Barbara Hambly: Patriot Hearts (Book Review)
I like Barbara Hambly's books, and trust her as an author, so when some years ago I saw one titled "Patriot Hearts" I browsed a bit despite the title, and emerged intrigued enough to want to read the entire novel. Due to circumstance, I couldn't do so until now.
Patriot Hearts deals with the Founding Mothers, so to speak: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison and Sally Hemings. It's not linear, with the framing narration being Dolley waiting for the British soldiers to sack the capital, and then flashbacks - but always not in chronological order - to the lives of the First Ladies (who weren't called that then) as well as the woman whose precise role in Jefferson's life has been hotly debated ever since, with, I hear, not even DNA testing on her descendants laying the debate at rest among the no-he-didn't die-hards.
What I admire most about the novel is indeed not just the choice of Sally as the fourth "Founding Mother" but that thematic importance, the fact of slavery and the treatment of the increasing black population in the former colonies as just as much a part of the new United States as its struggle with Britain, or the aftermath of the French Revolution. Barbara Hambly also avoids my pet peeve in historical novels, i.e. the prejudices and various isms are only displayed by the villains, while the sympathetic characters are all years ahead of their time. Her Martha Washington is completely on board with the system, sometimes afraid of slave uprisings and horrified when it turns out her husband set his slaves free in his will. Dolley Madison as a Quaker starts out being against slavery but compromises once she marries Madison and while sometimes uneasy about the fact she now owns people accepts it as part of her life.
Presenting the Sally/Jefferson relationship, however, had to be the greatest narrative challenge (i.e. doing so in the historical context but without prettifying the circumstances). Here the fact we're solely in the women's pov throughout the book pays off best, because I can't imagine this would have been possible to do if we had been in Jefferson's pov instead of Sally's. The fact that she's his slave, that he owns her and her family never goes away from her consciousness. By letting the relationship start in Paris Hambly manages to give Sally some degree of consent possibility (as she's not a slave in France, which is why her brother once Jefferson's tenure as ambassador ends announces he wants to stay there as a free man rather than to return to Virginia as a slave) while also showing its limits; her Sally unromantically but realistically despite actually loving Jefferson wants to stay in France as well once she gets pregnant but has the bad luck that this decision coincides with the storming of the Bastille, and under these conditions life with Jefferson is still safer for her and her child. Later, back in Virginia, Sally is in an in between state of love and hate most of the time, and one of my complaints about the book is that I would have wished for an entire novel about Sally; not because the other ladies aren't interesting - they are, very much so! - but because I wanted more of her.
The other immediate observation I have is that this is a book primarily written for American readers who already know their Founding fathers. Now, history education in Germany treats the American revolution and subsequent early years only briefly, as a sideshow/prelude to the main world changing event which is the French Revolution. Which means that basically you're only told it happened and the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. What else I know about it I got from historical fiction, i.e. the musical 1776, the drama "The General from America" and Lion Feuchtwanger's novel "Proud Destiny" which is mainly about Beaumarchais and Franklin in Paris. This means I was lacking some of the context that I guess would be self evident for American readers, plus the various men didn't nearly come alive for me as much as the women did. (Presumably because they already live as archetypes in the American consciousness?) This works somewhat for Jefferson because he's supposed to be enigmatic and frustrating, but I couldn't tell you much about Washington and Adams as people based on this book alone (so I'm doubly grateful for 1776), and only something about James Madison.
Given, however, that the women come across vividly, this is a minor complaint. Again, Hambly avoids the mistake of giving them all a standard ahead of their time personality. Abigail is passionate about politics, while Martha sees them as shortening her husband's life and despises them yet is a natural at the art of diplomacy between hotheaded politicians in her salon. Dolley probably has the most sparkling personality between them while Sally has to adopt a quiet demeanor as a survival technique but comes across as very passionate about just about everything beneath it.
If pressed, I'd say it's more an interlocked collection of fictional portraits than a novel, which isn't a criticism. Definitely worth reading.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/748289.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Patriot Hearts deals with the Founding Mothers, so to speak: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison and Sally Hemings. It's not linear, with the framing narration being Dolley waiting for the British soldiers to sack the capital, and then flashbacks - but always not in chronological order - to the lives of the First Ladies (who weren't called that then) as well as the woman whose precise role in Jefferson's life has been hotly debated ever since, with, I hear, not even DNA testing on her descendants laying the debate at rest among the no-he-didn't die-hards.
What I admire most about the novel is indeed not just the choice of Sally as the fourth "Founding Mother" but that thematic importance, the fact of slavery and the treatment of the increasing black population in the former colonies as just as much a part of the new United States as its struggle with Britain, or the aftermath of the French Revolution. Barbara Hambly also avoids my pet peeve in historical novels, i.e. the prejudices and various isms are only displayed by the villains, while the sympathetic characters are all years ahead of their time. Her Martha Washington is completely on board with the system, sometimes afraid of slave uprisings and horrified when it turns out her husband set his slaves free in his will. Dolley Madison as a Quaker starts out being against slavery but compromises once she marries Madison and while sometimes uneasy about the fact she now owns people accepts it as part of her life.
Presenting the Sally/Jefferson relationship, however, had to be the greatest narrative challenge (i.e. doing so in the historical context but without prettifying the circumstances). Here the fact we're solely in the women's pov throughout the book pays off best, because I can't imagine this would have been possible to do if we had been in Jefferson's pov instead of Sally's. The fact that she's his slave, that he owns her and her family never goes away from her consciousness. By letting the relationship start in Paris Hambly manages to give Sally some degree of consent possibility (as she's not a slave in France, which is why her brother once Jefferson's tenure as ambassador ends announces he wants to stay there as a free man rather than to return to Virginia as a slave) while also showing its limits; her Sally unromantically but realistically despite actually loving Jefferson wants to stay in France as well once she gets pregnant but has the bad luck that this decision coincides with the storming of the Bastille, and under these conditions life with Jefferson is still safer for her and her child. Later, back in Virginia, Sally is in an in between state of love and hate most of the time, and one of my complaints about the book is that I would have wished for an entire novel about Sally; not because the other ladies aren't interesting - they are, very much so! - but because I wanted more of her.
The other immediate observation I have is that this is a book primarily written for American readers who already know their Founding fathers. Now, history education in Germany treats the American revolution and subsequent early years only briefly, as a sideshow/prelude to the main world changing event which is the French Revolution. Which means that basically you're only told it happened and the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. What else I know about it I got from historical fiction, i.e. the musical 1776, the drama "The General from America" and Lion Feuchtwanger's novel "Proud Destiny" which is mainly about Beaumarchais and Franklin in Paris. This means I was lacking some of the context that I guess would be self evident for American readers, plus the various men didn't nearly come alive for me as much as the women did. (Presumably because they already live as archetypes in the American consciousness?) This works somewhat for Jefferson because he's supposed to be enigmatic and frustrating, but I couldn't tell you much about Washington and Adams as people based on this book alone (so I'm doubly grateful for 1776), and only something about James Madison.
Given, however, that the women come across vividly, this is a minor complaint. Again, Hambly avoids the mistake of giving them all a standard ahead of their time personality. Abigail is passionate about politics, while Martha sees them as shortening her husband's life and despises them yet is a natural at the art of diplomacy between hotheaded politicians in her salon. Dolley probably has the most sparkling personality between them while Sally has to adopt a quiet demeanor as a survival technique but comes across as very passionate about just about everything beneath it.
If pressed, I'd say it's more an interlocked collection of fictional portraits than a novel, which isn't a criticism. Definitely worth reading.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/748289.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.