Since I started listening to a lot more books in audio format, I've been able to actually start chipping away at my long list of books to read. One book that happened upon my list (I forget where I heard of it) was Hester, by Laurie Lico Albanese.
After reading my previous book, I wanted something lighter. I did not find it.
OK, I take that back. Hester is lighter in the sense that it is a novel that will sweep you into another world, but it isn't lighter in terms of subject matter...something I ought to have known based on the premise!
The story is a complete fictionalization of the woman who would come to influence Hester Prynne of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In her novel, author Laurie Lico Albanese imagines Isobel Gamble, a young newlywed Scottish immigrant who crosses the Atlantic with her husband, Edward, to begin a new life in Salem, Massachusetts. Edward leaves her almost immediately to go back to sea as the ship's doctor/apothecary. As Isobel remains alone in Salem, she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, becoming his muse.
As she comes to learn, Nathaniel's history is one of guilt and shame that did indeed burden the writer in reality. [Fact: The staunchly Puritan Hathorne family was instrumental in the convictions at the Salem witch trials of the 1600s. Nathaniel Hawthorne was so ashamed of this history within his own family, that he even added the "w" to his name in an effort to distance himself from that dark aspect of his past.] Yet Isobel has family secrets of her own. Centuries past, her own "ancestress" was an accused and convicted witch who, with the help of friends (and perhaps the fairies of the Scottish highlands), was able to escape her own execution.
The premise of the book is certainly intriguing, particularly for those who have read The Scarlet Letter and will recognize the parallels. While addressing the topics of witches, insanity, and moral ethics, the story also features a great deal of synesthesia and its role in individuals who did not understand it as a pathology/condition/gift (however you wish to define it). I was surprised at the liberties taken by the author when it came to the character of Hawthorne, and wonder how he might take her rendition of him. It's probably a good thing he's dead and not around to read it.
