I am a lover of historical fiction, which is why it makes sense, when I turned my hand to fiction, that I chose to write a historical novel, Rebecca of Ivanhoe, which is a sequel of sorts to Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. So I’d like to share with you some of the more memorable historical fiction titles that I have read in the past year or so. The most recent was James, an inventive retelling of the Huckleberry Finn saga from the point of view of a slave who lives on the same Virginia plantation as Huck Finn. James, the slave, runs away when he learns he is about to be sold and separated from his beloved wife and daughter. Huck Finn finds James hiding in a nearby cave and together they embark on many adventures and close calls. I’m not going to spoil the ending for you; suffice to stay that James divulges a startling secret to Huck, as he tries to elude a massive manhunt just as the country plunges into civil war. This book kept me glued to each page.
Another good historical novel set around the same time period (right after the Civil War) is Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips. The protagonist in this book is ConaLee, a 12-year-old girl whose father, a Union soldier, is severely injured in the Civil War and doesn’t remember who he is (so he never makes it back home). Her mother is raped by a roaming Confederate war veteran and traumatized to the point of muteness. The Confederate soldier drops the mother and ConaLee off at a lunatic asylum in West Virginia, where a mysterious night watchman joins what becomes a compelling tale.
Then there’s The Weight of Ink, the fascinating story of a Sephardic Jewish emigrant in London who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi in the 1660s even though she is a woman. The narration flips between Esther Velasquez’s remarkable story and an ailing historian in the 21st century who is trying to determine the identity of the mysterious scribe known to scholars only as “aleph.”
Even more compelling is Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, a revisionist tale of Lucrezia de Medici, the daughter of a 16th century Florentine duke who marries her off to the ruthless ruler of another region in northern Italy. Lucrezia’s husband is infertile but of course she is blamed for not being able to conceive. She overhears a plot to do away with her, so her husband can try to beget a heir on someone else. I’ll let you read this suspenseful and richly layered novel to find out if Lucrezia manages to survive.
I added The Excitements, another historical novel I really enjoyed when I revised this list for a new website, Shepherd.com.
I’ve read many other meaty historical novels in the past year — three that take place during World War II alone — The Forest of Vanishing Stars, Good Night, Irene, and Between Shades of Gray — but I don’t want to bore you with an exhaustive list. More to come, but in the meantime, happy reading!
