This review is meant as a tribute to Edith Wharton's writing skill, because she can take a topic about which this reader has little knowledge and less interest and weave it into a page-turner. An inspiring story with a happy ending it is not, but The House of Mirth has many qualities to recommend it. Its heroine, Lily Bart, is not noble. She is snobbish and indecisive, qualities only somewhat mitigated by her intelligence, generosity and integrity (at least in comparison with the other characters caught up in the social whirl of New York's Fifth Avenue at the dawn of the Twentieth Century.)

Lily Bart is a beautiful, sought-after socialite who turns down more marriage proposals than Scarlett O'Hara accepts. Pushing 30, she is still hedging on commitment, possibly because her heart belongs to Lawrence Selden. Lily has made it clear to Lawrence that they can only be friends because she must marry a rich man, as both of her parents died and left her in a upper crust social milieu with no inheritance of her own. Lily lives with her aunt who is kind to her and pays most of her expenses except the debts Lily has incurred playing cards for money. The aunt's attitude might have been reasonable had Lily not incurred the debt fulfilling a social obligation to join her aunt's bridge parties. Thus Lily's life goes on, her obligations leave her damned if she does, damned if she doesn't, and she lacks the wherewithal to ignore social obligations and strike out on a path of her own. The issue of her debt drives the downward trajectory of Lily's social status, since Lily possesses neither the money sense nor the professional skill to manage her finances or shore up her dwindling bank balance.

In spite of the fact that The House of Mirth was published in 1905, the truths that Wharton illustrates with Lily's story feel strangely contemporary. Wharton pictures a new class of self-made millionaires created by Wall Street, casts a shadow over the tenuous position of those in the "leisure class" and offers a peek at the ascendancy of the self-supporting career woman. What a working woman can take away from this story is a gladness that she can marry or not; that she can keep her friends or not; that she can join the social whirl or thumb her nose at it because she possesses an independence that Lily Bart was denied.

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If you're expecting something similar to Charlotte Brontë's more famous novel Jane Eyre, you will most likely be disillusioned with Villette--but that's not to say you won't like it. While both novels enjoy similar craftsmanship, the tone could not be more different. Personally, I had a hard time the first time I picked up Villette. However after reading several comments on the C19 forum that promised an enthralling story, some said better than Jane Eyre, I picked it up again.

This time around several favorable aspects of the novel appeared. One is the quality of not just the story but of the storytelling. The book is sonorous--Brontë has a strong and poetic command over the language that is especially apparent in this, her final novel. Another was the beautifully detailed inner turmoil of our protagonist, Lucy Snowe. Some say much of the inspiration for Villette was taken from Brontë's own life, from the time she spent in Belgium teaching English. This would make sense, as Lucy Snowe's thoughts seem too minutely described to be drawn purely from imagination.

In spite of all the intricate details, Lucy Snowe is a most ambiguous and intriguing narrator. Over a third of the story she keeps a startling secret from the reader, and then casually mentions it as if it were a simple side note. I found myself having dreams of reading Villette and finding more surprising plot twists and turns. I will definitely put this one the "to re-read" shelf and look forward to new odd experiences Lucy Snowe will inflict next time.

A note on the text--there is a lot of French dialog. So if you don't know any French, you will be lost. If you know a tiny bit of French, you will do okay, but you will wish you had kept up better with your foreign language skills.

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First published in 1794 in four volumes, The Mysteries of Udolpho is a Gothic Romance set in the 16th century. The novel is unique in this genre in that its many mysterious and supernatural events are eventually given a rational explanation. While most famous today for being referenced in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, The Mysteries of Udolpho was wildly popular on its own account upon initial publication and in subsequent decades.

Central to the plot is our beloved heroine, Emily St. Aubert. She is a young French woman who bears a striking resemblance to the heroine of Fanny Burney's Cecila. She is an orphan, naive, innately good, yet preyed upon and at the mercy of many shady characters, many who are her own relatives. Like Cecilia's favorite suitor Mortimer Delville, Emily's true love, Valencourt, has the same emotional (some would say whiny) character and true heart. And like Cecilia, Emily's story is long.

The novel begins in France as we travel up and down and back up the Apennines too many times to count. It is almost a relief when Emily departs for sea level, traveling to Venice under the "protection" of her vain and superficial aunt and her aunt's new husband, Montoni. Emily is frustratingly at the whim of Montoni, who is intent on marrying her off to the first rich Count he encounters. From Venice we enter the mountains again, and this time they are crawling with banditti. Now things get interesting at the Castle of Udolpho

I will stop the summary here as I cannot do smallest justice to the story in Radcliffe's own words. This long novel contains enough excitement for three novels of such length. The subject matter is also shocking, even for modern readers. It deals with death, murder, poison, secret passageways, crumbling turrets, obsessed lovers and shady bandits. It is amazing that Radcliffe can write a story with gory and fantastic elements and yet in the end explain it away with Victorian (or rather, Regency) propriety.

Despite the dark and gloomy context, Radcliffe's prose is enchanting. There is also much poetry--Emily many times will burst into song while particularly entranced by a scene in nature. Music and poetry make up a large portion of the text and come in at the most critical points of the plot. It makes one wonder why this novel has never been made into a musical. What is Broadway waiting for? Forget The Phantom of the Opera, The Mysteries of Udolpho would be a smash hit!

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In order to do a proper review of Margaret’s Rematch I had to overcome a huge case of language envy. I’m accustomed to being jealous of writers who produce entire novels and demonstrate an easy facility for the language, but I acknowledge that a large percentage of English speakers have a better command of its written word than I. Farida Mestek, author of Margaret’s Rematch, raises my language envy to a new level, for her native language is not English but Russian. Farida is from the Ukraine. She has done a remarkable job of presenting an Austen-style novel that reflects not only a good understanding of plot development but also the ability to mimic a proper English lady’s writing style. This fact raises her accomplishment from excellent to outstanding. With that in mind, I present my review.

Some books offer the reader a roller coaster ride, with ups and down, twists and turns and not a few panics. Some books offer a game of hide-and-seek, constantly changing the rules just when you think you have figured out the plot’s trajectory. Some books, and indeed the most enjoyable, offer a comfortable predictability, where you can guess the ending, perhaps from the first sentence, but hold your interest by taking you on a n enjoyable journey from here to there. Margaret’s Rematch belongs to the third type of novel, serving up a healthy dose of conflict, but allowing the story to meander gently and pleasantly toward its goal.

The conflict comes in the form of character development. Will Margaret gain any measure of respectability in her brother-in-law’s eyes? Will Catherine’s rumormongering destroy any inroads Margaret has made toward reconciling with him? Will that unfortunate and all-too-public scandal involving Margaret, Mr. Linton and Linton’s fiancée sully Margaret’s reputation so badly that no one will have her? And who is Catharine’s mystery man, the man to whom she claims to be engaged?

The first chapter sets the stage as James Westfield, who was married to Margaret’s late sister Isabella, contemplates his complete antipathy toward Margaret even as he journeys to London to take her away from a life that has become too scandalous for his tastes. Returning to his home, Northbrook Hall, the two have little to say to each other, with past hurts and conflicts seething beneath the surface.

In spite of their awkward start, Margaret’s ability to enchant Mr. Westfield’s son, charm his mother, and befriend his sister pave the road toward a more cordial relationship between Mr. Westfield and Margaret. Margaret grows to like the country and enjoy the serenity of her stay at Northbrook Hall. But her tranquility is shattered by the arrival of two reminders of her London life: Clifford Stockley and his conniving sister Catharine.

If you are looking for a romance peppered with heaving bosoms and throbbing manhoods, Margaret’s Rematch is not for you. However if a mature, quiet romance with an interesting psychological angle is more your style, read and enjoy.

The following is an interview with author Farida:

Where are you from and what is your native language?

I'm from Ukraine, Odessa. My native language is Russian. It's Ukrainian as well, but as Odessa is situated in the south of Ukraine - pro-Russian part of the country - I grew up speaking Russian.

Where did you find your inspiration for writing Margaret’s Rematch?

I am a very big Jane Austen fan. Having read her books for the umpteenth time I wondered if there were similar books written by modern authors. What I found in their place was a Regency romance market overstuffed with titled rakes and their mistresses. I realized that unless I wanted to read a book to my liking I would just have to write it myself.

Is this your first novel? If not, what else have you written?

After Margaret’s Rematch, I have completed two more Regency-set stories one of which is going to be published this summer. The story, though set in Regency, is in quite a different key from Margaret’s Rematch as it has at its core the blossoming feelings of mutual affection between two men.

In your novel appear two characters, a woman named Catharine and a man named Linton. These names are reminiscent of Wuthering Heights. Coincidence or deliberate?

Oh, it was a pure coincidence! I had no idea, really. But now I would love to reread Wuthering Heights.

Did you have a real life location that was the inspiration for Northbrook Hall, or was it a figment of your imagination?

Well, part of it was a figment of my imagination, but Margaret’s favourite spot with the lake and willows is quite a real place. In fact, it was after I saw the place that I decided that Margaret would just love it.

Catharine is by far the most interesting character in the novel, in spite of Margaret’s antipathy toward her. Where did you find the inspiration for Catharine?

For Margaret’s antagonist I needed someone I personally would dislike greatly and I cast around for all the unpleasant girls and women that I ever had to come into contact with. But I am very lucky in that the characters themselves come and find me, telling me their stories and insisting that I should write them so I don’t have to look far for inspiration. I love to watch and study people around me and borrow their most pronounced qualities and traits for my characters.

Where do you think Catharine comes by her need for gossip and intrigue?

She is trying to make her way by the only means available to her: she is neither pretty nor wealthy, but she has enough cunning and lack of morals about her to use gossip and intrigue in order to get what she wants.

When you started Margaret’s Rematch did you have a clear picture of where it was headed, or did you let the novel write itself?

I always make an outline of the story I am about to write. Of course, while writing I deviated greatly from its original plan, but despite all the alterations that I’ve made whenever I looked into the outline (and it happened very rarely) it kept me on track.

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The first novel by Fanny Fern, otherwise known as Sara Payson Willis, is a semi-autobiographical tale of a talented writer who loses her husband and is forced to support herself and two young children in the mid-1800s. Fern writes with biting social commentary on the subject of traditional assumptions of a woman's place in society.

The chapters are short and character details are sparse. With a journalist's style, Fern builds her story through snippets of information and dialog. In these snippets, she fearlessly depicts real-life events and people, draping them in a fictional guise. Most of Fern's family is here--her father and brother and in-laws--in all their vicious detail. We follow the "story" of Ruth Hall from her happy married life to groveling for work while her relations turn a blind eye to her poverty and suffering. Upon her first successes as a paid writer, she takes the same approach in exposing the underhanded tactics of publishers, especially when dealing with women.

Fern states in her preface that Ruth Hall is not a novel, preferring the term "continuous story". She wrote at variance with the traditional themes and styles of the time and therefore received her share of criticism for it. However she also had supporters. Notably, Nathaniel Hawthorne hoped that Fern's writing would encourage her female contemporaries to follow her example and "throw off the constraints of decency...then their books are sure to possess character and value."

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The romance was the major form of literature from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Romances were epic tales full of heroism, adventure and chivalry, sometimes involving gods or legendary figures. After the Renaissance came a slow transition to shorter, less epic and less fantastic forms of literature to what we now appreciate as the "novel". By the mid-1700s, when Charlotte Lennox wrote The Female Quixote, romances were considered by many as dangerous. With a comparatively large literate population and books becoming easier to mass produce, romances lead credulous readers to think that the dream worlds of heroism and fantasy were true. Or so some thought.

The Female Quixote is the story of Arabella who has lived in seclusion all her life. With only her recluse father and a mountain of old romances as companions, Arabella grows up thinking that the world of her books is the world that she lives in. All is fine and good in her quiet abode until her uncle and cousins arrive and she is thrown into society. You can hardly imagine the trouble she gets into. Any man riding a horse is a probable ravisher. Any gardener with a literate accent is a man in disguise intending to carry her away. A small argument between two young men will no doubt turn into a bloody duel over the affections of a lady.

The story is bit sluggish at times, but always full of strange and funny episodes. Particularly funny is the history of Sir George, one of Arabella's many admirers. He recounts his life story (or what he wants Arabella to believe it is), complete with a dethroned Prince, bloody duels, imprisonment and multiple damsels in distress.

The Female Quixote is an amusing read that perhaps has applications to modern living. Has anyone ever told you that too much television will rot your brain? Or that trashy romance novels will give you wrong notions of relationships? Sit up and take note.

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***

Jane Austen published her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, in the autumn of 1811. While in London attending to the page proofs, she wrote to her sister Cassandra, “I am never too busy to think of S. and S. I can no more forget it than a mother can forget her sucking child. . .” That was the first time that Austen referred to one of her books as a child, but not the last; and this particular child had a disconcertingly long gestation period: sixteen years.

Cassandra Austen, her sister’s lifelong companion, first reader, and literary executor, left a note stating that Jane first wrote a novel in letters—a popular literary style of the time—in 1795 that she called Elinor and Marianne. The following year, Austen wrote a prose manuscript that she titled First Impressions, which was later published as Pride and Prejudice, and in 1797 she rewrote Elinor and Marianne in prose style. The novel retains some of the flavor of its epistolary beginnings: the scene in which Colonel Brandon tells Elinor his romantic history, as well as the scene in which Willoughby explains his actions, are easily imagined as letters, and of course several letters are included in the novel and are vital to the plot.

Deirdre Le Faye writes that Austen may have found a new title for Elinor and Marianne in the journal The Lady’s Monthly Museum in 1798-99, which contained an essay with the phrase “Sense and Sensibility” in a headline. Austen continued to write into the new century, and even sold the manuscript of a novel she called Susan to the publisher Richard Crosby. However, Crosby, for reasons known only to himself, never published Susan, and offered to return the manuscript to Austen for the ten pounds he had paid for it; a sum beyond Austen’s means.

In 1811 her brother Henry arranged for Thomas Egerton to publish Sense and Sensibility at the author’s expense—meaning if sales did not cover the publishing expenses, Austen would have had to make up his losses. However, the book sold well and made a profit of 140 pounds on the first edition, and a second edition was published two years later. Neither edition bore the author’s name: the title page said only that Sense and Sensibility was written “By a Lady.”

Within a few months of its publication in late 1811, Sense and Sensibility had many admirers, including among the highest in society. Princess Charlotte, the Prince Regent’s daughter, wrote that she thought Marianne Dashwood much like herself. The Countess of Bessborough wrote in a letter, “Have you read ‘Sense and Sensibility’? It is a clever novel. They were full of it at Althorp, and tho’ it ends stupidly I was much amus’d by it—”[1]

The Countess might have been the first person to express the opinion that the ending of Sense and Sensibility was “stupid,” but she was hardly the last. Many readers have had difficulty with various characters. Elinor Dashwood, with her good sense, well-developed sense of justice, and occasionally wicked sense of humor, is nearly universally liked; but her sister does not fare so well. Romantic, headstrong Marianne is amusing to some, and annoying to others.

The girls’ suitors do not fare well with some critics, either. Edward Ferrars is seen as weak and bland, and Colonel Brandon’s affection for Marianne is considered hard to believe and, because of their age difference, a little creepy. Elinor and Brandon are seen by many as a much more suitable couple; but I submit that Brandon could only fall in love with Marianne. He was not looking for romance or for a wife, Mrs. Jennings’ matchmaking notwithstanding; he fell in love with Marianne because she reminded him of his lost love, Eliza. Marianne was about the same age as Eliza when Brandon “lost” her—when she married his brother. He felt that he had failed Eliza by going away and not staying to look after her, and in Marianne he perhaps felt he had a do-over; but can he save her as he failed to save Eliza?

Edward Ferrars is a sober young man, certainly; he does not read poetry with sufficient feeling for Marianne, and Austen herself writes, “Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any peculiar graces of person or address. He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing.” This is certainly not a description meant to create flutters in a young girl’s heart. However, Elinor Dashwood is the steadying influence in her family—not only of Marianne and young Margaret, but also of her mother, who also has a tendency to be romantic and to not think things through very carefully. She is not looking for someone dashing, and the reader only has to wait with Elinor to see if Edward shows his quality, and that he can be as honorable and steadfast as Elinor deserves.

I think the careful reader will find all the evidence she needs to be happy with the ending of the novel the way that Jane Austen wrote it. In the end, deserving characters get their rewards for good behavior and good choices, and the reader can close the cover of Sense and Sensibility (or turn off her e-reader!) with an untroubled heart: all is well in Devonshire. Jane Austen has made it so; and in Jane we trust.

Margaret C. Sullivan
Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania
October 2011

[1] Althorp is the estate of the Earl of Spencer; the Countess was born a Spencer, and was the sister of the famous Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and the mother of Lady Caroline Lamb, famous for her affair with Lord Byron.

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This is a captivating story about love and tea. It is told from the point of view of the titular character, Ida Mae, a divorcee grandmother living in Ohio. As the story opens she is waiting for her best friend since she was 10 years old, Jane, to arrive for tea. Jane and Ida Mae have always been complete opposites--Ida Mae being the quiet homebody and Jane the bustling actress. But their friendship works. They complete each other, perhaps more than the various lovers and spouses that entered the two women's lives over the decades. In this first scene we learn some devastating news: that Jane has cancer and has only a few weeks left.

From there the narrative shifts between flashbacks in the form of Ida Mae's journal entries and the present during the last days Ida Mae and Jane have together. From Ida Mae's past journal entries we see the start of her friendship with Jane and her years in high school with her first boyfriend. Marriage and a daughter follow. In these life changing events both in past and present, one thing stays constant: the enduring connection between the two women and tea.

If you are a tea drinker, as interested in the ceremony as the drink, then you are in for a special treat--"Tea Party" isn't in the name of the book for nothing! The appendix includes several recipes for sweet treats for the tea table as featured in the book. Another treat is an introduction and epilogue in which author Ginnie Bivona chronicles her experiences from when the book was turned into a Hallmark movie, Bound By a Secret. The meta-story behind the story gives this book a personal touch, nicely enveloping the narrative into something you won't soon forget.

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I recall seeing a "Twilight Zone" episode close to fifty years ago, about a man who really wanted to be alone. He got his wish when a nuclear war wiped out everyone else. He was quite happy at this state of affairs, migrating to the New York library to spend the rest of his life reading all the books. Unfortunately, he tripped on the steps and broke his thick reading glasses. So much for solitary bliss.

Being the last man on earth is once again a hot topic with the 2012 apocalypse movies coming out seemingly once a week. An apparently hideous movie based on Shelley's The Last Man was released in 2008. The movie updates the setting of The Last Man to take into consideration the technology advances of the past two centuries plus the seventy-odd years that will take place before the novel's action begins. Looking at the trailer, however, it appears that technological accuracy is the only improvement made to Shelley's novel.

Reading Mary Shelley's The Last Man will, if nothing else, send you running to your history books to find out, among other things, when Napoleon waged his wars for world domination (the battle of Waterloo took place in 1815--eleven years before The Last Man was published), when English Monarchs became more of a figurehead than a ruler (1867), and when Jules Verne first wrote about traveling in a balloon (Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1863, Around the World in Eighty Days in 1872), and what type of plague would kill a person before the sun goes down on his first sick day.

As in Frankenstein Mary Shelley shows herself as a sci-fi pioneer and visionary with enough political savvy to know that the strife between Christian and Muslim would not be resolved even two hundred years into the future. She also envisioned that in this distant future, we would not be safe from disastrous epidemics, although she did not suggest that germ warfare (rather than a natural spread of disease) might be the culprit. Her visions of balloon travel as a means of rapid transit predates Jules Verne by forty years, which helps us forgive the fact that in her story ground transport, even for kings, consisted of horseback or carriage.

The Last Man was published about four years after the death of Mary's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley drowned when his boat sank, a boat that Mary claims was not seaworthy, although a sudden squall might have caused the boat to capsize. Her husband's death in 1822 happened the same year that a miscarriage nearly took her own life and only two years after her half sister and Percy's ex-wife both committed suicide. One can see why Shelley's world-view might have been depressing, and The Last Man reflects this.

The story begins with a visit to a cave in which an unidentified narrator visits Naples in 1818, finding a manuscript in an inaccessible cave. The manuscript appears to be from the future, from the year 2079, and is written by one Lionel Verney, a close friend of the English king and Brother-in-Law to the greatest General since Napoleon. Verney will become the last man to inhabit the earth.

We follow Verney's manuscript from his early roots as a poverty-stricken orphan to his friendship with the heir-apparent to the throne of England and to a military campaign with his Brother-in-Law into plague-stricken Turkey, a campaign which touches off the worldwide plague that wipes out the human population of the Earth.

As much as I like and admire The Last Man as a visionary work, I also found a lot to dislike. I have read several books about real and fictional plagues, and have come to expect that one would at least see a description of what a plague victim experiences when in the throes of the disease. Shelley describes very little beyond a fever and a quick death. I would imagine that she was vaguely describing Pneumonic Plague, a mutation of Bubonic Plague that takes the pathogen airborne and which can kill in a matter of hours.

I also disliked Shelley's annoying habit of describing the outcome before she describes the action. I spent a lot of reading time backtracking because I was certain I missed something, since I seemed to have found out what was going to happen before I was supposed to. Our protagonist beset with grief, but I couldn't figure out why. As I read on, I discovered the reason for the grief, but since I already knew something bad was going to happen, the reading was more depressing than suspenseful.

On the up side, Mary Shelley's gifted use of the English language was perhaps better in this work than in Frankenstein. Also to her credit, Shelley, perhaps because of her many tragic experiences, quite accurately captures and expresses the angst of mourning. The Last Man was not Frankenstein, but if you have the patience to read it, you will find its mysterious makeup rather interesting.

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While it didn't keep my heart racing or the midnight oil burning like Fanny Burney's Evelina, this was still an entertaining read. Belinda, first published in 1801, is the story of a young woman who comes of age amid the distractions and dangers of London society. From her stays at both the extravagant, aristocratic Delacours and the sober, rational Percivals, she molds her views on love and marriage and much more.

During my reading, I sometimes thought the book should have been called Lady Delacour rather than Belinda. I found Lady Delacour an amusing character and greatly enjoyed her parts of the novel. There is an interesting back-story to which Edgeworth devotes and entire chapter about a Lady Delacour's wild days with estranged friend Harriet Freke. It includes a duel between women, cross dressing, and an angry town mob. I thought it would be quite interesting to read a whole novel about Lady Delacour's past!

But this is Belinda's story, and a delightful one it is. Belinda learns from the mistakes of others (and many does she witness) rather than rashfully committing the mistakes herself. From her tutelage by Lady Delacour and the Percivals, we see Belinda grow from a confused little girl into a confident young lady that is admired and eventually depended upon by all. In love, her suitors find they must grow and prove their worth to her, rather than the reverse.

In Belinda one can find some semblance to her contemporary and admirer, Jane Austen. Personally, I find Austen a tad bit more accessible, I suppose for the simple fact that Austen didn't tackle as many "touchy" issues as Edgeworth (such as interracial marriage, colonialism, and the above-mentioned female dueling and cross dressing!). But however outdated her treatment of these issues, the main story remains the same, which is an engaging one and highly recommended.

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This is a lovely collection of short stories by Emily C. A. Snyder, author of another Austen-themed publication Nachtstürm Castle. This time around Snyder treats us to two different styles of paraliterature that draw upon all six of Jane Austen's novels as inspiration.

Part I: Heroes and Histories captures the behind-the-scenes moments of Austen's original works. The short and bittersweet "Something Blue" features the character of Miss Bates' from Emma. We learn that she was not always destined to spinsterhood; in fact there was one of her former acquaintance who took delight in her ways some called ridiculous! Another gem from Part I is "A Most Persuasive Correspondence". Here we are treated to the illicit correspondence between Persuasion's two splendidly-matched villains, Mrs. Clay and Mr. Elliot.

In Part II: Types and Trifles, Snyder runs with her imagination, taking on various "what-ifs" to hilarious results. What if all the villains from Austen's novels were thrown together on one Dark and Stormy Night? Would all of them come away alive? What would all the heroes, meeting at a club, talk about? And would Bingley ever be able to finish a sentence? Most importantly, how would you inspire Mr. Crawford to fetch you a glass of lemonade? The final story, "Pride and Paraliterature" is a satiric take on the phenomenon of monster mash-ups, concluding that nothing proves so dangerous to Mr. Darcy as that original adversary, Miss Bingley.

I have read these stories time and time again and never tire of them. I catch new, subtle references to Austen's beloved novels with each new read. The best parts are when we see the true essence of the original characters in a new situation. And then there is Snyder's writing which is as similar to Austen's in syntax and approach to subject matter as I've read anywhere.

The following are some questions I had for Emily about the inspirations she had behind writing the book and her writing process.

I notice you have a gift for writing natural and humorous dialog. Does this come from your theatrical background? How much do you think your background in theater influences what you write?

I do enjoy dialogue and have always found that characters' voices come fairly easily to me.  I think much of that does come from theatre and from playwriting.  Since all I can reliably rely upon in a script is the dialogue (since the director, cast and crew are free to change the stage directions), dialogue must tell potential actors/directors who the characters are, and often what they are doing as well.

My first play was written my senior year of high school, when I was doing an independent study comparing Oscar Wilde and Emile Zola.  Part of that project was to conclude with a creative writing piece in that author's style.  I decided to take the same characters I'd written for the Zola piece and transpose them to Wilde's Earnest-like British upperclass.  The result is The French Butler, which has since been published by Playscripts, Inc.

What I learned from that project, and what I hope has carried over ever since, is not only the rhythm of individual voices, but also the interplay between voices.  In real life, we tend to pick up on each other's words, so that the end of one person's sentence might be the beginning of someone else's.  Dialogue is as much about "throwing the line" to the next person, as it is about what the person himself has to say.

That said, it's such a luxury to have narrative to write as well!  I had been writing plays for so long, that at first it was difficult to commit to narrative.  If Miss Bingley approached Mr Darcy sinuously in prose, she would always approach Mr Darcy sinuously in prose.  If this were a play, I probably wouldn't even write that she approaches him, let alone sinuously, so that the actors and directors would be free to have her move, or stay still, or Mr Darcy start jigging (if they really wanted to).  So it took some getting readjusted to remember Miss Bingley would not, on the whole, object to my describing her action.

I like that the stories from Part I fit seamlessly within Austen's original works. What was the impetus behind writing these? Were you reading Persuasion one day and wondered "Hmm...I wonder what Mrs. Clay and Mr. Elliot are really up to!"

Yes, pretty much!  With Miss Bates, I absolutely fell in love with her character, particularly by Sophie Thompson's depiction of her.  (My mother and I still yell: "PORK, MOTHER!" to one another on occasion!)  She was so sweet, so silly, so tiresome, so winsome, that I wondered why she had no typical happily ever after.  Why was she so particularly involved in Jane's romances?  And more to the point, if she had a beau, what sort of fellow would he be?  I loved what Mr Knightly said about her to Emma in the strawberry scene, and it seemed to me that he knew something of what Miss Bates' disappointment had been.  There's more to that story, I'm sure!

For the other three, it's fascinating to think how much time can pass in the composition of a letter - and that the composing of a letter is an entirely separate occasion than its reception.  For Captain Wentworth, he was such a passionate fellow that it seemed impossible he hadn't written variances of The Letter many times over.  For Isabella, she gives up James Morland so easily and sent such a ridiculous letter to Catherine that it seemed there was something else going on.

And for Mr Elliot and Mrs Clay, it's mentioned rather hastily at the end of Persuasion that they've run off together.  I wanted to know what was occurring between them. And since I had just read Evelina and Sorcery and Cecelia, both epistolary novels, and was beginning work on my own Sable Valentine, I thought it might be fun to see how they spoke to each other in letters...where they might be much less bound by social niceties than one is in polite conversation!  I'll admit Mrs Clay, who is really quite a cipher in the novel, proved to be shockingly fun - and a worthy adversary to Mr Elliot.

We know that Austen wrote, at least initially, to entertain her family by reading aloud. Do you practice this yourself? If not, do you have someone you bounce your ideas off while you're writing?

It depends on what I'm writing as to whether I bounce ideas off my family.  Most of the stories were written for the enjoyment of other Janeites, and I received notes back from them as I was writing it.  Once upon a time, The Republic of Pemberley hosted a board called Bits of Ivory, which was a place to post Austenesque literature.  Many of my stories began there.  What was great was that you essentially wrote for an immediate audience.  It was rather like a cyber version of writing a chapter and running downstairs to read it virtually aloud.  So there was definitely a performative element (to which I really respond as a writer).

Alas, that board seems to be currently closed.  But reality is not!  I freely admit that I rushed around Pride and Paraliterature to my family, most particularly my sister Julie, for their amusement.  Jules' laugh at Miss Bingley's ultimate literary fate made the times of staring blankly at the screen all worth it!  So, in conclusion, I suppose I do tend to write performatively, but I don't tend to solicit as much advice in the initial writing.

 I think one of the funniest stories is "A Matter of Resolution" where you bring together all the disappointed foils such as the Crawfords, Miss Bingley, Miss Elliot and Isabella Thorpe. In some ways these characters are more interesting than the heroes and heroines of the original books. Do you have plans to feature any of these characters more in upcoming work? 

I'm glad you like that story!  It was so much fun to revisit all of the disappointed foils - or at least, those who remain disappointed at the end of their respective novels.  I'm always intrigued by the "ones who got away."  There's something so particularly human about them, in some ways even more than the heroes who of course end up happy, while the foils are left in venial ambiguity.  They aren't evil, per se, but their pettiness gets in their own way.  There's something sad about them, but comic, too!

Of course, "A Matter of Resolution" is about all of Austen's more villainous foils; she had sweet foils, too.  My current work-in-progress is Presumption which is based on more "ones who got away," in this case finding a happy ever after for Colonel Fitzwilliam and Maria Lucas - and even one for Anne DeBourgh! - and hopefully a future novel on the redemption of Henry Crawford, for which the stories in Letters of Love & Deception are certainly two of the moments between the end of Mansfield Park and the forthcoming novel!

"Pride and Paraliterature" is a satire on the monster-mashup phenomenon. I found this story interesting not only because of the monsters, but also in the way that you made the story interesting in spite of them! Do you have any interest in getting into the monster-mashup genre yourself (other than this story)?

I have to confess that I haven't been able to get past the first chapter of either Pride and Prejudice and Zombies OR Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.  The idea, I think - at least for the first one - is admirable.  It's rather like Shawn of the Dead, which is a brilliant film; the quintessential romzomcom.  But the execution, the sheer labor evident in the stretching of Austen's works into [fill in the random paranormal big bad] pains me.  I'll be hoity-toity and say it pains me because I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Shawn of the Dead while absolutely HATING Twilight et al.

I'm not against monsters, but I'm against using them poorly OR arbitrarily.  Monsters are a metaphor; hence if you employ that monster, you are employing all their metaphoric meaning.  You can't have a sea monster just because your title has an "S" in it.  You can have a sea monster if you're at sea.  And even then, there's a variety of sea monsters.  Are you interested in exploring creatures that look charming but kill you?  Go for mermaids.  Are you interesting in exploring creatures that look human but are emotionally distant?  Go for selkies.  Are you looking for something that's all consuming and toothsome?  Have a kraken.  But for pity's sake, sea monsters aren't scenery; they're action.

That said, writing "Pride and Paraliterature" was a hoot and a half, and kept surprising me with its twists and turns.  I did try to use the monsters as scenery, while fitting in the givens of Austen's story into this world casually infested with creatures.  And, as you said, it seemed to me that Miss Bingley is still Darcy's most potent nemesis of all!

Would I ever write a full-length monster mash-up, though?  The closest I've come is Nachtstürm Castle, and again - although I certainly stuffed it full of trapdoors and doppelgangers and ghosts and evil butlers - I hope that they all felt organic to the story, since it was a Gothic novel, and a parody to boot.  I think the only way I could ever write a full-length monster mash-up, a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies would be as a parody of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  However, I think such a joke ON a joke would wear thin after more than a few pages.  Which is exactly the length of "Pride and Paraliterature"!

Thank you for the interview!

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Deena Stryker's memoir puts a face on historically significant events from the Cold War to the Arab Spring. This edition contains 63 photographs illustrating a journey that is not only a deeply personal one but also a professional exploration of our times.

Stryker’ narrative begins in Philadelphia in the 1930s. The defining moment of her teenage years came when she is sent to live with her father and step-mother in post-WWII France. It is here that she begins to notice something more than her personal drama; she becomes aware of a historical and political context that will play out alongside her personal life.

Her first real brush with celebrity comes when she interviews Fellini after the cinematic bombshell of La Dolce Vita. Fellini liked her style and offered her a job as press officer during the shooting of his next film, 8 1/2. She describes nostalgically the people, the feeling on the set, the sense of frustration and impatience always calmed by the appearance of Fellini himself, "a paragon of good humor and diplomacy."

By the time 8 1/2 wrapped, Stryker was planning her next coup: Cuba. In the tense period following the Cuban Missile Crisis, she was one of the first Western journalists to obtain access to the Cuban leadership. Her interactions with these revolutionaries offer insight into their politics and most interestingly, their personalities.

The two years she spent in Cuba are the most fascinating parts of Stryker's memoir. It is obvious that her persistent and open demeanor went over well with these men who were portrayed in the West as brutal troublemakers. Raul Castro and the intensely private Che Guevara are among her interviews.

Slouched in his chair, head down, Che flipped the pages. It was the only chance I had to take a few pictures in the room shaded against the sun. Afterward, I sent him the one I liked best, a close-up that shows his uncompromising, mocking intelligence.

When we met on the reviewing stand during one of Fidel's speeches, [Che] said my picture of him was terrible. When I dared him to do better, he borrowed my camera and took one of me that made me look like a kindly grand-mother.

Stryker's personal narrative leads us through several marriages, two children, and numerous countries. In the 60s she spent five years behind the real Iron Curtain, then she zig-zagged between Western Europe and the U.S. In 2001 she came back to the U.S. for good, where unexpected revelations closed the circle of her journey.

Stryker's story is engrossing not only for the historical context but also for her unique perspective. Her prose is both highly readable and refreshing in its honesty--her life and loves make for fascinating reading.

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First published in 1850, Olive is a variant on the story of Jane Eyre. The titular character is not an orphan, but she suffers from a physical deformity that acts as a similar social impediment. Upon learning of her deformity, Olive's parents react with disgust that grows to tolerance and eventually (and very belatedly) to love. In society Olive is at first sheltered by an overprotective nursemaid and grows up thinking absolutely nothing is wrong with her. When the nursemaid dies, Olive eventually discovers that she is different. It is a great shock to her, foremost to know that she is not attractive to men and will probably never marry. But she handles it gracefully and is determined to blaze another path in a society that left women few options.

As the plot progresses, there are other similarities to Jane Eyre, though Craik's story takes some definite twists and turns of its own. I was reminded of another book with a deformed main character, Fanny Burney's Camilla. Camilla's sister Eugenia is deformed, but she is also an heiress. Eugenia therefore has a one-up on Olive in that should Eugenia never marry, her money will still give her a place in society (though it also left her open to fortune-hunting scoundrels of which she saw many!)

Even though Olive is determined to support herself and be happy in spite of her hardships, she does find love in a very unlikely person. I was surprised when this love story popped out of nowhere, but not unhappily so. The last third of the book is dedicated to this romance, and there is enough "he/she loves me, he/she loves me not" to make Fanny Burney proud.

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Readers looking for more Brontë after consuming Emily's and Charlotte's work often turn to the less famous sister, Anne. One common theme among these readers is surprise that Anne is as good or even better than her sisters. Agnes Grey, Anne's first novel, is sweet and impeccably constructed. However The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is her stronger novel. While also impeccably written, much of this novel is not sweet. Its strong points lie in the gutsy portrayal of taboo and uncomfortable subjects such as alcoholism and marital strife.

Another difference from her first novel is the unique narrative technique. The first third of the novel is a  letter by a prosperous farmer, Gilbert Markham, to a friend. He relates the beginnings of his friendship with the new tenants Wildfell Hall, Helen Graham and her son. The first part of the narrative passes quickly, and just as it comes to a climax we pass to the second part: Helen's diary of her life before moving to Wildfell Hall. This part of the story is most engrossing. Helen describes her courtship and marriage to Arthur Huntingdon. We see their first meetings, their mutual attraction, her Aunt's portentous warnings, their marriage, and the birth of their son. Then things get interesting. Anne Brontë apparently had the opportunity for first-hand observations of alcoholism and abuse.

The story within a story narration works wonderfully. Helen's narrative ends precisely where the first part of the story picked up. The last part is also told through letters, both Helen's and Gilbert's, and brings the story to a close. If the ending seems almost too happily wrapped up, she more than makes of for it in the middle section.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a story that will stay with you, perhaps requiring subsequent readings. Another common theme among readers is astonishment that such an accurate portrayal of marital strife should come from a young woman who never married. Be sure you read Anne Brontë's excellent preface, as she makes several important remarks on how the book was received upon publication and the defense of her chosen subject matter .

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To Have and To Hold by Mary Johnston was the bestselling book in the U.S. in 1900, and it’s not hard to see why — it’s awesome. It’s the same sort of book as Janice Meredith: adventure, American colonial history, etc. To Have and To Hold just has more pirates and, I don’t know, general craziness. I kind of love it.

The story is set in the early years of the Virginia colony and follows the fortunes of Captain Ralph Percy. He’s not wealthy and he’s not politically important and he’s not a real historical figure, but he’s friends with all of those who are. For example at the beginning of the book, Pocahontas has been dead for three years. Percy remembers her fondly, is best friends with her widower John Rolfe, and respects her brother Nantauquas more than any of the other members of the Powhatan tribe. Although — well, that’s not saying much. Percy has a high opinion of the Indians’ cunning, but a low opinion of their honor.

The story begins when Percy, mostly unwillingly, takes part in a sort of mail-order bride arrangement and ends up married to a young woman who is clearly more than she professes herself to be. How much more isn’t clear until the arrival by ship some weeks later of my Lord Carnal, the King’s favorite. He reveals that she is Lady Jocelyn Leigh, a ward of the King. The King wanted her to marry my Lord Carnal, but she hated him, and so she ran away. It’s hard to blame her because my Lord Carnal isn’t very nice and Captain Percy is. Clearly she will eventually fall in love with her husband. But first, adventures!

Many weeks of everyone pretending they don’t know very well that Ralph and Jocelyn are going to be sent back to England to have their marriage annulled culminate in the couple escaping in a tiny boat. They mean to go alone, but they end up with three additional passengers:

• Ralph’s servant Diccon, with whom he has an extremely prickly relationship owing to that one time when Diccon tried to kill him
• Jeremy Sparrow, minister, former Shakespearean actor, and good-natured hulking giant who has appointed himself Ralph’s new best friend
• Somewhat inconveniently, my Lord Carnal

Fortunately they manage to leave behind my Lord Carnal’s sidekick, an Italian doctor who is much given to a) lurking, and b) poisoning people. Then: shipwreck, pirates, a makeshift courtroom scene, jail, lots of Indians, and an assortment of atmospheric descriptions of scenery.

There’s enough plot for three different adventure novels here, but none of it feels gratuitous or hastily tacked-on (except perhaps the end). I like the characters, too.  Jocelyn should be profoundly irritating, and sometimes she is, but in a human kind of way rather than a tying herself into knots in order to obey the constraints of the story kind of way. Ralph Percy is lovely and self-deprecating and heroic, and while Jeremy Sparrow comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden everyone is like, “Oh yeah, I remember seeing you in Twelfth Night,” I don’t mind because being a pious minister and a big, burly adventurer at the same time is tough. He makes it work. I’m less enthused about the villains. My Lord Carnal is disappointingly one-sided, and I can’t really see the point of his creepy Italian poisoner sidekick. But I loved how they all — minus the creepy Italian poisoner — went off on piratey adventures together.

I started this book thinking it was going to be a miserable slog, but once I got a few chapters in, I couldn’t put it down. It’s nice to be able to agree with all of those book-buyers of 1900.

Visit Melody’s blog, Redeeming Qualities, for more vintage reviews and commentary!

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“Sometimes I think that all I have seen must be only a long vision, and that too soon I shall awaken to the cold reality; the flowers, the fruit, the colours worn by every one, the whole scene and its surroundings, seem almost too fairylike to have an actual existence.”
--Annie Brassey writing about Tahiti

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal listed Annie Allnut Brassey’s A Voyage in the Sunbeam as one of the five best books about female adventurers. So detailed was her narrative regarding geographical information, and so graphic the book’s descriptions and drawings of flora and fauna that it was used in the U. S. as a textbook after its publication in 1878. Its story is a journal detailing the Brassey family’s voyage around the world, covering a period of almost a year.

I heartily recommend A Voyage in the Sunbeam as a way to ground oneself regarding the layout of the globe and the charms as well as discomforts and dangers of various geographical regions. Annie Brassey delights in the mild Tahitian and Hawaiian breezes, shivers in the Japanese cold, and swelters in the Arabian heat. She struggles to keep down her breakfast sailing through the Straits of Magellan, and boldly marches her children up to the caldera of an active Hawaiian volcano. She suffers many hardships while travelling off ship, since the only comfortable mode of transportation yet available was the train, and very few trains go where Brassey wants to visit. When lucky, she has a willing donkey or a suitable carriage, a sedan chair or a human powered taxi. Other times, she has to walk, crawl or climb. In spite of the hardships, Brassey is undaunted, retaining a childlike wonder in the sights she sees.

Thomas 1st Baron Brassey was a Member of Parliament and British railroad heir, and thus could afford to live a life of fulfillment and comfort. Annie was his wife, helpmate and an apt and charming social leader. Yet they chose to abandon their idyllic sounding life to take their children on a trip around the world. Their vessel was called the “Sunbeam”, a 157-foot masted and funneled steam yacht, commissioned by the Brasseys in 1873.

Reading Brassey’s journal of her struggles in various climes and geographical locations, it strikes the reader how much things have changed, technologically and politically, as well as how much smaller the world has become. Such a trip could be considered exceedingly brave or excessively foolhardy considering that in their day, they had no telephones, no air conditioning, no automobiles or airplanes, and they felt fortunate to be able to occasionally abandon their sails when becalmed and burn tons of coal to proceed under steam power. The following quote should illustrate the technological differences between Brassey’s era and ours: “At two o'clock we went to lunch with the Consul, and what a pleasant lunch it was, prepared by a French cook, and eaten in a cool, airy, and shady room free from flies, which were kept out by fine wire gauze placed in front of each well-shaded door and window!”

The Brassey’s lack of technology extended also to maps, which were sketchy at best. Annie made the best of things, however, by reading as many travelogues as she could from the 400 volume library they brought with them on the trip. One book mentioned in Annie’s journal is Isabella Bird’s Six Months in the Sandwich Islands, which I hope we shall offer on this site soon.

Although many things have changed for the better since the Sunbeam’s voyage, we shall never experience some of the charms she describes. I got very excited about her descriptions of Ceylon and Singapore, both of which she describes as delightful. However, after seeing a recent travelogue of Singapore, I mourned the fact that Singapore’s skyscrapers and dense population have neutralized many of the charms that thrilled Brassey. Strange too was reading about Japan, a country that in Brassey’s time had very little interest in interacting with or trading with western countries.

A Voyage in the Sunbeam is written in clear, concise English with many hand-drawn illustrations from Hon. A. Y. Bingham. It is an educational volume that is also infinitely readable. A long volume, it lends itself to reading through, or reading in spurts as the spirit moves you.

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Very few children's books start with a Cholera epidemic. This makes me wonder whether public outcry would ensue if The Secret Garden were released today instead of 99 years ago. Contemporary publishers would recoil at the very idea of publishing a book whose first chapter describes the death of a young girl's entire family in India, leaving only herself and a few servants.

After the death of young Mary's family, the servants contact her closest living relative: a widower uncle, who lives in a large mansion in England. She is sent to live with him. With the exception of the household servants, Mary has only her dour uncle and a sickly cousin for companions. She is not even supposed to visit her cousin, Colin, as he is considered too sickly for childish things.

Without much else to do, Mary wanders the premises and begins to learn about the local flora and fauna. In her explorations, she happens upon a garden, closed with a locked gate, which has fallen into disarray. The garden has been shut for 10 years because it belonged to her uncle's deceased and very beloved wife, a wife for whom he still mourns. With the help of a local boy and some furry friends, Mary secretively visits the garden every day and begins to put it right. Here the garden becomes a metaphor for Mary's transformative effect upon her cousin and uncle.

The Secret Garden was one of the most enchanting books that I read as a child. I recently purchased and read this book again. I was pleased to note that for an adult, The Secret Garden was just as enchanting.

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After reading The Pastor's Wife, I believe I am getting to the root of what I love and don't love about Elizabeth von Arnim's writing. I love her autobiographical and first-person point-of-view work such as Elizabeth and Her German Garden or Fraulein Schmidt. I love her insights into life, love, and nature. I love her optimism and happiness and boundless joy at small pleasures. I love that she loves to be alone with her thoughts, and she actually thinks and sees right to the bottom of things.

I don't love her third-person and omniscient point-of-view work. It is good of course, since the woman can't write badly. However I don't love it, and I didn't know exactly why until I read The Pastor's Wife and found the dialog irritating. It may be naturally the way people talk, but were I to watch a movie of people talking this way--choppily with unfinished sentences--I would wish to strangle them. I wished many times to strangle the characters in this book.

I believe the choppy dialog is Von Arnim's way of getting across the frustration of a situation. The characters in this novel, particularly the main character herself, can never finish a sentence without being interrupted. From reading Von Arnim's biography Elizabeth of the German Garden, it is clear that many times in her life she felt things were out of her control--that she was being controlled by other people, especially by the husbands in her two (mostly) unhappy marriages.

Being controlled is what this book is about. A girl grows up being pushed around by her father. In a reckless, thoughtless moment--the first moment she is ever alone and left to her own devices--she decides to take a trip to Switzerland. She is alone for only a few hours, and then the next overpowering man comes into her life. He is a pastor from Germany, and she somehow--through no effort or even desire of her own--becomes his wife.

The basis of the story seems to be that this woman is utterly lacking in consciousness of herself. She is utterly unconscious of what others think of her, and she is even more unconscious that she can will her own destiny much less rebel again what others have planned for her. She has been meticulously trained while growing up to bend to her father's will, and that is what she does in this new marriage: bends to her husband's will until it almost kills her. Almost instantly upon recovery, the next overpowering man comes into her life...

Putting the story in historical context, it was probably a product of the time. Putting the story in a context of the author's life, it was possibly a product of a bout of depression following the death of her first husband. I'm aware that my criticisms are mostly personal preference, so bear that in mind. To the novel's credit, it does have many beautiful passages and insights that on their own are worth reading.

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Consequences is the story of Alex Clare who we meet as a young girl learning to play a game of the same name. Alex learns to play the game quickly and wants to show her siblings her way of playing. While we see that she quickly gets the childhood game, she remains perplexed about the life of grown-ups and what she later sees as a mockery of personal closeness for which she desires.

The inability or refusal to play this game of navigating through society is of course inexcusable (particularly for women) during this time and since there are limited options for women, leads her to her ultimate consequence. Alex watches while all around her people win at society’s game, even people who may be undeserving. As a child she marvels at the follies of her school friend and younger sister. I began to see as Alex aged that she became more thoughtful and perceptive of her situation and the reasons for her struggles. My attitude toward Alex changed dramatically as she began to open to further thought and analysis of her position. By the warmth of a fire she reflects on forgiveness, about what it means to her and why her family was not able to bestow forgiveness upon her. The few reviews that I have read about reactions to Alex’s character include frustration with her behavior and her naivety, but really she could have acted in no other way. After all, it is the way she was raised.

I am not yet ready to say that Alex is a (true) failure. Throughout the novel she repeatedly pronounces that she is and feels surely that everyone around her knows that she has failed: “Only 10 years, and the bitterness of a lifetime’s failure encompassed her spirit”. For a woman living in her time period she is a failure simply for not marrying, she is a failure for leaving her religious Order, she is a failure for many many things. Alex is not a failure though because she has the courage to defy society even when she knows it will mean disgrace. The consequences for such defiance during this time were very real yet she always selected her path. She is a hero, possibly in the same manner that we now view Edna of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Anna Karenina.

Maybe she fails because she is Alex, a mixed up, confused, and ungrateful person. Maybe if the convent, in which she sought the ultimate love, had been more open to personal relations, maybe if Alex’s family had been able to be closer to her instead of “hard and self-contained” they may have been able to redirect her. Maybe it is because of their failure to attempt to understand her distress that she fails. This we see clearly in the epitaph where her family sits puzzled. This of course is another artifact of the time.

EM Delafield is best known for her novel The Diary of a Provincial Lady and appears from my reading of the preface to have had a similar life. I loved this story and intend to seek out more of Delafield’s work.

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Since this year marks the 150th year since the United States Civil War began, Portrait of the Past is an appropriate offering for our ebook catalog. Author Kate Halleron demonstrates a firm grasp of the storytelling process, and her studies into the psychological aspects of the storyline are intriguing. Portrait of the Past grabs the reader from the beginning and doesn’t let go till the last sentence.

The story begins in the year 1880 with an obviously talented artist selling her canvases and miniatures on the wharf in San Francisco. We soon learn that the artist is African American; a former slave who was wronged by her former owner, her family members and her country itself. She protects her emotional scars by avoiding unnecessary human contact and by assuming that a benevolent deity, or perhaps any deity, does not exist.

While reading Portrait of the Past, I kept thinking of Gone With the Wind—from the underside. What if the family owning the slaves was not well off like the O’Hara family? What if the slaves were not the only helpless members of the household; the owners being as much a captive of the Southern economic system as the slaves? What if the protagonists lived in a border state (Kentucky), where allegiances were less clear-cut than in decidedly Southern Georgia?

Author Halleron pieces together stories of the years immediately preceding, during and following the civil war. She changes viewpoint starting with a story told bitterly by Marguerite Dumas (A.K.A. Daisy Carr). Later, an account of the same events is related by her former owner and yet another told by her uncle (also a former slave), each making clearer the picture of what actually happened to cause our protagonist’s bitterness.

By switching points of view, author Halleron offers us some unique angles and some interesting speculations regarding interactions between slaveholders, former slaveholders, freed slaves and those who had never owned slaves. Her stories also treat us to historical details regarding some of the ugly truths about the slavery system in the South, the battles fought in Kentucky during the war, and the workings of the Underground Railroad.

In her answers to my interview questions below, Ms. Halleron mentions that she has written mostly Sci Fi/Fantasy, and that the fact that she came up with an historical novel was a surprise to her. It is my sincere wish that we will be seeing some of her Sci/Fi offered here soon.

How long have you been writing? Tell us a little about your writing /publishing career.

I’ve been writing for my own amusement off and on since the third grade. Mostly I’ve written science fiction/fantasy, so the fact that my first (and probably my second) full-length book was a historical novel came as some surprise to me. Much of what I’ve written is fan fiction, and Marguerite first appeared in a fan fiction story I wrote several years ago. She’s lived in my head since then, demanding that I tell her story.

Other than on the Internet, this is the first thing I have published.

In “Portrait of the Past”, the attitudes of the San Franciscans that we meet seem to be very cosmopolitan for the 1880s. Do you use these attitudes as a literary convention, or do you have reason to believe that such openness actually existed then? (I keep visualizing the 1960s in the American South and Rosa Parks being asked to move to the back of the bus.)

The late Nineteenth century was more ‘modern’ than many people realize but, yes, I did wish to convey that the family Marguerite falls in with is different from most of the Americans she has dealt with – more tolerant, more open. As with many people, she needs their safe haven before she can find a way to heal.

Every time period contains people who are more progressive and open than the average. Even in the 1960s (even now) there were social progressives in the South.

Your story talks a lot about art. Are you an artist yourself?

I have dabbled in watercolor and taken some drawing classes – I like to try new things, but no, I am not an artist myself. As I said in my biography, I knit and am an amateur photographer, so I do have some experience with creating and with the kind of ‘eye’ an artist needs to have.

Marguerite’s experiences make a very vivid story. What inspired you to write Portrait of the Past and what sort of historical information did you rely upon? (Besides the historical information you mention in the back of your book regarding Civil War battles in Kentucky.)

I tend to write character-driven stories – and Marguerite is a character who has haunted me for some time. Even though I grew up in the South - Kentucky and Louisiana - I actually knew very little about the Civil War. I spent a year researching before I ever sat down to write – reading everything I could find about the US Colored troops, about contemporary attitudes to slavery and to free blacks, about the abolition movement, the history of Kentucky and many other things.

Much of your story is told in flashbacks. This mode of storytelling was very effective, and I was intrigued by how intricately the plot unfolded. However, I suspected that detailing the plot in this manner was more difficult than telling the story in a straight timeline. Was it difficult to keep up with your story lines when you were writing the book? Why did you tell the story in flashbacks?

I made a few notes, but no, it wasn’t terribly difficult to keep things straight. I write in what may be an odd way – the story has to be fairly complete in my mind before I sit down to write. I don’t make an outline, but I do need to understand my characters and their choices before I commit words to paper. The act of writing is merely recording who they already are and what they’ve done.

So the story came in flashback form because 35-year-old Marguerite was the one who needed the healing and she could only find that by reliving her past and coming to understand it, as many of us also need to do.

Another effective convention that you used is to have a character relate a past event, then later have another character relate the same event from a different viewpoint. This was especially interesting when you described the dilemma of a somewhat benevolent slave holder when the only “property” he has left is his slaves. I don’t think I ever came across that viewpoint before. What inspired you to relate this kind of viewpoint?

I hate villains who are evil because they’re evil – everyone has a reason for what they do, people are far more complicated than that. We all have our dark places and our demons. And sometimes cataclysm is the best thing that can happen to us. Life is messy. I prefer to read stories with some moral ambiguity – pure evil is as boring as pure goodness.

As to Lucian and his dilemma – I do think that the institution of slavery was a trap to the slaveholders as well as the slaves. I think of Thomas Jefferson and his own quandary, his description of ‘having the tiger by the tail’ when it came to freeing the slaves. Even most abolitionists at the time were in favor of gradual emancipation – the sudden release of millions of uneducated slaves was something only the most radical abolitionists desired.

Lucian’s dilemma reflected the dilemma of the South as a whole – when your entire economy depends on something vile, what do you do?

What authors have inspired you to become a writer and why?

Oh, that’s a hard one – there are so many. My mother taught me to read when I was four years old, and I’ve pretty much devoured everything I can get my hands on since then. My earliest stories were inspired by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which my mother gave to me for my seventh birthday.

One book I read in junior high that had a profound impact on my writing was Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl. The story is told from two different viewpoints – from one viewpoint it’s a science fiction story, from the other viewpoint, it’s a medieval fantasy. From that one book I learned that viewpoint is everything – both in story and in real life.

Other writers that have profoundly affected me – Louisa May Alcott, Madeleine L’engle, Thomas Merton, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Alexandre Dumas, Ellery Queen.

Oh, yeah, I read a LOT.

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