Buy This Book: Captivity by Deborah Noyes

This wonderfully prescient book is so evocative, well written, and full of questions that beg bookclub discussion. I've been fighting for months to find time to write a proper review of it, but having failed that, I'm going to do a "yes! what she said!" and pass along this terrific review from Library Journal:

In this new work of historical fiction, Noyes (Angels and Apostles) effectively offers two separate stories, both taking place in mid-19th-century America and England. First, there is the story of Clara Gill, a reclusive illustrator spinster shut away from the world at large in her father's home in Rochester, NY. Clara's sternness and acute observations often intimidate the few people with whom she does interact, and as she is no longer young, her prospects in life are diminished. The second narrative focuses on the strange circumstances concerning two young sisters, Maggie and Kate Fox, whose lives takes a decidedly notorious turn when it is believed that they are able to communicate with the dead. When Clara, her father, and the Fox family become intertwined, Clara finds in Maggie something of a friend, which prompts her to begin to examine her own earlier life in London. Never knowing whether Maggie and Katie are charlatans, Clara nevertheless admires the girls' tenacity in warding off skeptics and continuing to offer seances to interested people. VERDICT: A novel of beguiling characters that probes both belief and the veracity of emotion, this endlessly fascinating work should be considered by all fiction readers.

Yes! What Library Journal said. And then some.

Though it is definitely a slice of feminist history brought to life, the emotional and idealogical beef in this book never overrun the telling of a deeply chilling tale. I've been fascinated by the true story of the Fox sisters since I was a kid, and Deborah Noyes imaginatively, skillfully twists that thread into a literary cat's cradle. You come away with the realization that the living are far more mysterious (and sometimes scarier) than the dead. I'd love to see this book embraced not just by bookclubs, but by high school and college English classes, where students would be drawn in by the supernatural hook and end up thinking about the cultural realities.

So that's all I can do today, but--yeah. Buy this book. Read. Absorb. Then let's all meet up in an airport bar somewhere and discuss. Meanwhile, click here for an excerpt and more info.

Dueling Hesters: Two books that pick up where "The Scarlet Letter" leaves off

Sipping coffee from my favorite cup this morning. On the back it says "The scarlet letter was her passport to regions where other women dared not tread." These two authors dared. Deborah Noyes and Paula Reed take up the story of Hester and oops baby Pearl from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. (Click here for Kindle freebie of the classic.)

Deborah Noyes's 2006 debut novel, Angel and Apostle, got big critical love, including a PW review that ends: "Noyes engages with atmospheric charms of time and place...she delivers an ending revelation that would surprise Hawthorne himself." (Read an excerpt here.)

This month, romance novelist Paula Reed makes her hardcover historical fiction debut with Hester: The Missing Years of the The Scarlet Letter: A Novel. (Hey, nobody told me we're allowed more than one colon per title!) Reed is a high school English teacher, who works through The Scarlet Letter every year in class and says she always finds something new to love about the book. Quoth PW: "A few romantic trysts spice up the story and result in some un-Puritan-like scenarios...Reed has created an entertaining and unlikely sequel." (Here's an excerpt.)

Last week, Gordon Hauptfleisch at Blogcritics reviewed the two side by side, and Reed doesn't do too well in the comparison. (I suspect she'll be able to comfort herself with sales numbers that are likely to kick the other book's patootie.) Hauptfleisch is such a good writer himself, the item is fun to read, but it's redolent of genre bigotry, which doesn't leave room for the idea that these are two different literary perspectives from two different authors who dared to do what they do the way they do it.

Maybe it's too much coffee in the Hawthorne mug, but I'm thinking about a Pride/Prej/Zombies take on it, possibly titled "F#@kin' A!"...