela McCann

A QUIET FLAME
Philip Kerr, Putnam, 2009, $26.95, hb, 389pp, 9780399155307 / Quercus, 2008, £7.99, pb, 448pp, 9781847245588
    Framed as a war criminal, ex-SS officer Bernie Gunther is forced to flee to Argentina with the likes of Adolph Eichmann for company. He finds that his reputation gained before the war as a Berlin police detective has preceded him. Bernie is instantly drafted into Peron’s secret police with a mission to find a missing girl. The clues lead him to link the disappearance with a murdered girl in 1932, a case he nearly solved before his investigation was terminated by the rise of Hitler. Before long he finds evidence that the old nightmares of his Nazi days have been reborn in the new world. Linking up with a beautiful, young Jewess, he launches an investigation that puts him in deadly conflict with both the Peron regime and the Nazi war criminals that the president so warmly embraced.
    Fifth in a series, this entry loses nothing of the grit and realism that made its predecessors so entertaining and satisfying. There is still the wisecracking, sardonic Bernie, fighting for what is right despite the many ambiguities forced upon him. The sharply drawn sinister foes are here, too, only this time a plethora of them, from a veritable who’s-who of escaped Nazi war criminals to the Perons themselves, including the fabulous Evita.
    This is a thinking man’s sort of fiction, one that transcends its noir genre. The big questions—life and death, guilt or innocence—are handled in an almost philosophical way. Punishment and justice are especially elusive and ambiguous, especially when applied to Bernie himself, who, despite all his efforts to the contrary, finds himself indelibly tainted by the very bacillus he fights against.
    Philip Kerr has crafted a series of books that are at once entertaining, informative, and vaguely disturbing. This latest offering is perhaps the best of all, and it also stands as a remarkable read on its own. Highly recommended.
-- Ken Kreckel

TUCK: The Legend Triumphs
Stephen R. Lawhead, Thomas Nelson Inc., 2009, $26.99, hb, 9781595540874
This is book three in the King Raven trilogy, the final chapter of Stephen Lawhead’s interpretation of the Robin Hood legend. During the rule of William Rufus in 12^th-century England, the Norman conquerors wanted to control the rich farmland of Wales, along with the rest of the isle. Before the arrival of the Normans, the young Bran was to become king of a small realm within Wales. After his father was killed at the hands of the Norman invaders, his realm was seized and ruled by a cruel overlord. This novel begins as Rhi Bran and his band of outlaws, who lived secluded in the dense forests of the land known as The March, fight to regain control of his land. One of his men, a small squat Friar named Tuck, would become instrumental in trying to regain his throne in this final book of the trilogy.
Steeped in Celtic mythology and political intrigue, Tuck is also filled with suspense and action. The dialog is marvelous, the settings in Wales and England breathtaking, and the characters well drawn. I have read all three novels in the series, and really hated to finally end this reading experience, one that I will always remember; I will probably read these books again. I highly recommend this series and would strongly advise beginning with the first book, Hood. I anxiously await Mr. Lawhead’s next release. -- Jeff Westerhoff

THE OWL KILLERS
Karen Maitland, Michael Joseph, 2009, £12.99, hb, 595pp, 9780718153205 / Delacorte, Sept. 2009, $25.00, hb, 480pp, 9780385341707
The year is 1321. Deep in the heart of the English countryside, an isolated village is controlled by a sinister group called the Owl Masters. A pagan group, they rule by fear, terrorising the local population with accusations of sin bringing retribution in the form of horrific death. The status quo is disturbed by the arrival of a group of religious women who establish a community at the edge of the village. The Owl Masters, who find their power being challenged by the women, react violently and, aided by the corrupt local priest, seek to destroy the community of Beguines.
The story is told from the point of view of the main characters in the book in a series of small but connected chapters. The tension builds slowly but subtly with the conflict between the religious community and the Owl Masters building to a satisfying climax. The writing is taut, compelling, and atmospheric, evoking the superstitious ignorance of the age. If you like gothic medieval novels with venal priests, murder, witches, and strong-minded women, this is for you. I loved it. Definitely one to keep, and highly recommended. -- Mike Ashworth

A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO DIE
Malla Nunn, Picador, 2009, £12.99, pb, 399pp, 9780230711211 / Atria, 2009, $25.00, hb, 384pp, 9781416586203
    South Africa, 1952. Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate the murder of Afrikaner police officer Captain Willem Pretorius in the remote town of Jacob’s Rest. As Emmanuel digs deeper into Pretorius’s double life, he must also stay one step ahead of the dead man’s thuggish sons and Security Branch officers intent on pinning the murder on black political activists.
    Although this novel is gritty and hard-hitting (sometimes literally), there is a seam of dry humour running through which prevents it from becoming too grim. This is most obvious in the characterisation of Hansie Hepple, the white teenage constable whose complete indoctrination in the idea of white supremacy makes him blind to where the evidence is pointing. Yet, according to the absurd race laws, he outranks the black constable, Shabalala, despite the latter’s greater experience and phenomenal observational and tracking skills.
    This may be Nunn’s first novel, but her experience as an award-winning screenwriter is obvious in the confident way she creates characters, evokes the setting, and structures the plot so that there is no letup in the tension until the very last page. I’ll definitely keep my eye open for her next book.
-- Jasmina Svenne

The Last Dickens
Matthew Pearl, Random House, 2009, $25.00, hb, 381pp, 9781400066568 / Harvill Secker, 2009, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 9781846550843
    If you love reading Charles Dickens, this novel will be heaven-sent. If you’re not a big fan of Dickens, you will be after reading this novel. It’s that good and that much fun.
    This erudite literary mystery has action and colorful characters galore, both historical and fictional, and includes flashbacks to Dickens’s tour of America in 1867 that demonstrate his extreme fame, the public’s love for him, and the protective love his confidants and entourage had for him as well. It’s a rousing story of murder, the opium trade, and the cutthroat 19^th-century publishing business. With action taking place in India, England, Boston, and other U.S. sites, the author maintains seemingly distinct storylines. Just when you think they will never gel and make sense, Pearl brilliantly links them together.
    The book revolves around Dickens’s unfinished last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. After Dickens’s death in 1870, his Boston publisher, James R. Osgood, sets off on a journey to England to find if rumored additional chapters really existed. He fights off opium dealers and thugs hired by rival publishers, gains the trust of Dickens’s family members, and tangles with a villain of mythic proportions. All this action might sound overblown, but it’s a literary romp through 19^th century culture and its seamiest sides, not unlike much of Dickens’s work. It’s well written and chock full of details on Dickens and his times. This reviewer might question why the character of Osgood’s companion and love interest is relatively undeveloped, but this is a minor quibble. Highly recommended. -- Pamela Ortega

SILENT ON THE MOOR
Deanna Raybourn, Mira, 2009, $13.95/C$13.95, pb, 544pp, 978077832614 / Mira, 2009, £6.99, pb, 558pp, 9780778303046
Widowed Lady Julia Grey returns in this third outing to openly pursue Nicholas Brisbane, a private investigator she first encountered over her husband’s corpse. Her pursuit takes her to Yorkshire, where Brisbane has been gifted an estate. A book set in the 19^th century on the Yorkshire moors begs for a hero as brooding as Heathcliff, and Brisbane is that. He is as determined to rebuff Julia as she is to make him admit his feelings for her. All manner of obstacles conspire against the couple: Brisbane’s half-Gypsy side and his renunciation of the Sight (which comes with punishing headaches), the widowed mother and daughters who have lost their family home to him and are dependent on his charity, and Lady Julia’s gruesome discovery among their dead brother’s Egyptian artifacts.
This third installment is eminently satisfying. It departs from the first two in that although narrated by Julia again, the focus is on Brisbane returning to his roots. He shares a past with the family he has dispossessed, and Julia learns even more about him; neither of these things affects her love for him. As with the first two books, plot points abound and yet nothing gets short shrift. I feel inadequate to the task of conveying how completely engrossing this was. Suffice it to say, I’m praying Raybourn continues! -- Ellen Keith

Drood
Dan Simmons, Little, Brown, 2009, $26.99/C$29.99, hb, 784pp, 9780316007023 / Quercus, 2009, £14.99, pb, 800pp, 9781847247957
    In 1865, Charles Dickens, returning from a holiday with his mistress and her mother, is involved in the disastrous railway accident at Staplehurst. As Dickens wanders through the carnage, helping to tend the injured and dying, he encounters a strange figure, calling himself “Drood.” But who is Drood? Is he a figment of Dickens’s imagination? Or that of the narrator, Dickens’s friend and literary rival, the opium-addicted Wilkie Collins? Or that of Inspector Field, the detective who claims that Drood is a master criminal who must be brought to justice?
    Normally, I prefer my fiction straightforward, with a reliable narrator bringing us smoothly from point A to point B, but Drood was a delightful exception for me. Reliable or not, Collins is a vastly entertaining narrator, who, when he is not fretting about Drood and the ever-present Inspector Field, is shuttling between his rival mistresses, gulping copious amounts of laudanum, and grousing about his friend Dickens’s greater success as a novelist (though, as Collins never tires of reminding us, his last effort outsold Dickens’).
    As befits a novel with Dickens as a major character, Drood is a doorstopper of a book, with a vast number of characters, most of them historical. Though the novel by no means feels top-heavy with historical facts, Simmons appears to have omitted no detail of Dickens’s last years, with even a doomed dog of Dickens making several appearances. The dialogue is sharp, with each character having a distinct voice, and the descriptive writing is vivid, with the grisly Staplehurst scenes being particularly memorable.
    Familiarity with Dickens and his works isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying Drood, though it certainly adds to the reader’s pleasure. Those wanting a thoroughly original, deftly written novel should make haste to read this one.
-- Susan Higginbotham

THE HELP
Kathryn Stockett, Putnam, 2009, $24.95/C$27.50, hb, 464pp, 9780399155345 / Fig Tree, 2009, £12.99, hb, 464pp, 9781905490431
    In 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, Skeeter, a young white aspiring journalist, comes home from Ole Miss and decides to document the struggles of African-American maids. The clandestine project becomes a catalyst for change and impacts the lives of many women, black and white. Not only Jim Crow laws and racial bias, but class prejudice and gender roles are exposed in all their ugliness.
    The story is told in three first-person voices, that of Skeeter and of two of the maids she interviews, Minny and Aibileen. Talking honestly to Skeeter about their struggles is an act of courage on the part of Minny, Aibileen, and the other women they recruit for the project. Skeeter herself must re-examine the relationship she had with the maid who helped to raise her, and look at her own position in society. As Skeeter grows into an independent woman and a brave journalist, it becomes increasingly clear to her that the lines that divide people are artificial. Minny and Aibileen, who risk far more than Skeeter does, find deep inner resources and evolve as people. The characters’ internal struggles and the external danger from white supremacists charge this novel with enormous dramatic tension and make it practically impossible to put down.
    The Help abounds in vividly drawn female characters. Skeeter, Minny, and Aibileen’s voices ring true. The maids’ employers emerge as fully believable people. Some are petty tyrants, but Stockett draws a touching, humorous portrait of Miss Celia, Minny’s boss, decent at the core but adrift from her poor, country roots and floundering. This brilliantly written novel has wonderful comic moments as well as heartbreak. I’d put it on the top of my bookshelf, next to To Kill A Mockingbird. It is that extraordinary. -- Phyllis T. Smith

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