The latest title I’m reviewing as part of Neo-Victorian Voices series, covering novels set in the nineteenth century, but written in the twenty-first, is James McBride’s 2013, National Book Award winner, The Good Lord Bird.
Our memorable protagonist is Henry Shackleford, who’s been born into slavery in the Kansas Territory. In 1857, aged around 12, he is “freed” (read: “kidnapped”) by abolitionist James Brown, who mistakes him for a girl and gives him the nickname, Onion. In the years that follow, Henry/Onion has a front row seat to a violent, dangerous, and pivotal period of American history, which he narrates vividly, and, bizarrely enough, with delicious humor.
Of the many historical novels I’ve read centering on the institution of American slavery, The Good Lord Bird is the most entertaining. McBride brilliantly dramatizes how Onion is misunderstood, overlooked, and underestimated by the (mainly white) characters around him, in a way that provokes laughter while dealing with the difficult issue of racial prejudice.
I also enjoyed his exploration of the character of James Brown. While I’m not an expert on Brown’s life and crusade, it’s clear that McBride has tried to unpack the complex mix of emotions he might provoke in modern readers by pairing research with imagination in his depiction of this fascinating personality.
I was a little surprised that Onion, who’s dressed as a girl for much of the novel, didn’t experience more harassment and other downsides to living as a woman, but, in some ways, this was a welcome break for me as a reader—many novels depicting black women’s experiences in the era have a heavy emphasis on sexual violence.
Part satire, part military historical, part coming of age narrative, with shades of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), I highly recommend The Good Lord Bird to other readers interested in nineteenth-century America.
The Swan’s Nest tells the story of the relationship between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, in the lead up to, and early days of, their marriage, set against a backdrop of an English social milieu grappling with the legacy of slavery and exploitation in Jamaica.
The courtship depicted here is tender, rather than steamy, and much of the novel focuses on side characters (some fictional, some based on real figures). Lovers of historical romance may be disappointed, but McNeal’s prose is enjoyable, and the novel feels well-researched and realistic.
Barrett’s anxiety over her controlling father’s reaction to her burgeoning relationship and the love of poetry she shares with Browning came across most strongly. The sections dealing with colonialism leaned a little too didactic for my taste and took us away from the central characters but the important topic being explored will engage readers who are learning about the Barretts’ unsavory “business” interests for the first time.
Overall, while The Swan’s Nest is one of the quieter novels I’ve reviewed as part of this series, I would recommend it to anyone with a love for Browning and/or Barrett’s poems, an interest in the history of the British West Indies, or a preference for biographical historical fiction.
Welcome back to the Neo-Victorian Voices review series, covering novels set in the nineteenth century, but written in the twenty-first. Today I’m blogging for the first time about a book set in 1800s Australia! The closest I’ve gotten previously was 1800s New Zealand, when reviewing Eleanor Catton’s 2013 The Luminaries back in 2018.
It’s 1896 in Western Australia when Eliza’s father, the owner of a prominent pearling business, goes missing at sea. She and her family arrived from England ten years previously and have suffered more than their fair share of tragedy since. Now, the tomboyish Eliza is on a mission to find and save her father, as she couldn’t the family members she lost before.
Pook deftly introduces us to the world of a remote (fictional) Australian town, peopled by diverse immigrants, corrupt authorities, and a mistreated aboriginal population. It’s a vibrant setting of inhospitable landscapes, teeming with fascinating, and dangerous, animal life, such as salties, sharks, and kleptomaniac cockatoos.
If you read historical fiction to be transported to a different time and place and to learn about past events you might not have been aware of, there’s a lot to enjoy about Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter. I relished the insight into the pearl trade and the additional levels of agency possible for a nineteenth-century heroine in an Australian vs. a British, or even an American, setting. Eliza is also an appealing main character, likable without being flawless.
I wish the supporting characters had been a little more developed, especially Axel, Eliza’s will they/won’t they potential love interest, Min, her friend, and the antagonist Parker, who is irredeemably evil. No spoilers here but the revelation of the reason behind the father’s disappearance was also a little underwhelming.
All in, this is an original contribution to the genre and a novel I’d recommend to readers looking to broaden their horizons and follow a nineteenth-century heroine far beyond the drawing room.
What novels should I consider reviewing next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Want monthly updates about my blogging/writing? Sign up for my email newsletter here.
Welcome back to my Neo-Victorian Voices series, where I review books set in the nineteenth century, but written in the twenty-first. For the second time in this series, following my review of Amy Brill’s The Movement of Stars(2013) in 2019, we’re back in nineteenth-century Nantucket. This time I’m reviewing Julie Gerstenblatt’s 2023 Daughters of Nantucket, which follows several women’s lives on the island in the lead up to and aftermath of the Great Fire of 1846.
Eliza is a whaling captain’s wife, who’s struggling financially and emotionally following her husband’s long absence at sea. Maria is an astronomer and curator, who’s hiding her sexuality. And Meg is a pregnant Black businesswoman, who’s still fighting for equality, although she was born free.
Gerstenblatt uses the three women’s different perspectives and experiences to bring the island as it was during this period to life. Only one of them (Maria) shares a name with a true historical figure, although all three were born out of research. The stakes of the interwoven narratives were high and the women’s personalities were distinct enough to maintain reader interest throughout.
What I most enjoyed about the book were the details that were clearly part of Gerstenblatt’s research. I’ve visited the Whaling Museum on the island and so it was great to see the true story of Nantucket’s commercial and social history told there reinvented in fiction. I also enjoyed the structure of the novel, with the countdown to the fire ramping up tension and keeping us guessing about what would happen to our characters.
What I found less successful was the engagement with social justice themes, especially related to race and sexuality. There is so much rich history in Nantucket about the island’s Black population, but the characters in Daughters of Nantucket at times seemed to speak with twenty-first-century voices, rather than embodying the attitudes of progressive islanders in the 1840s.
All in, though, Gerstenblatt’s love for Nantucket and its history shines through in this entertaining read. If you want to lie to yourself that it’s still summer, consider picking up a copy and taking an imaginative trip to the beaches of New England.
What novel would you like me to read next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Want to stay up to date with all my reviews? Make sure you sign up to my monthly email newsletter here.
Gina Marie Guadagnino’s 2019 The Parting Glass has many of the elements I love to see in books I review for my Neo-Victorian Voices series, on novels written in the twenty-first century but set in the nineteenth. Not only does the story take place in the 1830s, but the location is New York City, our heroine is Irish, and the subject matter is forbidden love (including several lesbian romances).
Mary Ballard is lady’s maid to society beauty Charlotte Wharton, whom she’s secretly and passionately in love with. But she’s already lost one life for having a sexual relationship with a woman and, what’s more, Charlotte is having sex with Mary’s twin brother Johnny, even though she’s meant to remain a virgin until marriage.
Guadagnino does a great job painting a picture of the upstairs/downstairs world of the Wharton household, and also the very different world Mary and Johnny inhabit on their nights off, drinking at an Irish bar with publican Dermot, who knows their past and their real names. Another bright spot is the character of Liddie, a half-Black sex worker Mary meets and develops a relationship with over the course of the novel.
There’s plenty of action, the stakes are high, and the novel reaches a dramatic climax, which delivers on the marketing promise that, in The Parting Glass, “Downton Abbey meets Gangs of New York.”
What was less clear to me was whether Mary is a character we’re supposed to relate to and sympathize with. Her sexual obsession with Charlotte, while realistic, has incestuous overtones, which some readers may find off-putting. I actually wish Guadagnino had leaned into this even more at the start of the novel, but given Mary a character arc, as she came to a new, mature understanding of romantic love thanks to her reciprocal relationship with Liddie. Instead (slight spoiler here!), I left the novel feeling that Mary had treated Liddie pretty poorly and disappointed that she was still putting Charlotte and her style of upper-class, White beauty on a pedestal.
Have you read The Parting Glass? I’d love to hear what you thought of the novel. Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
I imagine that many American readers will come to Karen Joy Fowler’s 2022 novel, Booth, with preconceptions about John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865), the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). However, having grown up outside the US, my knowledge of the killer and the theatrical family he was part of was essentially nonexistent before I sat down to read this latest book in my Neo-Victorian Voices series, about novels set in the nineteenth century but penned in the twenty-first.
Booth is one of those novels where we know what the climax will be—Lincoln will die. Suspense comes instead from anticipating the emotional and practical responses of the rest of the Booth family to John’s actions. We move between three of his nine siblings’ points of view in the novel, jumping from the mind of invalid and put-upon Rosalie to famous actor Edwin to beautiful and fiery Asia. This isn’t a book about a murderer—it’s a book about how a murderer’s actions affect those who love him most, so I was unsurprised to read in Fowler’s author’s note that she was partially inspired to write the book by considering the position of modern mass shooters’ families.
The real-life Booths are wonderful fodder for a novel. In addition to John’s assassination of Lincoln, parental bigamy, alcoholism, daring and dangerous journeys across the United States, theatrical productions galore, and a stock of other juicy rumors were all at Fowler’s disposal when she sat down to write this book. If she’d made all this up some reviewers would have called Fowler’s novel farfetched but all the craziest details about the Booths are true, meaning, especially later in the book, there is, at times, too much incident. I would have liked some breathing room to give the characters even more page space to react and reflect.
Lovers of Shakespeare will enjoy how much Fowler makes of the importance of the bard to the Booth family culture and may also be intrigued by the altered versions of his famous plays most performed during the nineteenth-century. I also liked learning about other popular plays from the time period, and the history of costuming (the fact that actors owned their own expensive costumes for different roles was fascinating!).
Coming back to the preconceived ideas readers may have about the Booths, Fowler handles the topic of slavery very deftly. Without lecturing, the novel explores how and why the siblings ended up with opposing ideas about abolition, and the divisions created by birth order, age gaps, and very different childhood experiences in a large family rang particularly true. This is the story of the Booth siblings, but secondary characters, including the family’s Black servants who are trying to buy the freedom of their children still trapped in slavery, give us an even broader perspective on the macro-forces at work in the country during this era.
Welcome back to the Neo-Victorian Voices series, where I review books written in the twenty-first century, but set in the nineteenth. Today it’s the turn of Laurie Lico Albanese’s 2022 novel, Hester, which was inspired by one of the great American nineteenth-century novels—Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850).
The title of the novel may be Hester, but our protagonist is the fictional Isobel, a young Scottish wife to an opium addict husband who immigrates to Salem, Massachusetts. There she encounters aspiring writer Nat Hathorne (who hasn’t yet altered the spelling of his name) and becomes a model for the character of Hester Prynne in his most famous novel.
Nat and Isobel’s emotional and romantic connection is at the core of the story, but the book isn’t just about Isobel as a muse—she is also an artist. A talented seamstress and embroider, just like Hester, Isobel has synesthesia. She sees letters in color, including, you guessed it, a scarlet “A,” but the condition isn’t one that’s talked about or understood. Isobel fears her ability may be magic passed down to her from an ancestor once accused of being a witch, a concern that dogs her when she learns the history of the 1692-1693 Salem witch trials, and the Hathorne family’s role in them.
Familiarity with The Scarlet Letter is a plus, but not a prerequisite, for enjoying this historical novel, which errs on the side of realism over high drama. I most enjoyed the point of view of a character with synesthesia, the detailed descriptions of needlework, and the picture built up of nineteenth-century Salem. Short episodes detailing the exploits of Isobel's and Nat’s ancestors provided atmospheric background but didn’t add much to the overall plot. And the secrets harbored by Isobel’s Black neighbors were a little predictable, even though they were a welcome reminder of a broader historical context to the novel.
Overall, I’d recommend the book to lovers of nineteenth-century America settings and those who like their #histfic with just a hint of supernatural spice.
Most of the twenty-first century written, nineteenth century set novels I’ve read, which are centered on the Black experience in the United States, have focused on the horrors of slavery (see for example, my reviews of Sadeqa Johnson’s Yellow Wife, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings, Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Wench, and Valerie Martin’s Property). Freedom was presented as a goal, a dream, and a destination for the characters in many of these books, with little page space given over to what freedom looked like, or even could look like, for African Americans during and after the Civil War.
As the title of Kaitlyn Greenidge’s 2021 novel, Libertie, suggests, this is a book all about freedom. Our title character is a freeborn, Black girl in nineteenth-century Brooklyn. As a child, she witnesses her mother’s role in the Underground Railroad, smuggling enslaved people to the North in coffins. And as she grows and matures, Libertie grapples more and more with what freedom means to her. Is true liberty possible in a country so divided along race lines? Could real freedom mean starting over in the Black-led nation of Haiti? And can she shake free of the life her mother, a white-passing, Black, woman doctor, planned for her?
This all sounds very lofty, and the novel does deal with complex history and difficult themes, but at the core of Libertie is this quieter story about the fraught, but loving, relationship between mother and daughter. At times I was frustrated with Libertie’s perspective, especially in her teenage years, but Greenidge’s depictions of the misunderstandings between the protagonist and her mother have a sharply observed psychological realism. Libertie has other important relationships too—with the grieving escapee she sees her mother “raise from the dead” at the book’s opening, with a pair of singing, Black, women college students, who she eventually realizes are romantically linked to each other, and with the Haitian man whom she marries—but it is the mother/daughter bond that makes this a compelling character-driven read.
Those who enjoy the intersection of historical fact and fiction may also want to learn more about the inspiration for the character of Libertie’s mother in the novel—Dr. Susan Smith McKinney-Steward, who was the third Black woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.
Andrew Haswell Green (1821-1903) is the greatest New Yorker you might never have heard of. Often referred to as the “Father of Greater New York,” this self-made city planner and lawyer was instrumental in the creation of landmarks such as Central Park, the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bronx Zoo, and the American Museum of Natural History.
In his 2021 novel, The Great Mistake, Jonathan Lee brings us into Green’s inner world, painting a picture of a brilliant but isolated man, whose untimely murder (no spoilers here—this opens the book!) was as senseless as the time period’s suppression of his same sex desire.
Jumping around in time, we become acquainted with Green as a dignified celebrity in the bustling metropolis and as a farm boy desperate for his own father’s love. He is the shopkeeper’s apprentice, working long hours to survive, the businessman shocked by, but implicated in, the ill treatment of workers in Trinidad, and the young man enamored of his friend Samuel J. Tilden, who was born with much greater privileges.
The novel is literary and character-driven, but two questions pull us through the pages. One: who killed Green? And two: what was the great mistake of the title? The first of these is answered clearly; the second remains a subject of debate. Was Green’s mistake uniting Manhattan and Brooklyn? Does the phrase instead refer to his murder? Or did he misstep in his personal life, perhaps by prioritizing his professional aspirations?
Lee writes good prose and there are some chapters and moments here where good becomes great. Other more philosophical passages, such as the political debate set against the backdrop of Brooklyn Bridge, are less successful.
Still, I’d recommend The Great Mistake to lovers of quieter historical fiction, to those with an interest in queer identities in the nineteenth century, and to anyone with a fondness for New York City.
It’s hard to read historical fiction set in the American South in the nineteenth century, especially if the novel’s protagonist begins life enslaved and faces a series of horrific trials, as she struggles to win her own freedom and the freedom of her children.
Sadeqa Johnson’s Yellow Wife (2021) doesn’t shy away from the horrors of existence on a plantation and then in a jail in Virginia, as she tells the story of the fictional Pheby Delores Brown. Pheby may be a work of Johnson’s imagination, but her experiences mirror many real histories. Her mother is an enslaved Black woman, and her father a white slave owner. Her “yellow” skin is a curse more than it’s a blessing, as she’s repeatedly objectified and abused.
Sold as a punishment for her true love’s escape, plantation-born Pheby finds herself at the Devil’s Half Acre, a jail and trading post in Richmond, and soon draws the attention of the jail master—i.e. the “devil” himself. Selected for her looks, Pheby is in a morally difficult position. She has more creature comforts than the many enslaved people who pass through the door and some modicum of power, but her rapist “husband” still holds her life, and the lives of her increasing number of children, including her Black son, in his hands. Johnson does a good job of giving Pheby agency throughout the novel, despite the difficulties of her position, crafting a character we can root for and believe in.
The novel began for me on familiar ground—the plantation setting reminiscent of other novels I’ve reviewed here, for instance Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings (2014). But the descriptions of the Richmond jail, which is based closely on historical record, were fascinating and uncovered a new chapter of American history for me. No spoilers here, but I also enjoyed the realism of the ending and the different relationships Pheby’s “white” children have with their mixed heritage—this struck the right chord and felt like the perfect note to end on. I wish Johnson had dived even more into Pheby’s relationship with her own Blackness. Has she internalized any colorism? How does she relate differently to each of her children?
Overall, this is a fast read, which manages to entertain, while dealing deftly with horrific topics and pulling us into America’s divided past. I’d recommend it.
Which nineteenth-century set, twenty-first century written novel would you like me to review next in my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Leave suggestions here, on Facebook, on Instagram or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Have you read my novel, Bronte’s Mistress, yet? It’s available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and e-book. And make sure you subscribe to my writerly newsletter below.
William Dean Howells’s 1889 A Hazard of New Fortunes is the sort of nineteenth-century novel that remembers it has a plot halfway through.
The early chapters read like a time capsule of 1880s New York City, as Bostonian Basil March and his wife Isabel search for an apartment and explore what the metropolis has to offer, following his appointment as editor of a new periodical. Howells’s satire feels humorous, rather than biting, and there’s much that a twenty-first-century inhabitant of the city will find familiar.
By later chapters, however, the novel seems transformed into something entirely different. The cast of characters, who felt like caricatures at the book’s opening, seem drawn towards a terribly realistic tragedy, which pulls off the writerly feat of being “surprising but inevitable.” Satire evolves into social commentary that doesn’t let readers off the hook. Where would our loyalties lie in the clash of outlooks personified by the uncultured capitalist Dryfoos and the idealistic socialist Lindau? And can the “reasonable” March (and by extension the reader) find a tenable position in the middle?
Class is not the only social question to come under scrutiny. Howells gives us beautiful, young female characters who defy their conventional roles in nineteenth-century society, and the novels that depict it. Alma Leighton begins the book as a young woman playing games with a man to wound him for neglecting her, but by the end of the novel her dedication to her art over matrimony is no ruse. Margaret Vance’s love is centered on her charitable works—something her family struggles to understand.
Howells’s commentary on race also has a modern tinge. He doesn’t shy away from depicting the casual racism of the Northern characters, who, for instance, fetishize having Black doormen, even as they try to distance themselves from the Southern characters, including one who, more than twenty years on from abolition, is still advocating for reform, not destruction, of the “institution.”
The novel A Hazard of New Fortunes most reminded me of was E.M. Forster’s Howards End (1910), though the former’s structural flaws mean it’s remembered more for its multiple chapters on New York real estate woes than for its insight into the human condition. If you’re a fan of nineteenth-century realism with a love for New York, you’ll enjoy Hazard as much as I did. But, if only one of these things holds true, don’t forget—this is a novel of two halves.
What nineteenth-century novel would you like the Secret Victorianist to read and review next? Let me know. You can always contact me on Instagram or Facebook, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. My own (nineteenth-century set) novel, Bronte’s Mistress, is available in hardcover, paperback, e-book or audiobook, right now. And for monthly updates on my writing and my blog, sign up for my email newsletter below.
I’m something of a Bronte fanatic. After all, my own debut novel (Bronte’s Mistress) was inspired by a real-life scandal that rocked literature’s most famous family. So I was delighted to be asked to participate in the virtual book tour for John Eyre: A Tale of Darkness and Shadow, Mimi Matthews’s new Bronte-inspired Gothic romance. As part of the tour, 35 online influencers specializing in historical fiction, Gothic romance, and paranormal fiction are celebrating the release with interviews, spotlights, exclusive excerpts, and reviews.
John Eyre is (as you might have guessed from its title!) a gender-swapped retelling of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847). John is a tutor working under the employ of a fascinating Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall. The housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax has morphed into a butler, Mr. Fairfax. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that the maniac in the attic is a hidden husband, not a secret wife.
What might be less obvious at first glance though is that this isn’t just a take on one nineteenth-century novel, but two. Bronte’s Jane Eyre meets Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula in this fast-paced read. This is not as outlandish an idea as it might seem at first glance. Author Mimi Matthews details in her Author’s Note several passages in Bronte’s novel that borrow from vampiric imagery (e.g. [Rochester:] “She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart.”). And the Gothic Yorkshire setting lends itself to violent, as well as psychological, horror.
The structure of Matthews’s novel is more indebted to Dracula than Jane Eyre, as Mrs. Rochester’s letters and journal make up a significant portion of the narrative. While John is definitely our main character, this decision means that Mrs. Rochester is available to us in a way Bronte’s Mr. Rochester never is. Matthews’s Mrs. Rochester is still attractive and magnetic—to John and to readers—but our access to her makes her more human and less dangerous than her masculine namesake. It’s also tricky to entirely reverse the original power dynamic in a nineteenth-century setting. John is Mrs. Rochester’s subordinate by position, wealth, and class. But he is still a man, with all the privileges this entails, and he takes the lead romantically and physically at moments when I would have liked Mrs. Rochester to seize the reins.
Matthews excels at building atmosphere and in delivering clarity at a line level even while her characters move in a fog of confusion. I delighted in the Gothic creepiness of the Milcote mists, the mute children John tutors (a distorted mirror of Jane Eyre’s talkative Adele), the casement bed (hello, Wuthering Heights!), and the role of laudanum in the plot. Obviously, this isn’t the book for those who prefer their historicals firmly rooted in reality, but if you enjoy paranormal details there are plenty to soak in here.
One way in which John differs from Jane is in the loss of his religious faith, something which preoccupies Jane for much of the original book. This plays to the interests of modern readers, while also removing the driving force behind Jane’s flight from Thornfield, following her disastrous would-be wedding day—her desire to save her soul and her beloved’s. As a result of this change, the dénouement of the novel is action-packed, and the chapter inspired by Bronte’s most famous scene is soon followed by the climax.
John Eyre doesn’t pretend to be a serious examination of gender dynamics, as Jane Eyre often is, and questions of race are also less prominent than in other Bronte-inspired fiction (this Mr. Rochester still benefitted economically from slave labor, but there is no suggestion that Bertha’s heritage may be non-white).
I’d highly recommend John Eyre to other Bronte fans who are happy to read works that play with the sisters’ worlds. This is a book that is beyond anything else fun—fun to uninitiated readers, but even more fun if you’re familiar with its source material.
Have you read John Eyre? What did you think of it? Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. For updates on my blog, my book, and me, make sure you sign up for my monthly email newsletter below.
I attended my first Historical Novel Society North America Conference in Maryland back in 2019 and wrote a detailed review about my experience. In 2021, one published book and one global pandemic later, I attended my second—this time virtually.
My Zoom set up for the conference
On this occasion, I wasn’t a newbie, who’d just signed her first book deal, but a speaker, appearing on the “Shaking up the Brontes” panel with Michael Stewart, Syrie James, and Rowan Coleman. This time around, attendees jumped between Zoom calls and live streams, rather than racing between conference rooms. And we all posted and pinged, rather than chatting over glasses of wine. But still, one thing remained the same—we were brought together by a love of writing and reading historical fiction, and had access to a wealth of collective knowledge.
For this blog post then, I’m not going to review the conference (there’s little to say except “bravo!” to the beleaguered board and their band of trusty volunteers), or to write exhaustively about every session I attended (attendees have access to all recordings for 90 days so I still plan to listen to panels that I missed). Instead, I’m going to share a series of quotes that stood out and my thoughts on them.
“Disturb me if someone’s bleeding.”
A question that authors are often asked is how we have time to write, which is why I appreciated this quote from Sarah Woodbury. It’s what she tells her (don’t worry, older!) kids when she sits down at her keyboard. Woodbury shared her successful self-publishing journey, which requires her to be consistently productive.
“The thing that scares you most is what you’re meant to be writing next.”
Sadeqa Johnson received this advice from a friend and it’s stayed with her. At a conference of historical fiction obsessives, it was fascinating to hear the perspective of someone who turned to a historical subject (in The Yellow Wife) after first writing contemporary fiction. I liked her advice to make the braver choice when starting to work on your next idea.
“The great advantage of historical fiction is that there is already an established audience of people who are fans of your period.”
Publishing expert Jane Friedman gave this glimmer of marketing hope to the many historical fiction writers desperate to find readers for their books. She encouraged us to seek out the places where fans of our historical setting are already congregating online.
“Do characters have to be like your best friend? I think no.”
Nancy Bilyeau weighed in on character likability—something women characters are more often criticised for. One reason I love historical fiction is that it gives us the opportunity to enter the mind set of people from a different place and time with different values, so I’m in strong agreement with Bilyeau on this one.
“They may have murdered people, but we like them.”
Margaret George spoke about the merits of the morally ambiguous heroes we still love to root for (think Butch Cassidy, Robin Hood, or famous pirates). The majority of her examples in this vein were male historical figures, which interested me. Can our male main characters be killers, while female protagonists are expected to be best friend material?
My unimpressed conference buddy
“I don’t see it as my place to condemn.”
Lisa See has written about cultural traditions such as foot binding that might be difficult for modern audiences to understand, and she’s often asked by readers whether she wants us to come to specific conclusions on them. She sees her role as empathetic, rather than didactic, an approach that really resonated with me.
“I am happy to use real people for my own nefarious fictional ends.”
I’m surprised by how often I’m asked whether living descendants of Lydia Robinson have objected to my imagining of her life, so it was entertaining to hear Alex George talk unapologetically about borrowing from reality to make great fiction.
“It’s not a trend. It’s not a fad. It’s the way business should be run.”
This is what Denny S. Bryce had to say about the drive towards telling more diverse stories in historical fiction, and, in particular, the elevation of Black voices. Throughout the conference, she and many other writers and publishing professionals reiterated that inclusion isn’t just a conversation for 2021.
“Am I writing to explain this world to white people? I am not. I am not trying to translate.”
Leslye Penelope spoke about the intended audiences for her historical novels, and how for so long the assumed reader in this genre has been white. I loved the push to think beyond Black stories and characters to consider who we’re writing for and what cultural background we might be assuming.
“If a reader skips the sex scene they should miss part of the plot.”
Jennifer Hallock led a cozy chat on “good sex” in historical fiction. One takeaway? If your sex scenes are skippable, they aren’t doing their job. Good sex scenes aren’t just enjoyable in good fiction—they are vital to your story.
“What lies are people telling about themselves and what do those lies signify?”
I loved this question that Jeanne Mackin asks herself during the research phase. When she sees contradictions between what historical figures wrote about their own lives and other records, she asks herself what these lies and omissions could reveal about their characters.
“I hope that there’s an appetite from publishers and readers for novels about women who are totally unknown.”
One contradiction in the marketplace that was much discussed at the conference was publishing’s purported ambition to tell lesser-known stories from history, while it’s often marquee (i.e. recognisable) names that sell books. Marie Benedict expressed a desire I think many writers in the genre share—for the industry to elevate the stories of the truly unknown.
“You never hear a plumber say, ‘I just didn’t feel like plumbing today’.”
I’m not sure this statement’s entirely true (plumbers are allowed to complain too!), but I like the sentiment behind Erika Mailman’s words. Like her, I agree that writing is a job that takes perseverance, even when the going gets tough and the muse is silent.
Were you at the conference? If so, let me know what your favourite takeaways were—in the comments below, via Instagram or Facebook, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. My debut novel, Bronte’s Mistress, is now available in paperback, as well as hardcover, audiobook, and e-book. To stay in the loop about my books and blog posts, subscribe to my monthly email newsletter below.
In my Neo-Victorian Voices series, I review novels set in the nineteenth-century, but written in the twenty-first. This week, it’s the turn of Sue Monk Kidd’s 2014 novel, The Invention of Wings.
The book tells the story of Sarah Grimké, based on a real abolitionist from Charleston, and Handful, a fictional character born into slavery in the Grimkés’ household. On her eleventh birthday, Sarah’s parents “gift” her the ten-year-old Handful. Already disgusted by slavery, Sarah tries to reject her “present”, marking the start of a long and complex relationship between the enslaved Handful and her reluctant “mistress”.
Handful is a compelling character and her relationship with her mother, Charlotte, was my favourite part of the novel. Charlotte, a skilled seamstress, creates story quilts telling the history of her life and those of her African ancestors and repeats fables to Handful passed down by her own mother—among them the idea that they once had wings. Handful, despite her captivity and the horrific experiences she goes through, is active in her own story. She’s more decisive than Sarah and I found myself looking forward to returning to her point of view.
Sarah, as a child, is a driven character too, longing to become a lawyer and certain in her opinions. But she spends much of the novel knocked back and unsure how to act. For me, her eventual triumph, as she and her sister tour the North lecturing in support of abolition, was a little rushed. I would have liked to see more of her coming into her own. I also wondered about her struggles with her cultural inheritance. While I know there were those born into white, slave owning families, who abhorred the “institution”, it was harder to believe that Sarah wouldn’t have internalised any of the racism around her.
Kidd’s prose is beautiful and her research shines in all the best ways as she tackles a terrible period of American history. As a writer of historical fiction, I particularly enjoyed her author’s note detailing the decisions she made and the true stories that inspired her creation of Handful.
Overall, as with other novels about American slavery I’ve read, like Valerie Martin’s wonderful Property (2003) and Dolen Perkins-Valdez's heartbreaking Wench (2010), The Invention of Wings at times makes for painful reading, but I think fiction like this still plays a powerful role in bringing a human voice to the facts we read about in history books.
Which novel would you like to see me review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Instagram, on Facebook, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Have you read my novel, Bronte’s Mistress, yet? It’s available in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook now, and the paperback will be published next month! For monthly updates on my writing and blog, sign up for my email newsletter below.
I’m cheating a little with this one. My Neo-Victorian Voices series typically covers books written in the twenty-first century, and set in the nineteenth. Charles Lewisnky’s Melnitz, first published in German in 2006, starts in the 1870s, but covers the fortunes of the Swiss Jewish Meijer family until the Second World War. Still, I couldn’t not tell you about this wonderful novel!
I love a good multigenerational family saga (Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s The Mountains Sing (2020) and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko (2017) were recent favourites). But it can be hard to connect with so many characters across multiple generations. Lewinsky does a great job of characterising his cast with a few deft brushstrokes, painting them as individuals forced to make painfully human choices amidst shifting political tides and the ever-lurking threat of anti-Semitism.
To read this novel is to live with the burden of history. We know what will happen next as the Meijers cannot. Where to live? Under which nationality? And with whom? These are life or death decisions. The drama of Melnitz isn’t comprised of twists we don’t see coming. As readers, we’re watching a train thundering towards the family, and unable to tell them to get off the tracks.
I loved the broad definition of family the novel embraces. Not all of the characters are linked by blood or marriage, or even religion—the Christian baptism of one character is a momentous event in the course of the novel. But a shared cultural inheritance, stories, and memories, as well as the experience of being othered within Switzerland and beyond, bind those we follow together.
Some of the standout moments for me included the depiction of Arthur’s sexuality, the evolution of the relationship between stepsisters Chanele and Mimi, and the sort-of friendship between Hillel and his Frontist classmate at the agricultural college.
Coming to this novel, I knew little about the lives of Jewish people in Switzerland in the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, depictions of the country in the WWII period often focus on Switzerland as a dream destination, the symbol of freedom and safety, appearing through the Alps. I’m so happy I read this book and will be recommending it to anyone who’ll listen. If you enjoy novels filled with humour and pathos, which bring to life histories you haven’t heard before, you’ll love this book.
What novel would you like me to review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. My novel, Bronte’s Mistress, is available in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book now, and the paperback will be released on June 22nd! Want to stay in touch? Sign up for my monthly email newsletter below.
You may know me as the author of Bronte’s Mistress, but, when I’m not writing my own books, I’m reading other people’s. For five and a half years now, in my Neo-Victorian Voices series, I’ve been reviewing books set in the nineteenth century, but written in the twenty-first.
It’s 1826 and Frannie Langton is in the Old Bailey prison in London when Collins’s novel opens. She’s accused of murdering her employer Mr Benham and his wife, a crime she tells us she can’t have committed because she was in love with her mistress. Frannie was born into slavery in Jamaica, and the British press has dubbed her “the Mulatto Murderess.” She doubts the court will recognise her humanity in her upcoming trial, so she chooses to make her confession to us, the readers, instead.
But what exactly is Frannie confessing? Did she kill either or both of the Benhams? Was she a complicit in the dissections and vivisections of slaves back on the plantation? Should we see her as a victim of sexual abuse, a willing party to incest, or both? Or is her confession a cri de coeur about her romantic feelings for a woman, a union this society condemns as equally unnatural?
While the plot unfolds slowly (after all, we know from the beginning that murder will be our destination), Frannie’s voice is distinctive and interesting. This feels in keeping with the unusual circumstances of her life, and, while I’ve read a few reviews from readers who found the frequency of similes excessive, I enjoyed how Frannie’s images were always rooted in her frame of reference.
Emotionally, there are few moments of joy. This is a novel about righteous and unrelenting anger, and the reading experience can be exhausting. There’s no respite for Frannie, but she never acts the part of docile and pitiable victim. A line of advice the character is given early in the book really stood out to me: “[There are] only two types of white people in this world, chile, the ones doing shit to you and the ones wanting you to tell them ’bout the shit them other ones did.” Collins asks (especially White) readers to confront their own ideas of what a narrative about a former slave should be.
While Frannie is an utterly original creation, at times she reminded me of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Like Jane, she’s overlooked and unfairly written off by those around her, and frequently thrust into the role of observer, although her perceptions are sharp and her words can be fierce. At the same time, she is also, of course, akin to Jane’s predecessor Bertha Mason, another famous Jamaican. As in postcolonial interpretations of Bertha, Frannie can be seen as an avenging angel, a personification of the White British man’s fears of his abuses abroad, the source of his wealth, coming back to haunt him.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Confessions of Frannie Langton and urge fellow Victorianists to add it to their reading lists. Do you have a tip for me about a great book for my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
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When it comes to Jane Austen vs. the Brontes, Austen definitely has a winning number of twenty-first century novels that take her life and works as their inspiration. However, one of the best parts about releasing my own Bronte-inspired novel, Bronte’s Mistress, this summer has been connecting with other writers who have taken the Brontes, not Austen, as their subject.
Among modern Bronte readers, Edward Rochester, the hero of Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, has a mixed reputation. To some, he’s a swoon-worthy male lead. To others, he’s deeply problematic, due to his time in the colonies, not to mention his mentally ill wife in the attic. Most, I think, find Rochester flawed, but not irredeemable, although this interpretation lends credence to the idea that all a troubled man needs is the love of a good woman to save him.
Sarah Shoemaker makes no apologies for being a devoted Rochester fan and the focus of her novel is on fleshing out his life prior to his meeting with Jane Eyre. The book is made up of three parts, uneven in length—1. Edward’s childhood. 2. His time in Jamaica (including his marriage to Bertha Mason), and 3. The story we’re familiar with from Charlotte Bronte’s most famous novel.
Shoemaker’s prose is beautiful and demonstrates her familiarity with nineteenth-century fiction and Charlotte Bronte’s style in particular. This is the sort of historical novel that could at times pass for a novel written in the period it’s set in. I found this especially true in the early chapters, which chart Rochester’s education and apprenticeship as the neglected second son. Shoemaker paints a believable picture of how a boy in Edward’s position might have been raised, and his experiences provide an interesting, gendered counterpart to the childhood we know Jane Eyre will later live through.
In Jamaica, a young Rochester never fully confronts the horrors of slavery, expressing some discomfort at the idea, and queasiness at the brutal punishments delivered on behalf of him and other White landowners, without having a profound moment self revelation. While this response is believable, I was longing for a little more reflection, as Rochester matures into the man whom Jane can fall in love with.
The section covering the same material as Jane Eyre is close to the source material. While Shoemaker does enhance the plot, adding a few more complications, purists will be pleased to see the reverence with which she handles Bronte’s work. The novel made me went to read Jane Eyre again, or even have the books open side by side to double check what was twenty-first century invention.
In her dedication, Shoemaker mentions her ‘fascination’ with Rochester, and her passion for the character and for Bronte’s book really comes through in the text. But I couldn’t help but wonder if part of a Gothic hero’s fascinating charm is in his unknowabilty. Now that we have access to Rochester’s thoughts, can he be as fascinating as he was before? And at those times when Jane Eyre is inscrutable to him? Well, thanks to Charlotte, we know exactly how she feels.
And have you ordered your copy of Bronte’s Mistress yet? Oprah Magazine named my book one of this Fall’s top reads, while Christian Science Monitorcalls it ‘a stirring defence of the maligned Mrs Robinson.’
