Staying present, while deep in the past
The historical fiction getting me through long summer afternoons in my backyard
I love to read outdoors. So much so that I have set up not one but three seating areas in my yard, so I always have a comfortable spot, whether I’m seeking shade or sun. If this sounds idyllic, you should also know that my yard is the default gathering place for the kids on my street. In all seasons, but particularly in the summer. If they aren’t directly next door, bouncing and shrieking on the trampoline, they are swarming in and out of my front and back yards via the garage.
I am generally okay with this situation, because my kids and their friends range in age from about eight to eleven. So they’re young enough that they need me around, but not so little that they need me to be actively involved in whatever it is they are doing. I can ‘supervise’ by sitting outside and reading, which suits all of us quite well. However, I have found that it is necessary to choose the right book for this context.
It needs to be immersive—a voice or world so compelling I can sink into it in a matter of sentences—yet not so intellectually demanding that I am unable to process it while also tracking the underlying emotions involved in a game of tag or why, exactly, a kid is filling a bucket at my outdoor tap. If I find it necessary to go back a paragraph or so to reorient myself every time I look up from the page to respond to an invitation—hey mom! watch this cartwheel!—or request—can we bike around the block?—it’s best saved for my nightstand.
A familiar genre, author, and/or cast of characters is ideal for this reading scenario, because it allows me to save a little processing power for maintaining that situational awareness. So, I’m always on the hunt for a series or else a new-to-me writer with a nice long backlist in the summer. Last year, I discovered Meg Wolitzer. This summer, it’s Jane Johnson.
I’ve read three of her novels, so far, in the following order, but I’ll be digging into her backlist and looking for her latest, The White Hare, before the summer is out.
The Sea Gate, by Jane Johnson
I stumbled onto The Sea Gate at the library, and picked it up thinking I could use it to fill the “read a book based on the cover” square of What to Read If Summer Bingo. Absolutely everything about it appealed to me—the title, the moodily beautiful image, the promises made in the quote. I mean, how often am I going to encounter a foul-mouthed parrot outside of a swashbuckling adventure story? Probably not super often. I had to take the chance on this book, and I’m glad I did.
When Rebecca finds a handwritten letter in a pile of bills in her mother’s rundown flat, she opens it on an impulse made of both curiosity and grief; her mother has just died, and despite the closeness of their relationship, Rebecca is beginning to realize just how much she didn’t know about her mother. The letter is from Olivia, an elderly cousin in a desperate situation. She has been hospitalized after a fall, and, having witnessed the state of her home (which she shares only with Gabriel, the aforementioned parrot) social services will not allow her to be discharged until the place has been made “habitable.” Though Olivia is a near stranger, Rebecca decides to take on the improvement project in her mother’s place, in part to escape her life in London: all that’s keeping her there is an unhealthy relationship with a handsome artist and an ominous phone message regarding her recent ultrasound. As she begins to explore her cousin’s once-grand old house on the Cornish coast, sizing up the required repairs and renovations, she soon discovers secrets and treasures dating back to World War II and Olivia’s extraordinary past.
Because Rebecca’s first-person narrative is interwoven with a third-person account of Olivia’s story, as readers we are always one step ahead of her in understanding the home’s more unusual features and contents. And yet, I’ll be honest; there was at least one revelation in the final chapter that I did not see coming.
The Salt Road, by Jane Johnson
The Salt Road has a lot in common with The Sea Gate, in both structure and theme. Isabelle’s journey also begins with the death of a parent and a letter. The letter is from her father, an esteemed archaeologist from whom she has been estranged for many years. She has good reason to distrust his missive; short and cryptic, like the man himself, it mentions a box of artifacts he describes as “waymarkers” for her life, that she must “piece together” for herself. Its contents lead her to Morocco, and to the incredible story of Mariata, a direct descendant of Tin Hinan, the legendary queen of a nomadic desert tribe. Its members call themselves Kel Tagelmust, which means the ‘People of the Veil,’ but in the wider world they are more commonly known by the Arabic name for them, Tuareg.
Without giving anything away, I can tell you that the two women find themselves crossing the desert under completely different circumstances, and their journeys unfold in alternating chapters that will have you flipping the pages at a furious pace. Once again, I was surprised by various plot twists and turns, though I admit, with this novel I didn’t even try to figure out how the two stories would eventually connect; I was too busy enjoying the scenery. I was fascinated by the Kel Tagelmust way of life, and the author’s cinematic depictions of the desert. I don’t always form a mental image as I read, but the mountains, dunes, caves, and tents came so vividly to life for me, they eclipsed my suburban backyard almost completely. One afternoon, I came thiiiiis close to missing a developing situation involving a jug of bubble mix and the contents of my recycle bin. If that second-last chapter was even a paragraph longer, I would have been mopping the floor in my garage while muttering cuss words after I finished the book.
Court of Lions, by Jane Johnson
Much as I enjoyed going to Morocco in The Salt Road, I wouldn’t say the novel made me long to visit the country in real life—at least not in the same way The Sea Gate had me wanting to walk along the Cornwall Coastal Path, or the way Court of Lions had me wistfully planning a trip to the Alhambra. In this novel, we get to visit the spectacular Moorish palace and fortress in two different time periods. With Kate Fordham, a British woman in hiding, we see the Alhambra as it is today, a UNESCO World Heritage site and major tourist attraction. With Prince Abu Abdullah Mohammed and his Special Guardian, Blessings, we see the Alhambra as it was in 1476, just before the fall of Grenada.
Thrillingly, the premise of this novel is unbelievably romantic and based on a true story. In 2013, Johnson learned that contemporary restorers of the Alhambra discovered a scrap of paper buried deep within one of its massive, intricately-carved wooden doors. “It appeared to be an ancient love letter,” she writes in her Author’s Note, “but the provenance of the note and the identity of the scribe remain a mystery…And I thought: What if a series of tiny notes (love letters, maybe; or spells) written in the fifteenth century were to come to light in the twenty-first century?”
If you are at all intrigued by that question, you will probably enjoy this book, so I won’t say much more about the plot. Personally, I found the contemporary plot line a wee bit sensational, and much preferred the inherent drama of the historical period portrayed in the novel. I must confess, my knowledge of Spanish history is spotty enough that I truly did not know how various marriages and battles were going to play out, and watching these events unfold through the eyes of Blessings, a wholly imaginary figure who captured my heart from page one, was a real delight.
Fractured nuclear families abound within the pages of these three novels, as I believe they do throughout all of Jane Johnson’s fiction. I will be tracking down more of them to find out, though I’m beginning to feel that my keen interest in this theme is borderline morbid.
As a widow, I should really understand that marriage does not guarantee a more stable, secure family life than the one I’m living now, as a solo mom. And I do. I know all of the two-parent families in my comfortably middle-class, suburban neighbourhood aren’t actually any more secure than mine once seemed to be. They’re just as vulnerable to illness and misfortune as my family was then, and still is now. What I envy is not their safety and stability, but the illusion thereof, even if it is as thin and transparent as a bubble. Mine popped the day my husband went into the hospital, and I can’t recreate it. I don’t want to break anyone else’s, but it is hard, sometimes, to watch other, luckier families floating by. I can still remember what that feels like.
It doesn’t feel like floating, at all. You think you’re on the ground the whole time but really, it’s just that you’re always looking straight up or ahead, not down. Like Wile E. Coyote in the moments after he follows the Road Runner off the cliff.
It’s tempting to follow the lead of Johnson’s strong, intelligent, grieving heroines, and construct some sort of shell to take the place of that bubble, to protect myself from further losses and disillusionment. But, if I’ve learned anything from reading their stories, one right after the other, after four-ish years of doing exactly that, it’s that this shell strategy generally results in a safe but small, pallid life. It’s been okay, even good, at times. But if my life story was a novel, and this moment, right here, was the last chapter, and the protagonist came to this realization about the way she’d been living, and didn’t change a thing about it, I’d probably toss the book clear across the yard.
Wouldn’t you?
And now, a bit of housekeeping. Despite all the time I spend reading while my kids and their friends are playing in my yard, I must confess it’s been much harder to find time and energy for writing. In August, it will be harder still, as we will be away two weeks out of the month. So, I’ve decided to take the month off from posting. I’ll be back in your inbox when school is back in. See you in September!