Lauren Groff’s fourth novel, her highly anticipated follow-up to Fates and Furies (2015), takes place almost 800 years ago, yet it feels both current and timely. Set in a small convent in 12th-century England, Matrix looks back in time to comment astutely on the world as we now know it, exploring big ideas about faith, gender, community and individualism.
Abbess Marie is based in part on Marie de France, France’s earliest known female poet and one of the country’s most well-regarded literary stylists. As a teenager, Groff’s fictional Marie is banished from Eleanor of Aquitaine’s court and sent to molder in an impoverished abbey. Marie soon rises to the senior position of abbess, and she transforms the convent into a thriving estate.
Marie’s modifications to the abbey are guided by visions that draw imagery from the real Marie de France’s tales of courtly love. These visions are the motivation and impetus for many of Marie’s boldest innovations: the successful scriptorium where gorgeous new manuscripts are produced; the abbess house where Marie offers comfort and privacy; and the impenetrable labyrinth that girds the abbey, protecting the women who live inside.
Groff brings a bold originality to Matrix and a compassion for her characters, no matter how prickly some of them may be. This is a heartening story of one woman’s vision and creativity, unthwarted and flourishing, despite all odds.
A 12th-century abbess deserves to be your next literary hero. Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies, shares how she found refuge in her latest novel’s community of nuns.
Lauren Groff’s fourth novel, Matrix, is a mesmerizing portrait of a remarkable nun in 12th-century England who oversees an abbey in a rapidly changing and sometimes hostile environment. After Groff’s previous books, which have explored small towns, utopian communities and Floridian flora and fauna, my most pressing questions for the author can be boiled down to, why a novel about nuns? And why now?
“Those are the questions,” Groff says with a laugh, speaking by video call from a writer’s retreat in Italy. She traces the novel’s genesis back to three years ago, when she was at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University, working on a very different novel, one she hopes that at some point will come into the world. “I was surrounded by artists and scholars that were doing things that were so far beyond my ken,” she recalls. “Every day was like a mini-explosion in my brain.”
She attended a lecture on medieval nuns by Dr. Katie Bugyis, who has researched the lives of nuns based on the liturgy they produced and used. “It was as if she had opened up my brain and threw her light in,” Groff says. “I knew it was the next thing I was going to write.”
“Awe is the most powerful emotion I know, because within awe, there is fear, there is love, there is wonder.”
Marie, the nun protagonist of Matrix, is banished from Eleanor of Aquitaine’s court at age 17 and sent to live in a penurious abbey. Awkward and miserable, Marie makes the best of her situation and soon rises to the senior position of abbess. Bit by bit she transforms the tumbledown, muddy convent into a prosperous estate with verdant fields, healthy flocks and a successful scriptorium, protected by a forest labyrinth and Marie’s shrewd awareness of shifting political winds. Along the way, she is inspired by spiritual visions and memories of her mother’s family, whom she accompanied on the early Crusades.
Marie’s story is based on that of Marie de France, considered to be one of France’s most important writers and the country’s first acknowledged female poet. So little is known about Marie that her biography is merely outline; Groff describes trying to research her as “being handed a poetic form.”
But we do know some things about her, Groff says. “We know approximately when she lived and where. We know she was a noble or gentlewoman because she was able to write in several languages. She was educated at a time when most women were not. And most importantly, we know what she wrote: fables and lais,” or narrative poems of courtly love.
Elements from Marie’s lais appear throughout Matrix, which is rich with furled rosebuds, blooming trees and enclosed gardens. “It was a joyous experience to go back to the lais, which I knew from college, and to create her life from the work,” Groff says. “I know it’s the opposite of what scholars do, but I’m not a scholar, I’m a fiction writer.”
Groff did a tremendous amount of research for Matrix, including visiting a small Benedictine convent in Connecticut where she was struck by the strong ties of kinship and community. “I was profoundly moved by the way the older nuns, who are not far from death, are cared for by the people who love them so deeply,” she says. “It’s a definition of family that is not often represented in the outside world.”
Groff drew from this idyllic setting to create her fictional community of sisters. Marie’s convent is a place of female friendships and love affairs, scholarship and learning. It’s a refuge for outsider women and those with untapped talents, ranging from engineering to calligraphy to animal husbandry. “I wanted to live in a world of women,” Groff says. “I wanted to hear women’s voices, experience only a female gaze.”
Examining the balance of community and the individual is nothing new for Groff, whose novels The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia also examined small-town life and intentional communities. Even Fates and Furies depicts a closed community of two people whose insular marriage makes it difficult for anyone else to penetrate their intense bond.
“You know,” Groff remarks ruefully, “I keep thinking I’m writing a brand-new book, but maybe I’m writing the same thing every time. I was raised in the small town of Cooperstown, New York, and I was utterly fascinated by the way individuals acted within a tight and closed community. It was early training for storytelling to be among growing, living stories of other people that you could watch out of the corner of your eye. A small place in the middle of nowhere was a real petri dish for understanding human behavior.”
“It was such an exciting feeling, like an electrical charge, to see biblical stories echoing in literature.”
Even though the world of Matrix could not seem further away from 21st-century America, Groff is well aware of how current affairs informed the writing of her new novel—and indeed, all of her work. “It’s very much in our national DNA to insist on the importance of the individual,” she says. “But a country cannot be a country without the collective, and right now the pressure points between these two courses are rising. My work struggles with this paradox and explores how Americans are choosing to live.”
At several points in the novel, Marie experiences striking visions that she does not share with the other nuns but rather keeps in a series of private notebooks. These visions draw imagery and language from the Bible, a seminal book in Groff’s upbringing and an early step to her lifelong love of literature.
Groff was raised in the Presbyterian church, where her father was a deacon, and she remembers the church of her childhood as a vaulted, soaring space, “like the inside of a whale.” The experience of being in communion with others while singing or praying had a meaningful aesthetic impact. But it was the stories from the Bible that hooked her.
“Stories are the thing that made me a person,” she says. “I was the kind of kid who was filled with religious fervor. I had a beautiful little Bible with fine tissue pages and gilt edges. I would sit and read it at night, just trying to get through all the begats and the thous, and just be filled with this unappeasable longing for the stories. And then I started seeing the stories reflected back at me from the other things I was reading. It was such an exciting feeling, like an electrical charge, to see biblical stories echoing in literature.”
Over time, Groff explains, literature took the place of religion. “I’ve become a secular believer, if that makes sense. I believe in the goodness of humanity. I am moved by the natural world in a way that is akin to the kinds of things I experienced as a child. When I am writing, I try to give the reader a few of those moments of wonder and awe. Awe is the most powerful emotion I know, because within awe, there is fear, there is love, there is wonder.”
The awe-filled moments in Matrix are too many to count, whether in the poetry of Marie’s visions, her longing for friends who are far away or the vivid descriptions of the creation of the labyrinth, a structure associated with religious contemplation that in Groff’s hands becomes a symbol, a weapon and a line of defense.
Marie conceives of the labyrinth less as a place for the nuns to find peace and more as an instrument to separate themselves from the outside world, which she perceives as dangerous and threatening. For Groff, the symbol of the labyrinth goes even deeper. She read about ancient ruins in England that had been buried underground over centuries and were now re-emerging. “Because of climate change and the wet ground drying out, the impressions of these ruins are literally coming up from the earth and becoming apparent,” she says. “I loved that idea of a hidden structure that only through trauma could be revealed. The novel is structured around the shape of a labyrinth, although it’s deeply embedded and I’m not sure anyone can see it. But it’s there.”
Matrix tells a tale of the astounding ingenuity, strength and female companionship that flourished during an era of intense patriarchal oppression. Matrix is the Latin word for mother, but additional definitions include a plant whose seeds were used for producing other plants, a grid, an organizational structure and, perhaps most significantly, “the bedrock in geology in which you find gems.”
Groff has created a labyrinth of jewel-like moments, selected from an incredible woman’s life during a time ostensibly far away from our own, and transformed it into a novel that is perfect for right now.
Author photo by Eli Sinkus
Matrix author Lauren Groff shares how she found refuge in her latest novel’s community of nuns. “It’s a definition of family that is not often represented in the outside world.”
Nowadays, it’s easy to find out where you came from. Just pluck out some hair follicles or scrape your cheek for some cells, send them to a lab far away, and they’ll determine your genetic makeup. Even when science reveals these secrets about our bodies, however, ancestry and heritage are still complex elements of our personal identities. In her debut novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, celebrated poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers weaves an epic ancestral story, showing that where any one person comes from is much more complicated than charts and graphs.
Ailey Pearl Garfield, a young Black girl with a big family, takes center stage, and the history and intricacies of her ancestry drive the novel’s plot. We jump, sometimes dizzyingly, across space and time to trace her family line, and the result is a dazzling tale of love and loss. The story begins with a formerly enslaved man and his acceptance into a Native tribe, the first fateful moment of a vast history. Centuries later, Ailey is visited in her dreams by a “long-haired lady” who helps her to uncover their shared story.
From slavery to freedom, discrimination to justice, tradition to unorthodoxy, this story covers large parts of not just of Ailey’s heritage but also America’s. It’s the kind of familial epic that many Americans, particularly African Americans, can relate to, as Jeffers limns this family’s story with the trauma, faults and passions that we all harbor. Her masterful treatment of the characters and their relationships, paired with the thorough and engaging way the narrative is laid out, makes for a book that is easy to invest and get lost in—a feat for such a long, intricate work. Best yet, the novel incorporates the words of W.E.B. Du Bois throughout its 800-plus pages; those words are the story’s spine, its beating heart, its very life force.
Comparisons to Toni Morrison are bound to be made and will be apt in most cases, as this novel feels as important as many of Morrison’s. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois earns its place among such company, as Jeffers engages with and builds upon the legacy of African American literature as carefully and masterfully as she does the narrative of Ailey’s family.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers weaves an epic ancestral story, showing that where any one person comes from is much more complicated than genetic makeup.
In Kaia Alderson’s witty and powerful debut novel, World War II is a conflict not only between nations but also within the hearts of two Black women serving in the U.S. Army. It’s also a chance to prove themselves to their restrictive families and a prejudiced society. Sisters in Arms chronicles their story, which spans the constraints of New York City and the perils of war-torn Europe.
For Grace Steele, pursuing a career in classical music is all she has ever wanted. But when her music idol questions her commitment, she enlists in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), which she hopes will provide her with the sense of fulfillment she longs for. She enrolls alongside Eliza Jones, a lively and privileged Black woman who is defying her father to demonstrate her capacity to thrive on her own. Grace and Eliza join the women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, pioneers in a field dominated by white men.
Sisters in Arms stands out for its originality in exploring a lesser-known part of World War II and American history. The novel also incorporates the inspiring contributions of real Black historical figures including American educator Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Major Charity Adams (the first Black woman to be an officer of the WAAC) and Truman Gibson Jr. (a civilian aide), as well as Mary Bankston, Mary Barlow and Delores Browne, Black female soldiers who died while fighting in France.
The novel is not only a historical account of the war but also a beautifully interlacing tale of loss, friendship and romance. Despite Grace’s irritable attitude and Eliza’s sense of self-importance, the two strike up a friendship. During their service, their bond is tested, but they learn to stick together to survive, and their romantic relationships enhance their personal stories.
Both women grow during their time in the Army. From a lost and unsure woman whose future is determined by her mother, Grace develops her own perspective on what she wants to accomplish. Eliza proves that even when she is stripped of her privilege, she is capable of succeeding. They encounter and triumph against racism, chauvinism and the turbulent events of the war.
An outstanding historical novel, Sisters in Arms succeeds at celebrating the accomplishments of the Six Triple Eight Battalion through the lives of two audacious Black women.
In Kaia Alderson’s witty and powerful debut novel, World War II is a conflict not only between nations but also within the hearts of two Black women.
Timothy Schaffert’s sixth novel has so much going for it that it’s hard to pinpoint only a few reasons why you will love it, but let us try nonetheless. Set in the German-occupied Paris of 1941, The Perfume Thief is the story of a queer American expat named Clementine who, after a life of notorious thievery all over the globe (think Robin Hood meets Indiana Jones), has retired in Paris and become a perfumer for the ladies of Madame Boulette’s cabaret.
At 72 years old, Clementine, or Clem, believes she is too old to pull off any scams, especially one that involves fooling the Nazis. But that is exactly what she gets roped into doing when Clem’s friend Zoé St. Angel recruits her to steal the infamous diary and recipe book of the Parisian perfumer Pascal, who has gone missing. Not only does this diary reveal Zoé’s identity as a Jew, but it also might include concoctions that could be used as biological weapons by the Nazis. And so, Clem sets out to enchant and fool Francophile Nazi bureaucrat Oskar Voss in order to retrieve the sought-after book.
It’s a thrill to be in Clem’s mind, to follow along as she sinks deeper and deeper into this mystery, as she worries about how to keep her loved ones safe, as she describes the City of Light crawling with Germans and as she reminisces about a long-ago love that still strikes a chord. With a healthy dose of romance, fashion and espionage and a glimpse of the lives of openly queer artists under Nazi occupation, The Perfume Thief is a reminder that Paris, even in the pages of a book, always makes for a great escape.
Timothy Schaffert’s sixth novel is a reminder that Paris, even in the pages of a book, always makes for a great escape.
Yona, born Inge, doesn’t remember much about her parents or the world outside the forest. The day before her second birthday, Yona was stolen from her German parents by an elderly Jewish woman named Jerusza. Jerusza was driven by intuition; she knew she must take the girl from her family and into the forest.
Yona’s childhood is unconventional, as she learns not only survival skills but also multiple languages. Jerusza’s care is practical, never maternal. The girl doesn’t know love, but she knows how to survive.
Not long after Jerusza’s death, Yona encounters other people in the forest. They’re Jewish, and they’ve fled their villages to escape persecution by the Germans. Yona knows how to help, but by sharing her skills, she’s inviting human connection like she’s never known—and risking her heart in the process.
Although Kristin Harmel’s The Forest of Vanishing Stars is fiction, the bestselling author’s research contributes richness and authenticity to this captivating tale. During the Holocaust, Jewish people escaped from ghettos and created forest settlements, banding together to survive both genocide and the wild.
In addition to showcasing her exceptional historical research, Harmel’s novel explores the frailty of human connection. Yona finds joy and sorrow in bonding with others, and in the process, she learns more about the world she was born into. Yona knows she is German, and as she tries to protect the people she’s met, she begins to question whether she truly belongs in the encampment.
“In the times of greatest darkness, the light always shines through, because there are people who stand up to do brave, decent things,” says one of the men Yona meets in the forest. “In moments like this, it doesn’t matter what you were born to be. It matters what you choose to become.”
Kristin Harmel’s research into Jewish forest settlements contributes richness to this captivating World War II tale.
In a world where facts are questioned but truth still matters, Francine Prose’s latest novel, The Vixen, raises questions of what we know, how we know it and whose stories get told.
Newly graduated from Harvard, Simon Putnam isn’t sure how to make his way in the world. After a harrowing evening with his parents, watching the execution of his mother’s childhood friend Ethel Rosenberg and her husband, Julius (American citizens convicted of spying for the Soviet Union), Simon finds himself with a new job at a major New York publishing house. Once there, he is handed a challenge: to prepare for publication a salacious, pulpy, vaguely terrible novel about the Rosenbergs.
As Simon works to uncover the story behind the novel, he discovers more secrets than he could have imagined. While the plot of The Vixen is rich and surprising, Simon’s narrative voice carries the novel. As he goes along, he tries to make sense of how individual and collective histories interact with stories, and how they complicate and contradict each other. His engaging inquiry asks the reader to invest in this world, one that is both far from and adjacent to our own.
Simon takes us through New York restaurants and lush lunches, from Coney Island amusement rides to his childhood home, from the swanky publishing office to his roach-ridden apartment. In each moment, Prose evokes a sense of place that feels crucial to Simon’s process of discovery. This is, in many ways, a novel of New York in a particular moment.
The Vixen doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s a lot of fun to read. Prose is a master of language, and her captivating words are all the more striking in contrast to the novel’s intentional profanity. Good fiction entertains and asks questions, gesturing to truths beyond the novel itself. The Vixen does just that, with an extra note of fun.
Good fiction entertains and asks questions, gesturing to truths beyond the novel. The Vixen does just that, with an extra note of fun.
Two beloved novelists shed light on another notable partnership—between J.P. Morgan and his librarian, a captivating woman with a big secret.
“What has this got to do with me?” wondered Victoria Christopher Murray. The award-winning author of more than 20 novels had received a request from historical novelist Marie Benedict to collaborate on a novel. Murray quickly glanced at the first page of the pitch, which described financier J.P. Morgan’s opulent New York City library. She chuckled, thinking, “The only thing I have in common [with him] is a Chase account”—referring to the modern-day banking company with historical ties to Morgan.
Weeks later, when Murray’s literary agent pestered her to take a closer look at Benedict’s proposal, Murray’s attitude changed. Morgan’s librarian, a woman named Belle da Costa Greene, was one of the most important librarians in American history. She was also a Black woman who passed as white. Greene’s father was the first Black graduate of Harvard College as well as a professor, diplomat and prominent racial justice activist. Once Murray digested this new information, she quickly got in touch with Benedict.
“I feel like she chose us and we did a good job, and now she’s just sitting there with her arms folded, tapping her foot, waiting for the book to come out.”
Their resulting collaboration, The Personal Librarian, imagines the sacrifices and struggles that Greene surely endured to protect her secret. Benedict and Murray’s teamwork also produced a deep, enduring friendship, and the two writers now call themselves sisters. As we chat via Zoom—with Murray in Washington, D.C., and Benedict in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—their admiration for each other is evident, as is their esteem for Greene.
“I feel her presence a lot,” Murray says. “I can’t believe how much I still think about her. I feel like she chose us and we did a good job, and now she’s just sitting there with her arms folded, tapping her foot, waiting for the book to come out.” Benedict agrees, adding that of all the women she’s written about—Agatha Christie, Hedy Lamarr, Clementine Churchill and others—Greene is the one she’d most like to meet.
Greene ran the Morgan Library for 43 years, first helping Morgan to amass an important collection of rare books and manuscripts and, after his death in 1913, transforming his private collection into a public resource. “As time went on,” Benedict says, “Belle and J.P. became closer and closer, just like Victoria and me. Their relationship really defied description.”
Like Morgan, Greene was extremely charismatic. “It’s hard for us to convey how much of a celebrity she really was,” Benedict says. Greene ran in multiple social circles and had numerous affairs. She was known for her flamboyant fashion, famously saying, “Just because I am a librarian doesn’t mean I have to dress like one.”
Once on board with the novel, Murray brought a whole new perspective to Greene’s story. During one of their earliest meetings, the two writers made a quick stop at the Morgan Library. Benedict knew the space well; it had been a place of refuge when she worked as a corporate lawyer for more than 10 years before turning to fiction. She describes its stunning interior as being like a jewel box. However, this was Murray’s first visit. As she looked around Morgan’s study, she pointed to an oil painting and said, “What is that Black man doing up there?”
Benedict had never noticed the portrait of a Moorish ambassador to the Venetian court, painted around 1600. But the ambassador bore a resemblance to Greene’s father, and the authors began to speculate that Greene bought the portrait as an homage to him. “That is something that I would have never seen without Victoria,” Benedict says. “And in many ways, as time went on, that really became a symbol of Belle. Here she was, this African American woman in the room that nobody saw.”
“And I think that’s why she put the painting there,” Murray says. “One of the themes that Marie and I put in the book was that Belle was hiding in plain sight.”
Both writers agree that Morgan likely had suspicions about Greene’s race that he chose to ignore. “He didn’t want to be known in society as the man who had been duped by a Black woman,” Murray says. She describes showing a photograph of Greene to her friends, who responded with surprise. “How did she pass?” they asked. “How in the world did that happen?”
Such questions, inherent to the creation of the novel, sparked a childhood memory for Murray of a time when her younger sister looked at a photograph on their mantle and asked, “Who is that white woman?” It was their grandmother, who on at least one occasion had passed as white during a train trip from North Carolina to New York. “Writing this book, I really began to understand what that must’ve been like,” Murray says.
“As time went on, Belle and J.P. became closer and closer, just like Victoria and me. Their relationship really defied description.”
Greene burned her personal papers before she died, no doubt to protect her secret, so much must be imagined about her life. But as daunting a task as re-creating her story may have been, the two authors render it with gusto, from Greene’s defiant wit to the drama and danger that surrounded her.
The success of Benedict and Murray’s partnership is in part due to a difficult reality: surviving a pandemic while coping with the horror of George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s murders in 2020. They spent hours on Zoom each day, often discussing race issues vital to both their novel and current events. The experience sent them on a “fast track to sisterhood," they agree.
“I think it was a gift for me to work with an author who was not African American,” Murray says, “because I got to see all kinds of perspectives. I had wider eyes. We hope that African American book clubs and white book clubs will get together and talk about our book together the same way [Marie] and I did.”
Benedict chimes in, “During her lifetime, Belle knew that her story couldn't be told because it might eviscerate the impact of her legacy. But now we're at a point where her legacy can be known and celebrated. It’s time.”
Benedict author photo by Anthony Musmanno 2020. Murray photo by Jason Frost Photography 2020.
Co-authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray bring to life the elusive story of one of the most influential librarians in history.
“Your act goes against everything I stand for and everything I’ve worked for,” Richard T. Greener tells his wife in The Personal Librarian. Despite the fact that Richard is a civil rights activist and Harvard University’s first Black graduate, his wife claimed their family was white on the 1905 New York state census.
The act tears the family apart. Richard eventually leaves his wife and children, who change their surname to “Greene,” and his daughter Belle adds “da Costa” to her name, claiming Portuguese ancestors as a way to explain her complexion and still pass for white. Belle da Costa Greene grows up to become J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian and one of the most influential librarians in America.
Belle’s unlikely rise to fame forms the heart of this engrossing, dramatic novel, and co-authors Marie Benedict (who is white) and Victoria Christopher Murray (who is Black) do an admirable job of trying to imagine whether her achievements were worth the sacrifices. Despite the fact that Belle burned her personal papers before she died, no doubt to protect her secret, the authors succeed in bringing her elusive, charismatic personality to life, highlighting her attention-grabbing style, her witty quips and her rich, complicated relationship with Morgan.
Although the novel may have benefitted from a more sharply focused narrative arc, the authors take full advantage of the treasure trove of intriguing historical detail at their disposal. The Personal Librarian explores high-stakes art auctions; Belle’s long-lasting love affair with art critic Bernard Berenson, who had his own secret (his Jewish Lithuanian roots); friendships and encounters with the likes of dancer Isadora Duncan; and an art show featuring the works of Auguste Rodin and Henri Matisse. As Belle grapples with her ongoing fear of having her secret discovered, she realizes she can’t have children at the risk of having a dark-skinned baby—although it’s hard to imagine how a husband or child would have fit into her busy, globe-trotting lifestyle.
There is much to enjoy in The Personal Librarian, as well as much to consider, especially the tragic central dilemma of Belle’s life: “While Papa held beautiful dreams of equality for us all, Mama saved me—and all my siblings—from the segregation and racism in America, freeing me to fulfill that early promise Papa saw in me.”
Co-authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray bring to life the elusive story of one of the most influential librarians in history.
Bletchley Park, the mansion where Oxford dons and crossword puzzlers cracked the German Enigma code, was so shrouded in secrecy that mentioning you worked there could land you in prison. In The Rose Code (15.5 hours), historical novelist Kate Quinn vividly conjures Bletchley through the tale of three unlikely friends from very different backgrounds: socialite Osla, social climber Mab and antisocial Beth. Quinn blends rich characterization, fast pacing and meticulous historical research to tell a story of friendship, tragic betrayal and treason.
Award-winning narrator Saskia Maarleveld gives life to each of the friends, using realistic accents to underscore the class differences that would have made their friendship impossible in any other scenario. All the other characters, no matter how minor, receive Maarleveld’s full devotion as well, as she taps into the novel’s wide-ranging cast to audibly re-create the complexity and chaos of war-torn Britain. Her deep, husky, mysterious voice is perfect for a story that, after all, centers on an Enigma.
The Rose Code is a terrific story, brilliantly performed. Or as Osla would say, it’s a real corker!
The Rose Code is a terrific story, brilliantly performed by Saskia Maarleveld. Or as Osla would say, it’s a real corker!
Nathan Harris’ Civil War-set debut novel, The Sweetness of Water, paints a timeless portrait of warring factions seeking peace.
As the novel opens, white landowner George Walker encounters brothers Landry and Prentiss, recently freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, on the outreaches of his property. George invites the brothers to join him as paid laborers on his Georgia peanut farm, which incites the ire of his rural neighbors. George’s wife, Isabelle, expects his interest in the brothers to wane, like it has toward all his other ventures. But George proves her wrong.
Work on the farm is well underway when the Walkers’ son, Caleb, unexpectedly returns from war. As a deserter, Caleb gives the town one more reason to dislike the Walkers. A fiery standoff ensues, after which Isabelle emerges as a quiet heroine pursuing ideals of friendship, liberty and justice.
There is a shared longing at the heart of Harris’ novel. Caleb and Prentiss both love people they can’t have. Landry is continually drawn to and inspired by a stone fountain on the plantation from which he escaped. To him the fountain conveys majesty and magic, comfort and joy, “something mysterious and fine . . . operat[ing] endlessly. On and on, just like life.” George, too, is driven by something he can’t capture; he searches for the elusive source of his restlessness, represented by a mythical beast he’s sure abides in the forest.
Harris draws readers into this sense of longing by exploring silences: George’s meditative hunts, Landry’s muteness, Caleb’s hidden trysts, Prentiss’ pent-up anger and Isabelle’s secluded mourning. Insinuating dialogue, delivered with eloquent Southern reserve, and hostile eruptions between the Walker household and the Confederates explore the flip side of silence.
Celebrating all manner of relationships that combat hate, this novel is a hopeful glimpse into the long legacy of American racial and civil tensions.
Nathan Harris’ Civil War-set debut novel celebrates all manner of relationships that combat hate.
Radical thinker and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft died less than two weeks after giving birth to her second daughter, a baby girl who would grow up to become the author of Frankenstein. Samantha Silva’s Love and Fury uses the last 11 days of Wollstonecraft’s life as a frame, allowing her to tell her life story to her infant daughter.
Wollstonecraft’s childhood was shaped by a dissolute father and a withholding mother. A young woman of remarkable intelligence and precociousness, she formed many of her theories about marriage and the evils of patriarchy early on. She set out to change opinions, first by running a small school with Fanny Blood, a botanical illustrator with whom she shared a passionate friendship, and then by writing, most significantly A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). Wollstonecraft’s uncompromising romances with Swiss artist Henry Fuselli and American businessman Gilbert Imlay (father of Wollstonecraft’s first daughter, Fanny), though unsuccessful in the long run, led her to friendships with some of the 18th century’s most notable intellectuals and radicals, including Thomas Paine, William Blake and Abigail Adams.
Hers was a peripatetic life, spent traveling all over England with a short stint in Ireland as a governess. Living in Paris during the French Revolution inspired many of the ideas that found fruition in A Vindication of the Rights of Women. In 1797, she married William Godwin, Mary Shelley's father, after a long friendship, though their relationship is barely alluded to in the novel.
After the birth, when it becomes clear that Wollstonecraft has a life-threatening infection due to a male doctor’s procedure for delivering the placenta, midwife Parthenia Blenkinsop is called to the house to tend to mother and daughter during their only days together. Love and Fury is told in a series of short chapters, alternating Wollstonecraft’s memories with Parthenia’s experience of caring for the ill woman and new baby. Silva’s attention to period detail creates a heartbreaking novel of compassion and grace, as well as an elegy to one of the world’s most influential thinkers.
Samantha Silva’s attention to period detail creates a worthy elegy to one of the world’s most influential feminist thinkers, Mary Wollstonecraft.
Did you know that the mother of Johannes Kepler, the 17th-century German scientist best known for his laws of planetary motion, was accused of being a witch? Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is the fictionalized story of Katharina Kepler, who was accused of this crime at the same time her son was struggling to get his astronomical theories written and accepted.
Katharina is an easy target for the preposterous charge of witchcraft. She’s considered a widow, since her feckless husband hared off to join a war—any war would do, and there were a number going on at the time—when their children were young. Katharina does not suffer fools, and she refers to her enemies by such nicknames as the Cabbage, the Werewolf and the False Unicorn. She’s a bit of a busybody who doesn’t hesitate to press advice and herbal remedies on people who may or may not want them. And while she’s not a highborn lady, she owns property that some folks would like to get their hands on.
But she’s also tenderhearted and capable of great devotion. One of the first things we learn about her is her affection for her cow, Chamomile. When the powers that be finally come for Katharina, the moment is wrenching.
Most contemporary stories about witch hunts take a swipe at the patriarchy, and Galchen’s novel does, too. To plead her case, Katharina needs a male legal guardian, even though she’s a mature woman of sound mind and body. Guardianship is provided by Simon, her town’s somewhat forlorn saddler, and then by the put-upon Johannes.
Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances (2008), scrutinizes the corrosiveness of town gossip as the tales about Frau Kepler grow more and more ridiculous: She scratched a young girl she passed in the road; she rode a goat or a calf or some beast backward, then killed and ate it; and a mere glance from her will cause people to sicken and livestock to go mad and die. It doesn’t help that Katharina’s illustrious son has been excommunicated by the Lutheran church.
Written with a surprising sense of humor for such a grim topic, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch shows what happens when a crowd is taken over by delusion, bigotry and grievance.
Rivka Galchen brings a surprising sense of humor to the grim topic of 17th-century witchcraft accusations.
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