Biographer Margaret Lea returns one night to
find a letter on her steps. It is a hand-written request from one of Britain’s
most prolific and well-loved novelists. Vida Winter, gravely ill, wants to
recount her life story before it is too late, and she wants Margaret to be the
one to capture her history.
While pondering whether to accept the task of
recording Miss Winter’s personal story, Margaret begins to read her father’s
rare copy of Miss Winter’s Thirteen Tales of Change and
Desperation. She is spellbound by the stories and confused when she
realizes the book only contains twelve stories. Where is the thirteenth tale?
Intrigued, Margaret agrees to meet Miss Winter and act as her biographer.
* *
*
Sometimes
I struggle to find suggestions for our votes, and I often turn to Goodreads as
a source of ideas. The website has a rather useful “Readers Also Enjoyed” link
for every book, and that is how I found this title. It had won a few awards and
sounded interesting, so it seemed like a good choice even though I was
unfamiliar with both the title and the author. As an avid book reader, I was
enthused by the prospect of reading a book about an insatiable reader who lives
in a bookshop and gets to write the biography of a mysterious author. The added
interest of a dark and mysterious past made this title fairly irresistible and
I expected a suitably gothic tone to remind me of such classics as Wilkie
Collins’ The Moonstone. I was not disappointed. It proved to be as entertaining
as I had hoped, although the group did have a few reservations about some of
the plot points.
“There is something about words. In
expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves
around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot
move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you
they work their magic.”
Ms Setterfield’s words are certainly true of
her own writing. This tale grabbed me from the very beginning and kept me
enraptured to the end. I do have a few minor criticisms about the believability
of some of the plot points, but the standard of writing was excellent
throughout. This truly was an ode to literature and the special magic of
story-telling as a form of escape and also as a vehicle for exploring, and
possibly redefining, the truth.
Ms Winter has made a career of creating
multiple origin stories for herself, so that every single interview has a
totally different set of personal information about her and she entices
Margaret into writing her biography by simply offering to reveal ‘the truth’.
However, it soon becomes clear that ‘the truth’ is not quite what we are
receiving, and that Ms Winter is still struggling to be completely honest about
the past. She has spent her entire life hiding her true identity and, although
she now feels compelled to reveal everything before she dies, it is a very hard
habit for her to break. She insists on presenting her life as a series of tales
and refuses to allow questions from Margaret so that she can control the
sequence in which her secrets are exposed. This manipulation of the audience
could be seen as simply an extension of the tale-weaving skills that have made
her a bestselling author, but it also allows Ms Winter to hint at secrets
before she finally works up the courage to reveal them.
Interestingly, we have not one but two
unreliable narrators. From the very beginning we know that Ms Winter has
previously lied about her history, so we approach her stories with a certain
amount of skepticism. However, Margaret begins the book as a character that bibliophiles
can identify with very easily, so much so that she borders on being a Mary Sue
because she lives a life that seems ideal in so many ways. But as we learn more
about her past as the single conjoined twin who survived separation surgery, it
becomes increasingly clear that Ms Winter is not the only one with a family
history of mental issues. The apparently clear-headed, capable woman that we
meet at the start of the book soon morphs into something of a Gothic heroine
herself, one who eventually submits to a bout of Bronte-esque melancholy and is
prescribed a rousing course of Sherlock Holmes by the local doctor. We begin to
doubt her sanity and the ending definitely left the book group with the
impression that she is not quite as normal as one would expect in a narrator.
A second link between these two characters is the
issue of twins as Ms Winter reveals her true name to be Adeline March, twin to
Emmeline. Unlike Margaret, Adeline grew up with her twin, but in a highly
unhealthy and mentally unstable environment which had disturbing effects on
both girls. Whilst the family was wealthy, owning a large house and estate, a
heavy dose of insanity was passed down through the generations and the twins
were raised in a chaotic and squalid environment. Resisting any attempt to
normalize them, they finally reach adulthood as almost feral creatures that
disappear from the area when the house burns down.
Whilst the descriptions of the twins and their
immediate family are evocative and compelling they do present the reader with
one giant problem. How can the highly articulate Vida Winter be the violent and
apparently illiterate Adeline? How could this wild creature ever change so dramatically,
even when the responsibility for running the house falls onto her bony
shoulders? I will not spoil the explanation for this apparent impossibility,
but it does undermine the reader’s belief in Ms Winter’s honesty to quite a
considerable extent. The group found the explanation itself almost unbelievable
and thought that it was the biggest problem with the entire book. I am not sure
if a slight alteration in the depiction of the twins could have helped, but I
suspect that it would have detracted from the slightly melodramatic, gothic
atmosphere of the book. It was also necessary to justify the actions taken by
Ms Winter. If we are to believe that Mrs Rochester is locked in the attic for a
very good reason, then she needs to be truly and completely insane, not just a
little bit ‘off’. So it is with Adeline: her story is horrifying and yet it is
necessary to explain everything that has happened.
Despite these few quibbles, the group and I
thoroughly recommend this title to anyone with a love of reading, books and
libraries.
