An intriguing, richly detailed, fictionalized “eyewitness account” of the War of the Roses era.
Bisexual Eddie De-la-Pole details his involvement with the courts of Edward IV and Richard III and his embrace of Judaism in Brown’s historical novel.
The preface notes that the “following book” is a “curious apologia,” written in Middle English and found in a synagogue in Barcelona. The narrative takes the form of the memoir of Eddie De-la-Pole, who mentions that he and his “closest companion,” Rabbi Abraham di Mayora, are now “living, out our days and dreams” in Bruges and Toledo. Eddie shares highlights of his life story: In England in the year 1461, at age 16, he meets King Edward IV at the Battle of Towton. Eddie, a bisexual, is drawn to the charismatic king and soon, even more powerfully, to Edward’s new brother-in-law, Anthony Wydeville. When Eddie travels with Anthony to marry off Edward’s sister, Margaret (“the only woman I have ever actually wanted to marry,” Eddie confesses), to the Duke of Burgundy, the men are initiated into a secret society that leaves them “satiated and happily united as brothers, and loving friends.” Alas, the War of the Roses intrudes, with Anthony soon lost forever and Eddie, after backing King Richard III, fleeing to a new life with Abraham, the rabbi/court diplomat whom he initially disliked but comes to rely on. By novel’s end, Eddie, now past 70, is circumcised as part of his “adoption by the family of the children of Israel.” The author packs a lot of fun and flavor into this historical fiction, including Eddie’s take on Richard’s role in the “Princes in the Tower” mystery. Brown helpfully provides several family charts as references to the intertwining relationships. Some of the story’s threads remain tantalizingly elusive, such as the full import of Eddie’s ruby ring, and questions about just how sexual some friendships became. Overall, this book offers a wonderfully complex narrator’s perspective on a head-spinning time in history.
An intriguing, richly detailed, fictionalized “eyewitness account” of the War of the Roses era.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 9781802277029
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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