Sept. 29, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: 'The White Garden': Searching for the Truth About Virginia Woolf's Death
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Ever since I read Elizabeth Kostova's 2005 novel "The Historian," I've been looking for a worthy successor in a genre that might be called on the road suspense historical fiction: A road trip in search of elusive truths about an historical figure.
With the publication of Stephanie Barron's "The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf" (Bantam Books, 336 pages, $15.00) I believe I've found it.
In Kostova's 656-page book, it's a search for Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. In Barron's paperback original, the subject is British novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a member of the Bloomsbury Group and perhaps most famous for her suicide by drowning in the River Ouse in Sussex. Or maybe for the punning title of a play by Edward Albee -- and later a wonderful movie version directed by Mike Nichols starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton -- "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."
In her last note to her husband Leonard Woolf, Virginia Stephen Woolf wrote: "I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I cant recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V. "
Barron's novel begins in the present day -- there are many flashbacks -- with Jo Bellamy, an American landscape designer visiting Sissinghurst Castle Garden in the English county of Kent. She's working for a wealthy client, Graydon Westlake, who wants her to replicate the famous White Garden of Vita Sackville-West at his estate in the Hamptons.
It's a poignant trip for Jo because her beloved grandfather Jock worked as a young man for Vita and her husband Harold Nicholson around the time of Virginia's suicide. Before his own suicide, which occurred days before Jo left for England, Jock had long been haunted by something that happened at Sissinghurst. While she's studying the garden, which is famous for exclusively white or silver perennials, she discovers a notebook in a garden shed that contains an entry that might have been written by Virginia. But it was dated one day after Woolf supposedly walked into the River Ouse near her home in Rodmell on March 28, 1941 with her overcoat pockets stuffed with rocks. Her skeletonized body was found on April 18, 1941.
If it's authenticated, the diary could change everything about the novelist's final hours. With the reluctant permission of Sissinghurst's director Imogen Cantwell, Jo takes the diary to Sotheby's UK in London, where she meets Peter Llewellyn, a man who can help her authenticate the diary.
Vita was about ten years younger than Virginia and had a romantic relationship with her. The Bloomsbury Group, which included Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Rupert Brook, Leonard Woolf, was extremely liberal about sexual choices, to say the least. Bisexuality and homosexuality was the order of the day and Vita had many women lovers. She and Virginia remained friends after the sexual relationship ended and Virginia often visited Vita and Harold at Sissinghurst.
"The White Garden" is an onion of a novel, with successive peelings revealing much to Jo Bellamy as she and Peter travel around England in his Triumph car. It's a remarkable literary achievement and readers who are fascinated with English cultural history in the early years of the 20th Century as I am should enjoy it as much as I did. The book includes reading group questions and is an ideal novel for a reading group.
About the author: Stephanie Barron has worked as a journalist and as an intelligence analyst for the CIA. As Francine Mathews, she is the author of the Nantucket series, as well as the thriller "The Alibi Club." As Stephanie Barron, she is the author of the Jane Austen mystery series. She lives in Denver, CO.
Author's web site: www.stephaniebarron.com
Publisher's web site: www.randomhousereaderscircle.com
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BOOK REVIEW: 'The White Garden': Searching for the Truth About Virginia Woolf's Death
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Ever since I read Elizabeth Kostova's 2005 novel "The Historian," I've been looking for a worthy successor in a genre that might be called on the road suspense historical fiction: A road trip in search of elusive truths about an historical figure.
With the publication of Stephanie Barron's "The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf" (Bantam Books, 336 pages, $15.00) I believe I've found it.
In Kostova's 656-page book, it's a search for Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. In Barron's paperback original, the subject is British novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a member of the Bloomsbury Group and perhaps most famous for her suicide by drowning in the River Ouse in Sussex. Or maybe for the punning title of a play by Edward Albee -- and later a wonderful movie version directed by Mike Nichols starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton -- "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."
In her last note to her husband Leonard Woolf, Virginia Stephen Woolf wrote: "I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I cant recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V. "
Barron's novel begins in the present day -- there are many flashbacks -- with Jo Bellamy, an American landscape designer visiting Sissinghurst Castle Garden in the English county of Kent. She's working for a wealthy client, Graydon Westlake, who wants her to replicate the famous White Garden of Vita Sackville-West at his estate in the Hamptons.
It's a poignant trip for Jo because her beloved grandfather Jock worked as a young man for Vita and her husband Harold Nicholson around the time of Virginia's suicide. Before his own suicide, which occurred days before Jo left for England, Jock had long been haunted by something that happened at Sissinghurst. While she's studying the garden, which is famous for exclusively white or silver perennials, she discovers a notebook in a garden shed that contains an entry that might have been written by Virginia. But it was dated one day after Woolf supposedly walked into the River Ouse near her home in Rodmell on March 28, 1941 with her overcoat pockets stuffed with rocks. Her skeletonized body was found on April 18, 1941.
If it's authenticated, the diary could change everything about the novelist's final hours. With the reluctant permission of Sissinghurst's director Imogen Cantwell, Jo takes the diary to Sotheby's UK in London, where she meets Peter Llewellyn, a man who can help her authenticate the diary.
Vita was about ten years younger than Virginia and had a romantic relationship with her. The Bloomsbury Group, which included Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Rupert Brook, Leonard Woolf, was extremely liberal about sexual choices, to say the least. Bisexuality and homosexuality was the order of the day and Vita had many women lovers. She and Virginia remained friends after the sexual relationship ended and Virginia often visited Vita and Harold at Sissinghurst.
"The White Garden" is an onion of a novel, with successive peelings revealing much to Jo Bellamy as she and Peter travel around England in his Triumph car. It's a remarkable literary achievement and readers who are fascinated with English cultural history in the early years of the 20th Century as I am should enjoy it as much as I did. The book includes reading group questions and is an ideal novel for a reading group.
About the author: Stephanie Barron has worked as a journalist and as an intelligence analyst for the CIA. As Francine Mathews, she is the author of the Nantucket series, as well as the thriller "The Alibi Club." As Stephanie Barron, she is the author of the Jane Austen mystery series. She lives in Denver, CO.
Author's web site: www.stephaniebarron.com
Publisher's web site: www.randomhousereaderscircle.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
