With spellbinding twists and turns, this is a political novel and very much a feminist one.
As mythological women like Circe and Ariadne find their ways onto the bookshelves, here comes a reimagining of Kaikeyi, an interesting antihero.
She was one of the most despised queens of Indian mythology, pitting herself against the gods in the epic poem the Ramayana. A pivotal character, Kaikeyi demands that Rama be sent into exile to delay his ascent to the throne. Patel recasts the Ramayana as a power struggle between women who want to participate in politics and public service and men who would rather they stay home, obedient and subservient. Patel begins her novel with the wrenching moment when young Kaikeyi, only daughter to the king of Kekaya, wakes up to find her mother has been banished with no explanation. In her absence, Kaikeyi decides to develop herself as a warrior. We feel her pain when her twin brother, Yudhajit, tells her she's more a brother than a sister to him: “Don’t take offense. It’s a compliment. Who wants to be a woman?” Soon it's time for her to marry, and her father, who rarely speaks to her, demands she wed the childless Dasharath, king of Kosala, who lives far away in the city of Ayodhya. She agrees to take her place beside Dasharath’s two other wives if he promises that it will be her son who will ascend to the throne. As she comes of age, Kaikeyi learns in the palace scrolls that she has magical powers of connecting to others in a Binding Plane. There, she uses invisible strings to deepen her bonds with her husband. Then, through an intervention by the gods, the three queens give birth to four sons, Kaikeyi’s own being Bharata. She develops close relationships with each boy, including the true heir to the throne, the great Rama, who calls her ma. The young prince is immature, confused by his own divine powers and the conservative stewardship of a holy man. Kaikeyi's desire to teach him the consequences of youth and patriarchy leads to a showdown between them. Patel’s Kaikeyi is not a spiteful woman who wants to place her son Bharata on the throne for her own power. Instead, she is afraid of the growing influence of godmen in her kingdom. She is a revolutionary who attempts to be an equalizing figure, trying to find a balance for her citizens in a patriarchal kingdom.
With spellbinding twists and turns, this is a political novel and very much a feminist one.Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-759-55733-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Redhook/Orbit
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
For devoted Hannah fans in search of a good cry.
The miseries of the Depression and Dust Bowl years shape the destiny of a Texas family.
“Hope is a coin I carry: an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love. There were times in my journey when I felt as if that penny and the hope it represented were the only things that kept me going.” We meet Elsa Wolcott in Dalhart, Texas, in 1921, on the eve of her 25th birthday, and wind up with her in California in 1936 in a saga of almost unrelieved woe. Despised by her shallow parents and sisters for being sickly and unattractive—“too tall, too thin, too pale, too unsure of herself”—Elsa escapes their cruelty when a single night of abandon leads to pregnancy and forced marriage to the son of Italian immigrant farmers. Though she finds some joy working the land, tending the animals, and learning her way around Mama Rose's kitchen, her marriage is never happy, the pleasures of early motherhood are brief, and soon the disastrous droughts of the 1930s drive all the farmers of the area to despair and starvation. Elsa's search for a better life for her children takes them out west to California, where things turn out to be even worse. While she never overcomes her low self-esteem about her looks, Elsa displays an iron core of character and courage as she faces dust storms, floods, hunger riots, homelessness, poverty, the misery of migrant labor, bigotry, union busting, violent goons, and more. The pedantic aims of the novel are hard to ignore as Hannah embodies her history lesson in what feels like a series of sepia-toned postcards depicting melodramatic scenes and clichéd emotions.
For devoted Hannah fans in search of a good cry.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-2501-7860-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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