[Reviewlet] The Queen's Lover, by Francine du Plessix Gray
by Anne Clinard Barnhill
How do you write a compelling fiction when the reader knows what happens?
Anne Clinard Barnhill’s first novel, At the Mercy of the Queen, is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press. Her previous books include At Home in the Land of Oz: Autism, My Sister and Me (memoir, Jessica Kingsley Publisher, 2007) and What You Long For (short story collection, Main Street Rag, 2009). Ms. Barnhill holds an M.F.A. from UNC-Wilmington. Her stories have won awards and she is the recipient of several grants. Ms. Barnhill loves to read, play bridge, dance, play piano, and bake cookies with her grandchildren.
How do you write a compelling fiction when the reader knows what happens?
A finalist for the National Book Award, Julie Otsuka’s innovative novel The Buddha in the Attic pushes the bounds of narrative form with a collective narrator and a resistance to fixed fates. By inviting the reader to consider what could have happened, instead of what did, Otsuka makes her complicit in the fate of the story’s mail-order-brides.
A good place to die? Mary François Rockcastle’s second novel In Caddis Wood unfolds as call and response between a husband facing terminal illness, and his wife of more than thirty years. What does it look like to draw strength from a shared past, even as the future dwindles?
Charles Dodd White‘s debut novel, Lambs of Men (Casperian, Nov. 2010), unfolds in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina immediately following World War I. After serving in the trenches of France, Hiram Tobit returns to the hills as a Marine Corps recruiter. Hiram’s homecoming dredges up an unhappy past—the last person he wants to see awaits him, the sole remaining member of his family: his father, Sloane. The alcoholic Sloane accidentally shot Hiram’s brother, Kite, years earlier. Following on the heels of this horrible event, Hiram’s mother, Nara, committed suicide during Hiram’s tour of duty. Naturally, Hiram blames his father […]
