I finished The Ghost Writer by John Harwood this evening, and it’s probably one of the creepiest, most thought-provoking books I’ve ever read. The story centers around Gerard Freeman, an Australian librarian who lives with his mother — a clingy, obsessive woman afraid above all that Gerard will leave her. His only real friend is a pen-friend, Alice Jessell, an English woman with an injury which confines her to a wheelchair. Though the two have never met, they have been corresponding since they were 13 and eventually fall in love.

Gerard is intensely curious about his mother’s past in England at a country manor called Staplefield, where she lived with her grandmother Viola, who raised her. Gerard finds a photo of a strange woman and a Victorian ghost story written by V.H., who turns out to be Viola.

Gerard eventually makes his way to England, where he begins to unravel his mother’s past, meanwhile discovering more ghost stories written by his great-grandmother which oddly seem to intertwine with the lives of her descedants.

John Harwood does a masterful job creating suspense in the manner of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, to which he alludes in the name of Gerard’s penfriend — “Where, my pet, is Miss Jessel?” Viola’s Victorian ghost stories are interwoven with the plot in a rather impressive plot construction; it would have been all too easy in the hands of a less-gifted writer, for the plot to go astray when the ghost stories “interrupt” the action of the novel. As it is, they hardly seem like interruptions, and indeed, they are so good that they might stand on their own. “The Gift of Flight” was terrifying and reminded me a Twilight Zone episode I once saw called “The Living Doll.” You’ve probably seen it… “My name is Talky Tina… and I’m going to kill you.” *Shivers*

This isn’t Stephen King. This is much, much better. If you liked the Victorian creepiness of The Turn of the Screw, Great Expectations (also alluded to in The Ghost Writer), or even A.S. Byatt’s Possession, which was both very different and very similar in subject matter (which I know makes no sense), then you’ll enjoy this book. Gerard’s mother’s home in England reminded me of the house in The Others. Once you pick this book up, you may find it hard to put down. The ending is a bit confusing. I had to read it twice, and I still think what I think happened is very much open to interpretation. Then again, the best scary stories are like that.

Read more…

• Bookslut’s Review
• Readerville discussion of The Ghost Writer (spoilers!)
• Douglas E. Winter’s review in The Washington Post (a bit spoiler-y)

I’ve just finished Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus. Renaissance Italy is such fascinating subject matter that I wonder I’ve not read much about it before. I absolutely devour any history programs about the Medici and the Borgias. One of my colleagues teaches a class entitled “Dante and the Medieval World.” Yes, in a high school — isn’t that cool? Anyway, I thought of her often as I read, because Dante is frequently alluded to in this novel.

The novel begins in 1490s Florence, just as Lorenzo de’ Medici dies and the city comes under the control of Savonarola. To Alessandra Cecchi, the main character, it is a frightening time, as the rebirth and flowering of the Renaissance seems perilously close to being snuffed out forever. Alessandra is strong-willed. She has a fine mind and the latent talent of an artist, but she is often discouraged in using both. Alas, she is a free-spirited woman in a harshly patriarchal society.

Alessandra is married off to politically astute and sensitive Cristoforo. The marriage allows Alessandra to have certain freedoms that she craves, but it also stifles her — Cristoforo is homosexual, and he cannot feel passion for Alessandra. Instead, Alessandra is captivated by the young painter employed to create frescoes for her family’s chapel.

The book was well-written, and I definitely felt as if characters were rendered honestly, with special attention given to the times in which they lived. Amazon recommended this book to me because I bought books by Tracy Chevalier and Susan Vreeland, whom they considered similar. If you reduce Dunant’s book to simply being a novel about art, then yes, they are similar. However, while Vreeland and Chevalier write about well-known artists and/or works of art and their backstories, Dunant has created a fictional art world. None of her characters are famous, and we cannot be sure that anything they created is today the admired creation of an unknown artist, but they do live in fascinating times, and I was easily swept into their story.

I don’t have a book-rating system, like 1-5 stars, or even something cutesy like apples, because I’m a teacher. If I had one, I’d give Philippa Gregory’s The Queen’s Fool three stars (or apples). Frankly, the author’s odd choice of writing almost completely in comma splices really put me off. I found it hard to concentrate on the story when this major usage error kept popping out at me over and over. I only wish I was exaggerating.

Aside from that, the story moves along, and I was intrigued by the characters. Frankly, I thought the best part of the story was the portion the protagonist, Hannah Green, spent in Calais. I was much more interested in her story as a Jew in the Renaissance than all the palace intrigues.

I did not understand Hannah’s divided loyalties. She seemed to serve several masters and equally love them all, which didn’t make sense to me. Also, no reasons were really shown why she should love these people, who really hadn’t done all that much to earn it, frankly.

The writer seemed to me to choose very obvious aspects of Judaism to demonstrate her characters’ religion, although perhaps this was on purpose, too. One would not necessarily want to confuse Gentile readers who didn’t know much about Judaism. Gregory also has the excuse that her characters are actively hiding their religion and do not remember all their customs, nor keep them out of fear of being discovered as Jews. Still, I found the depiction of this side of Hannah’s life rather basic.

Another complaint I have about Gregory’s writing is that her dialogue is not period, which is something I noted while reading The Other Boleyn Girl. It is a little off-putting to find so much non-period dialogue in a piece of historical fiction. Particularly annoying was the repetitive use of “D’you” for “Did you.”

After I have said all that, you might wonder why it merited the “three stars.” Like I said, it was readable. I did become interested in the characters. I don’t think I could have finished it, considering all its flaws, if it didn’t have these good qualities. I found it odd and intriguing to see Mary portrayed so sympathetically. However, to paraphrase Will Somers, the Fool, history did not remember Mary’s good qualities, just as they did not remember her father’s. As he is remembered as a lecherous wife-killer, she is remembered for her burning of “heretics,” mostly Protestants, which rightly earned her the appellation Bloody Mary.