Review: The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn

Theodora Lestrange, mourning the death of her grandfather and guardian, leaves Edinburgh for the wilds of Transylvania. It is the late 19th century and Theodora, at the old age of twenty-three, is veering dangerously close to spinsterhood. She leaves behind a homebody sister and brother-in-law (a vicar, of course!) who are anxious to see her married and an earnest but bland suitor, Charles, who is eager to step up to the plate. But Theodora eyes domesticity with great horror: she is a writer and wants to make her own way and her own name by penning a full-length novel.

Seeking inspiration (and escape), she journeys to Romania to visit her old school friend Cosmina, niece of the recently deceased Count Bogdan Dragulescu. The Dragulescu family castle is a gothic fantasy with crumbling walls, moldering tapestries, and a darkly alluring rising count, Andrei, whose betrothal to Cosmina has inspired not joy but dread. Predictably, Theodora finds herself increasingly drawn to the mysterious Andrei, and he to her, but their romance is not the only thread in Raybourn's masterfully woven story. A rash of eerie occurrences and the suspicious death of a young servant girl threaten to consume the sanity, if not the very lives, of the castle's inhabitants, leaving Theodora (and the reader) wondering if she was not too quick to dismiss the tales of vampires and werewolves that echo from the Carpathian peaks.

With a title culled from Dracula, a properly straining bodice on the cover, and a glowing endorsement from one of my favorite authors, this was a book I was eager to start. (It seemed an appropriately seasonal read.) I started it last night and I just could not put it down! The story itself is pretty straight-forward gothic: a drafty castle in the Carpathians, inhabited by a mysterious, handsome, brooding young count, his ailing mother, and his pretty cousin, is visited by the pretty cousin's pretty and precocious friend, whereupon mysterious and creepy things start happening. But it's complicated by a much more human and complex story of the weaving and unraveling of human relationships.

True, much of the book's horror revolves around the supernatural: vampires (the feared strigoi), werewolves, ghostly occurrences, and peasant superstitions. At the heart of these terrors, however, lies something more mundane. Theodora is right to note the folklorist's interpretation of these tales as myths used to explain the unknowable parts of our lives and ourselves. What is to be feared is not so much the unnatural monster that stalks the forests as the monsters in our own bodies and minds: envy, anger, madness, passion, and love. I was put in mind of a scene in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey in which Henry Tilney (swoon...) tells Catherine Morland that the "evil" in his family home is a kind of vampirism: "Perhaps it was stupid to express it so but we did watch him drain the life out of her with his coldness and his cruelty...No vampires, no blood. But worse crimes, crimes of the heart." Ultimately it is left to the reader of The Dead Travel Fast to decide whether the crimes perpetuated in the novel were committed by a vampire or by a human hand, or if, after all, the two are so very different.

Part gothic romance and part murder mystery, the book was enjoyable from start to finish. Raybourn's sense of atmosphere is terrific, her writing supremely evocative, and her characters varied and vivid. The rakish, glamorous, tortured Andrei is particularly wonderful. I think I've found a new author to binge on! Loved this!

Covergate 2010, or, Should You Judge a Book by Its Cover?

One of my new favorite authors, Lauren Willig, has a new book coming out in January. The giddy excitement I feel when I think about this is actually kind of embarrassing. Will Eloise and Colin continue to exist in a state of romantic bliss? Will the Pink Carnation and her League of Awesome Spy People continue to thwart the Evil Frenchies? Will Eloise be able to give her adviser a finished chapter complete with footnotes? Will Dear Reader survive until January without turning into Veruca Salt and screaming "I want it NOW!" in the middle of Borders?

But I digress. The big excitement today was that the cover art for the new book, The Orchid Affair, was unveiled on Willig's website. Previous Pink book covers were comprised of painted portraits from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, giving the books a romantic but distinctly historical feel. Imagine my shock when I saw that the cover for The Orchid Affair not only sports a new, Romance Novel curlicue font but has replaced the fine arts portrait with a contemporary (original) photo-realistic drawing of a bare shouldered, headless woman:



Sure, it's pretty, but, as a friend remarked, all that's missing is Fabio and his flowing locks. To me, this doesn't say historical novel featuring espionage, quizzing glasses, and a dash of romance, it says Generic Trashy Bodice-Ripper featuring either a weak-willed, wilting flower or an overly-pugnacious firebrand and the requisite rugged, brutish male. Without, I hope, being flippant or overly critical, this cover looks cheap and down-market. (A scan of the comments on her site showed that I was not alone in these sentiments.) It also looks a bit...how to say this correctly...unsophisticated? Unintelligent? It's the kind of cover I wouldn't want people on the subway to see me reading.

And that's just not who Lauren Willig is, nor is it what her books are. (Let me be clear: this is not meant to be a critique of Willig, who stated on her site that the makeover decision was made by her publisher. She is fabulous.)

More to the point, several commentors on Willig's site said that if they did not already know her work and saw this cover in the store, they would pass right by it. Would I do the same? Probably. Would you? To borrow from Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn't help but wonder to what extent we judge a book by its cover. What kind of assumptions do we make about a book's content based on its outward appearance? If, for example, the heroine's shoulders were covered, would I assume the content was more "elevated?"

A cover is a book's calling card. Like an actor's headshot or a job applicant's resume, it is the first thing we see and what we use to form a first impression. We expect a headshot/resume/cover to tell us something about who or what the person/book represented is and what they're about. My thespian brother recently told me about a friend of his whose choice of clothing in his headshot had typecast him in the stereotypical "Asian" roles--doctor, scientist, lab tech (thanks, America...). This friend is actually a very fine actor with a tremendous dramatic range, but the way in which he presented himself on his calling card meant that directors formed a very narrow, rigid picture of him, with the result that they never saw his other talents.

So what does The Orchid Affair's cover say to me? The fountain in the background, writing in the sky, and blue palette suggest that the overall mood of the book will be contemplative, sentimental, and chick-lit-y (but not as much as pastels/pink). Let's assume the woman depicted is the main character. The lack of face shifts the focus away from her psyche and onto her body. That her dress appears to be slipping from her shoulders further emphasizes her sexuality and promises the reader lots of seduction but, probably, not much plot, certainly not a complex one. In addition to presenting the main character as a Body rather than as a Person, the lack of a face also allows her to function as an avatar for the reader, who can insert herself in her place and, through her, live out the romantic fantasies that cannot be fulfilled in her real life. The flower she holds promises romance (so not just ravishing) and probably a happy, matrimonial ending.

Now, if you know Lauren Willig's books, you know that they are so much more than that. This heroine, for example, happens to be a smart, educated girl--a governess and a trained spy--and the plot goes beyond heaving bosoms to include espionage, double agents, and a Royalist conspiracy. But, based on this cover, who could tell?

Being the photoshop wiz (read: total novice) that I am, I decided to try my hand at cover designing and see what I could come up with in the fine arts genre. These are my two best:



Compare these two to the official cover: which one would you be more likely to pick up? Why? What different conjectures would you make about the plot? What kind of book would you think it was?

It is frustrating that the good people at Dutton decided that Willig's books need to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to be successful. This kind of thing happens a lot: much has been made recently, for example, about the Brooklyn Museum's unsuccessful attempt to boost attendance through making themselves more "popular." Guess what? It doesn't work. When you don't trust your audience, when you say "oh, you couldn't possibly like or understand all this stuffy Art and Literature--it's so dry and complicated and you have to Think. Look at this picture of Mick Jagger or watch Twilight instead," when you say that, you not only alienate the part of your audience that wants art and literature, you ensure that the other part of your audience won't even give it a chance. By dumbing down your content, you dumb down your audience. Why should anyone even buy a book if reading is just So Hard?

I also think it's frustrating and sad that, in today's publishing world, the author--the generator of the product--has so little say in how that product is presented. As I noted above, Willig says on her site that she would have preferred to stick with the fine art covers. An earlier news post reveals that the change in the title format (the original title was The Intrigue of the Silver Orchid, mirroring the other titles in the series) was instigated by her editors as well. Now, I grew up with two parents who were book editors, so I know how tricky the world of book publishing is. But surely the creator of the work should have more say in what it's called and what it looks like? And why the sudden need to "makeover" a series that regularly appears on the bestseller list? That, however, is a subject for another entry.

Of course I will buy, read, and love The Orchid Affair and all the other books that Willig puts out. But I'm still really disappointed that my beloved Advanced Escape Reading (bodices AND bibliographies, bitches) has been re-branded as trashy romance.

Your thoughts?

Review: The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, Lauren Willig

My very first book review! I haven't written a book review since elementary school. Now I'm nervous.

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily is the sixth installment in Lauren Willig's delightful Pink Carnation series, which chronicles the romantic adventures of Napoleonic era British spies and the romantic misadventures of modern-day Harvard doctoral student Eloise Kelly, who is researching said spies for her dissertation.

At the very beginning of the series, Eloise is struggling to find sources--any sources--for her dissertation on super-spies the Scarlet Pimpernel (in the series, a real person), his successor the Purple Gentian (Willig's own invention) and the elusive Pink Carnation (ditto), whom Eloise hopes to finally unmask. Eloise is about to throw in the towel and write about espionage and constructs of masculinity (ugh...) when the academic equivalent of manna from Heaven appears: a previously unseen archive in the home of a fairy godmother-esque descendant of the Purple Gentian. What Eloise finds in these archives, and those that follow, are the plots of Willig's novels. Did I mention that there is also a Prince Not-So-Charming? Eloise's benefactor's surly but strapping great-nephew, Colin, makes his entrance in the first book as a foil to our heroine, and their inevitable courtship forms the basis of the series's secondary plotline.

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily is a departure from the other books in the series in that its heroine is already married at the beginning. If you have read the other Pink books (recommended but not required) then you have already made the acquaintance of Penelope Deveraux, bosom friend to the Purple Gentian's younger sister and one of the most incorrigible flirts of the ton. Penelope has finally succeeded in ruining her own reputation. "Compromised" after being caught canoodling with the loutish Lord Freddy Staines, Penelope finds herself rushed to the altar before the book begins. Blood Lily also departs, quite literally, from the series's familiar setting of Franco-British courts, assembly halls, and country estates for the wilds of colonial India, where Freddy and Penelope are packed off to allow the scandal surrounding their marriage time to die down. Several of her friends express optimism that exile could be the making of their relationship...

It isn't.

This revelation should not be news to anyone who has read the book jacket. Penelope does not find marital bliss in India. What she does find is a decidedly extra-marital romance in the shape of the dashing Alex Reid, a captain in the British colonial forces charged with escorting Penelope and Freddy to Hyderabad, where Freddy is to assume a diplomatic post at the court of the Nizam. Their romance is one of Willig's finest yet, hard-won, even-handed, and utterly believable. It helps that Penelope is no wilting flower. Like Mary Alsworthy, Penelope is a "difficult" heroine--willful, world-weary, but whose hard-armored coquettishness hides a desperate desire to be loved and understood. Penelope shoots cobras, dives into rivers, and matches words with politicians. She is also horribly lonely, having been sent away from all her friends to a strange country with a husband who treats her with utter disregard. Her romance with Alex, who hasn't had the easiest time of it either, is very much a meeting of the minds. That they are first friends before they become lovers is a testament to the deep respect and regard that they have for one another. I'm a believer!

As for the rest of the plot, this is a Lauren Willig novel so naturally, spies are involved. Our villain, a French spy called the Marigold, was introduced in the last installment, The Temptation of the Night Jasmine. While the Marigold's political treachery isn't fully realized until late in the book, his (or her) personal threat to Penelope, Freddy, and Alex is keenly felt from the first broken girth. Willig does a good job with the suspense and we spend as much time looking over our shoulders as we do straining our bodices. She also does a superb job rendering the elaborate world of colonial India and its intrigues. Many of Blood Lily's juicier elements--the mad Nizam, the leprosy-ridden Prime Minister--are culled straight from history and rendered in perfect detail.

But the plot itself, I'm sorry to say, is at times not quite up to her usual standard. I did keep guessing until the end who the Marigold was (a first for me), but the reveal was something of a letdown. I can't say much more without spoiling it, but we do not get the sense here, as we do in her other books, of the villain's drive. Instead of the mastermind behind a great conspiracy, we find someone who seems to have merely stumbled into a great conspiracy. She also leaves several very blatant loose ends. Chekov famously said that one should not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it. In other words, objects introduced in a story must be used later on or else not included. There are two loaded guns here--big ones--that are never fired, and whose lack of use definitely contributed to my feeling not quite satisfied when I turned the last page. A debt that is never repaid? An enemy who never strikes? To say more would reveal too much so I'll just say that a red herring is one thing, a dead end is another.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this book. It's actually a testament to how far Willig has come as a novelist that I'm nit-picking and griping about the spy plot, which in her first few books served more as a backdrop to the romance than a principal player. As accomplished a writer as she now is, I can't help but feel that she should know better.

In terms of the writing itself, however, Blood Lily is Willig's best yet. Her prose, which I'll admit I found charming but light when I read her first book, has become nuanced, rich, and elegant. Her characters are vibrant and pointedly realized, her atmospheres are lush, and her descriptions--one in particular of a bloated corpse--at times approach the poetic. Her dialogue, always a strong point, is pitch-perfect and sparkles with echoes of Waugh and Wodehouse. And like Waugh (and occasionally Wodehouse) her writing is also earnest and poignant when called for. We may laugh when Penelope lays into Freddy but we cringe when he sets her down and betrays her trust. There is style, but there is also real emotional substance.

This series is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. It's light without being too light--the intellectual's answer to the dime-store romance. Perhaps it won't come as a surprise that the series came about as an escape for Willig from her own dissertation research. It is by definition escapist literature, the perfect getaway for those of us who want to take a break from the real world and fall blissfully into the past where the men are swashbuckling and the women run the show.

Pierre de Ronsard, the French Ariosto, wrote in the preface to his epic, the Franciade: "History only recounts things the way they are, or were, without disguise or ornament,...the Poet contents himself with the plausible, to that which could be." This is what I see Willig doing. She loves history, really loves it, to the point where she has to make it come alive and imagine what these people could have said, could have thought, could have done. Her books are impeccably researched down to the type of knee-breeches Lord Freddy would have worn and impeccably imagined down to what Lord Freddy would have said at breakfast. You can't help but feel that these characters must have lived and, what's more, you wish that they did. And that is what historical fiction is all about.

A merry romp and a surprisingly evocative and accomplished book. Grad students past and present especially ought to dive in, as here at last is a heroine (and author) who Understands. I can't believe I have to wait another year for the next one. Highly recommended!