Bold and engrossing—but not, in the final analysis, especially convincing.
A vigorously detailed homage to a great 19th-century writer yields mixed results, in Irish author Boylan’s unusual eighth novel (following Beloved Strangers, 2001, etc.).
When Charlotte Brontë died in 1855, she left behind a 20-page fragment of a piece of fiction tentatively titled Emma, at which she had worked fitfully for nearly two years. Boylan painstakingly extends its arresting premise: a young heiress’s arrival at a boarding school in the north of England (probably Yorkshire), the discovery that she is not what she seems, and her sudden disappearance. Emma Brown begins wonderfully, with the voice of Mrs. Chalfont, an elderly widow employed at Fuchsia Lodge, owned by the three maiden Wilcox sisters. Through her eyes, we observe the school’s delighted welcome of young Matilda Fitzgibbon and her suave father. Then, in a clever abrupt shift, an omniscient narrative introduces us to William Ellin, a Wilcox adviser asked to investigate the nonpayment of Matilda’s bills, her father’s unknown whereabouts, and several subsequent interlocking mysteries. The story here is consistently intriguing, and Boylan enlivens it with an impressive wealth of social detail, as Mrs. Chalfont and Mr. Ellin separately plumb their own past histories, attempting to learn What Became of Matilda. In addition to inevitable echoes of Brontë’s masterpieces Jane Eyre and Villette, Boylan layers in resonant echoes of Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and other Brontë contemporaries—and reveals a huge debt to Henry Mayhew’s classic sociological study London Labour and the London Poor. But Boylan’s text is littered with anachronisms—ranging from language that would never have been used by proper Victorians to plot expansions that lead us, not just into London’s criminal underworld (very vividly evoked, incidentally), but to outraged responses to the evils of child endangerment that sound like the testimony of contemporary victims’ advocates.
Bold and engrossing—but not, in the final analysis, especially convincing.Pub Date: April 12, 2004
ISBN: 0-670-03297-2
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
Pub Date: April 7, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-52356-9
Page Count: 322
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.
Crandall (Sleep No More, 2010, etc.) delivers big with a coming-of-age story set in Mississippi in 1963 and narrated by a precocious 9-year-old.
Due in part to tradition, intimidation and Jim Crow laws, segregation is very much ingrained into the Southern lifestyle in 1963. Few white children question these rules, least of all Starla Caudelle, a spunky young girl who lives with her stern, unbending grandmother in Cayuga Springs, Miss., and spends an inordinate amount of time on restriction for her impulsive actions and sassy mouth. Starla’s dad works on an oil rig in the Gulf; her mother abandoned the family to seek fame and fortune in Nashville when Starla was 3. In her youthful innocence, Starla’s convinced that her mother’s now a big singing star, and she dreams of living with her again one day, a day that seems to be coming more quickly than Starla’s anticipated. Convinced that her latest infraction is about to land her in reform school, Starla decides she has no recourse but to run away from home and head to Nashville to find her mom. Ill prepared for the long, hot walk and with little concept of time and distance, Starla becomes weak and dehydrated as she trudges along the hot, dusty road. She gladly accepts water and a ride from Eula, a black woman driving an old truck, and finds, to her surprise, that she’s not Eula’s only passenger. Inside a basket is a young white baby, an infant supposedly abandoned outside a church, whom Eula calls James. Although Eula doesn’t intend to drive all the way to Nashville, when she shows up at her home with the two white children, a confrontation with her husband forces her into becoming a part of Starla’s journey, and it’s this journey that creates strong bonds between the two: They help each other face fears as they each become stronger individuals. Starla learns firsthand about the abuse and scare tactics used to intimidate blacks and the skewed assumption of many whites that blacks are inferior beings. Assisted by a black schoolteacher who shows Eula and Starla unconditional acceptance and kindness, both ultimately learn that love and kinship transcend blood ties and skin color.
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0772-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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