Deborah Noyes

Angel and Apostle

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Deborah Noyes’s Angel and Apostle, styled as a sequel to The Scarlet Letter, is a fascinating journey and an interesting effort to flesh out the life of a child attempting to live under the shadow of shame, guilt, and community exile. Set shortly after the ostracism of Hester Prynne we see the common adage that the “sins of [in this case the mother] shall be visited upon her children” is a fatalistic axiom that can be made real and that hangs heavy over the heads of Hester and Pearl her precocious and earlier-than-normal world-weary daughter.

Even as the townsfolk lay upon Pearl, the dubious title of “the child of the temptress”, and as much as the other characters of the small New England town would have it otherwise, she appears to lead a life where the consequences of her mother’s supposed social transgression are at the margins of her world. Pearl finds work within house of the sickly mother of a small blind boy, Simon, who she has befriended, and like the child of any time period, sees enthralling mystery and adventure in the countryside. This, for me, is a significant point of the book, the disallowing of the community and previous circumstances through which Pearl, first in New England and then in the “motherland,” seeks her own path and an ultimate sense of individual freedom.

Noyes does a remarkable job of weaving rich depictions of puritanical New England society as the backdrop for the affairs of a strong woman, her bold progeny and the lives of the sordid people that orbit in challenge. Angel and Apostle is a fulfilling next chapter in the darkly romantic or perhaps bittersweet tale of Ms. Prynne and Pearl. Upon finishing every good book, your heart sinks a little at the conclusion of such a wonderful tale but Noyes can rest assured that the humbling task that she assumed in writing a professed sequel to The Scarlet Letter was a riveting success. I am sure that, as I did, Nathaniel Hawthorne would find Angel and Apostle a delightful extrapolation on a master’s work built upon by another master in deliciously page-turning form.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, May 26th 2010

Captivity

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Deborah Noyes

Unbridled Books

Captivity is a historical novel based on the true story of the Fox sisters, who claimed they could communicate with the dead. Able to convince a group of people of their abilities, they garnered a following that would grow to become a religious movement known as American Spiritualism, or simply Spiritualism. The three Fox sisters relied on raps to communicate with the dead, having the spirits count off the letters, words, and numbers they were trying to say.

Deborah Noyes uses the history of the Fox sisters and then builds on it with the story of Clara Gill. Clara has suffered the death of a loved one and while she is skeptical at the ability of the Fox sisters, she begins to embrace the possibility of reconnecting with the spirit of the love she lost. The novel switches back and forth between Clara’s narrative and that of the Fox sisters—particularly Maggie who, in the novel, works for some time at Clara’s house.

One of the things I liked best about this book is the fact the way each chapter shifts between the women’s points of view. I’m a big fan of nontraditional narratives because I feel it keeps the momentum going and keeps the reader interested. Even more to my liking, Clara’s story jumps a bit through time. In the first few Clara-centric chapters, for instance, you learn that she has suffered some sort of loss that has left her reclusive from even her father, the only family she has left. What you don’t immediately learn is how she got this way. As her narrative unfolds, the reader it taken back about ten years to explain her past, but it takes several chapters to get to the full story. People who prefer traditional narratives will likely get very frustrated that it takes so long to understand what’s going on.

Because communicating with spirits is already a seemingly fictional topic, it was hard to separate fiction from the alleged reality, and it certainly sparked some interest in me to learn more about the Fox sisters and Spiritualism. Within minutes of finishing the book, I was online, searching for Spiritualism and the history of the Fox sisters. From the little I could find out, it certainly seems that Noyes spent quite some time researching for this novel.

In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter what’s fact and what’s fiction. The novel is written in the third-person, but Noyes still describes what people are thinking and feeling enough for the reader to become invested in the characters. On top of that, she was able to pull me into the story and believe everything she’s presenting as complete truth. It’s rare that a novel can do that with as much ease as this one.

Written by: frau sally benz, May 11th 2010

When I Met the Wolf Girls

admin — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:18:00 +0000

By Deborah Noyes, August Hall

Houghton Mifflin

The title of this children’s book caught my eye since my family supports Wolf Park, a local wolf education and research facility located in Battle Ground, Indiana. This delicate story of family and friendship, set in picture-book format, recants the ordeal of two feral sisters discovered in Midnapore, India in the 1920s. The story is told in the perspective of an orphan named Bulu, who meets Amala and Kamala when a Christian missionary brought them to an orphanage after discovering the pair in a termite mound raised by a she-wolf. The sad tale of orphan life is compounded by loss and death as the sisters struggle with their new lives and all that is expected by a civilized society.

This book is a great read aloud, quality time opportunity. I received expert advise on this work from an expert, my 8 year-old neighbor Audrey M., who has written several stories herself. Who better to know a good children’s book than an accomplished young writer? We explored the story together, admiring the illustrations, trying hard to pick just one favorite picture. August Hall’s illustrations treat the eye with bold colors and reveal the story in beautiful pictures as the tale winds through the 40-page book. His acrylic illustrations breathe life into the scenes as Bulu’s story shares the chaos, fear and sadness of the experience.

Audrey agreed the book was very good, and we ended up having our own favorite picture. We discussed the story line, ogled at the photograph of the two sisters taken in the 1920s that the author supplied and read the true story on how the girls were discovered by J.A.L. Singh. This is a great book that created the space for quality time, and Audrey and I enjoyed discussing a good book together.

The author (a.k.a. Deborah Wayshak, editor at Candlewick Press) has published seven books. August Hall is a California based illustrator and has done work for Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar Animation and Dreamworks. He has also written and illustrated another children’s book, Song and Jupiter.

Written by: Mary O'Hara, June 18th 2007