I am not a huge fan of historical novels, for reasons having to do with the writing and the reading (or the aftermath of reading). I sense a lot of authors learn about an interesting event, do some research, and then write a book that informs people about the event while thinking that's enough to make a good novel--but, sadly, it's not. On the reader side--and maybe it's just me--I read a historical novel, realizing while reading that some parts of the book are accurate and some parts are fictionalized, but over time weave both the true and the fictional into my ideas about the past event. So basically all my historical "knowledge" is suspect.
That's all an introduction to saying that somehow I just read three historical works of fiction in a row; all were informative and well written--I liked them all though I didn't entirely love any of them (perhaps I am just fickle). The Great Divide, by Cristina Henriquez, focuses on the building of the Panama Canal and the effects of the massive effort on a range of people, from a teenage stowaway from Barbados who needs money to pay for an operation for her sister and has heard there are jobs in Panama to the researcher who has come to Panama to defeat malaria but instead loses his wife to the disease to the sisters who dedicate themselves to saving their village, whose destruction is threatened by the canal. Henriquez causes the reader to think about the impact of imperialism and "progress" at ground level, which is an achievement. However, I found there were too many characters and few were fully realized, so the book fell a bit flat as a novel.
James, by Percival Everett, is a reimagining of the character Jim from Mark Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn. In creating James, Everett explores the cruelty of slavery, particularly the treatment of so-called runaways. What I found most interesting was that he created a kind of reverse code switching, with enslaved people using standard English at home with their family and friends and the "patois" expected of them when addressing whites. I thought the book was well-done but it was too violent and too much of a "man on the run" plot for me to really enjoy it.
Finally, we come to Ship Fever, by Andrea Barrett, which is a National Book Award winner (1996)--had it not been part of my very slow project of reading award winners, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. It is a collection of short stories and the title novella, many of which feature characters who are scientists, some of which are strictly historical, others blending historical and contemporary stories. For example, in a story titled "The English Pupil," Linnaeus in old age is the protagonist; he is in terrible health, not entirely compos mentis; in a combination of thought and hallucination, he remembers his students, many of whom died on field expeditions he encouraged them to make. "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds," in contrast, is a contemporary story about a couple in an unhappy marriage, but it also includes history related to Gregor Mendel because the husband is a botany professor and the wife's grandfather actually knew Mendel (her husband loves to tell her grandfather's story to students and colleagues, but the wife thinks he does it badly and therefore keeps some secrets about the relationship from her husband). Perhaps the most notable piece is the title novella, which is the story of a young Canadian doctor who becomes involved in treating Irish immigrants who arrive in Canada suffering from typhoid. It's a grim story, but also informative and oddly touching. As with most collections of short fiction, I liked some of the pieces in this collection and didn't care for others. But I thought the novella "Ship Fever" was great.
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