Book Review: Houses of Stone
I read Barbara Michael’s Houses of Stone because of Sarah Rees Brennan’s review. It always feels kind of pointless reviewing something that Brennan has already reviewed, because what could I say that she has not? But I will say a bit more, because I loved this book and I think some of you might enjoy it too.
The heroine, Karen, is a literature professor who stumbles on a possibly career-making find: a Gothic novel by a little-known American poet, Ismene, whose poems Karen discovered and published earlier. With the help of her friend, history professor Peggy Finneyfrock (let us pause to delight in this name), Karen sets out of a research trip in hopes of discovering Ismene’s true identity, which of course includes discovering a big scary house.
I love the way that this book muses on the gothic (and modern gothic) genre, even as it revels in some of the tropes - the scary house, the untrustworthy possible lovers - and pointedly diverges from others, notably the fact that women are often pitted against each other in Gothic novels. Peggy Finneyfrock is Karen’s most important research partner, but she has other women friends as well, and they all help her at various points in the book. A feminist gothic novel!
I love the fact that this book takes intellectual endeavor as its guiding force - it’s so rare for a book to have scholarship as its main theme. The feminist literary theories that Karen talks about have become more mainstream in the twenty years since the book was published, so some of her “let me talk about how women writers are devalued” sections seem a little info-dumpy, but that’s a minor part of the book, and following the ins and outs of her research is fun.
Of course it helps that her research concerns a cracking good Gothic novel, written during the early nineteenth century and lost for years at the bottom of a trunk. Stylistically the excerpts from the novel don’t sound early nineteenth century to me - but this is probably something that will bother only me, because who else willingly reads antebellum American novels? - but the plot points and the construction of the blamelessly pure main character who prefers quiet contemplation to recreation, and gently chastises her livelier younger sister for failing to share this taste, are spot on.
Because Karen’s research into the novel and her friendships take up the bulk of the book, the romance feels rather tacked-on, and I rather wish it had been left off altogether. It’s not that there was anything objectionable about the guy she ends up with, unless the fact that I never really got a handle on him as a character counts, but the space would have been better devoted to more of Karen’s research.
That said, as the love interest was a thing, I was so happy that Karen didn’t end up getting with the guy she didn’t end up getting with, because damn, he was a jerk and I am so tired of love interests who become magically better people through The Power of Love. Instead she gets with the guy who is actually decent, so that was good, at least.
***
Barbara Michaels also wrote, under another pseudonym, the Amelia Peabody mystery series. I’ve been waffling about reading these books for quite some time (there are so many of them!), but the fact that they’re by the author of Houses of Stone definitely puts another plus in the “To Read” column.
The heroine, Karen, is a literature professor who stumbles on a possibly career-making find: a Gothic novel by a little-known American poet, Ismene, whose poems Karen discovered and published earlier. With the help of her friend, history professor Peggy Finneyfrock (let us pause to delight in this name), Karen sets out of a research trip in hopes of discovering Ismene’s true identity, which of course includes discovering a big scary house.
I love the way that this book muses on the gothic (and modern gothic) genre, even as it revels in some of the tropes - the scary house, the untrustworthy possible lovers - and pointedly diverges from others, notably the fact that women are often pitted against each other in Gothic novels. Peggy Finneyfrock is Karen’s most important research partner, but she has other women friends as well, and they all help her at various points in the book. A feminist gothic novel!
I love the fact that this book takes intellectual endeavor as its guiding force - it’s so rare for a book to have scholarship as its main theme. The feminist literary theories that Karen talks about have become more mainstream in the twenty years since the book was published, so some of her “let me talk about how women writers are devalued” sections seem a little info-dumpy, but that’s a minor part of the book, and following the ins and outs of her research is fun.
Of course it helps that her research concerns a cracking good Gothic novel, written during the early nineteenth century and lost for years at the bottom of a trunk. Stylistically the excerpts from the novel don’t sound early nineteenth century to me - but this is probably something that will bother only me, because who else willingly reads antebellum American novels? - but the plot points and the construction of the blamelessly pure main character who prefers quiet contemplation to recreation, and gently chastises her livelier younger sister for failing to share this taste, are spot on.
Because Karen’s research into the novel and her friendships take up the bulk of the book, the romance feels rather tacked-on, and I rather wish it had been left off altogether. It’s not that there was anything objectionable about the guy she ends up with, unless the fact that I never really got a handle on him as a character counts, but the space would have been better devoted to more of Karen’s research.
That said, as the love interest was a thing, I was so happy that Karen didn’t end up getting with the guy she didn’t end up getting with, because damn, he was a jerk and I am so tired of love interests who become magically better people through The Power of Love. Instead she gets with the guy who is actually decent, so that was good, at least.
***
Barbara Michaels also wrote, under another pseudonym, the Amelia Peabody mystery series. I’ve been waffling about reading these books for quite some time (there are so many of them!), but the fact that they’re by the author of Houses of Stone definitely puts another plus in the “To Read” column.