The Goddess and the Thief - Essie Fox - Author guest post & review

I am delighted to share a guest blog post by author Essie Fox today, writing about her novel The Goddess and the Thief.  

BLOG POST BY ESSIE FOX

The Goddess and the Thief is perhaps the most gothic of my three Victorian novels. It has ghosts, Hindu gods, a cursed diamond, and opiate-driven dreams – not to mention certain vampiric themes, some of which allude to stories in the original Penny Dreadfuls; such as that of Varney the Vampire, a rather a lurid precursor of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

But, as well as providing what I hope is an entertaining read, many of the novel’s dramatic scenes reference more serious issues by far – relating to loss and identity – to female subjugation – and also obsessive religious beliefs when (for whatever reasons), some people are driven to behave in ways that others would call insane. And yet, are they really deluded? Or, is it true, as Shakespeare wrote that, “There are more things in heaven and earth…than dreamt of in your philosophy.”

In The Goddess and The Thief, my narrator is Alice Willoughby, a young woman who is torn between two very different worlds – and very different philosophies – being born and raised in India for the first eight years of her life, and then coming to live in England.

In India, her beloved ayah fills her head with tales of the Hindu gods – particularly Shiva and Sati. Sati was the god’s first mortal wife, who died when she flung herself into the flames of a fire at a sacred festival to prove her devotion to the god. Sati is eventually reborn in the form of Parvati, the human child who later on becomes divine when Shiva takes her as his bride.

Alice never forgets these stories, and her opening words in the novel are: “Do you believe in other worlds, of lives ever after, of heavens on earth? My ayah did and from her lips there dripped such honeyed promises…”

But Mini’s ‘honeyed promises’ go on to become the foundation for many subsequent events that prove to be very far from sweet, when Alice’ is forced to leave her care – when her father, who is in the service of the British East India Company, fears for his daughter’s morality and travels with her to England, where he leaves her in the care of an aunt. But he could not be more mistaken. Aunt Mercy is not as respectable as Alice’s father believes her to be, but is actually involved in the trade of spiritualist mediums. And, whereas she is a fraud, Alice – though a reluctant recruit – proves to have genuine psychic skills. And then, when the two women are befriended by a man called Lucian Tilsbury (whose own experiences in India have led to certain obsessions that neither women at first perceives), the resulting affairs and deceptions lead Alice – and her jealous aunt – into a nightmare of abuse, and increasingly dangerous desires.

Alice is unwittingly involved in the theft of a diamond which has been brought to England as ransom at the end of the Second Anglo Sikh war. In reality this diamond is based upon the actual Koh-i-noor, still one of the crown jewels today and on view in the Tower of London.

In my novel, the Koh-i-noor appears as a symbol of mystical spiritualism, linked to magical events relating to the Hindu gods, being able to bless – or sometimes curse – all those who come into its light. And, on a more prosaic level, the diamond’s power also lies in the fact that it was once the sovereign symbol of Lahore, and all that has now been taken away from the glamorous Prince Duleep Singh – the boy maharajah who was deposed and whose story is absolutely true, and which, I have taken the liberty of weaving into my novel’s plot.

Duleep really did come to England where he lived a very privileged life as a favourite of Queen Victoria. And in later years he also wished to claim his diamond back again, and hoped to return to India to sit once again on his golden throne; only not in quite the dramatic way described in The Goddess and the Thief.

The novel is suffused in deceits and supernatural mysteries, amongst which the prince, and Alice too, must face the ghosts from their Indian pasts. And sometimes those ghosts are imaginary, and sometimes they are very real. But as one of the other characters says when she sees some broken shards of glass: ‘See the glisten of that…as bright as any precious jewel. You can never tell ...what’s true...what’s false.’

Well, I hope if you read The Goddess and the Thief that by the time the novel ends you will see what’s real and what is false concerning the tales of the diamond, and also regarding Alice’s past – and whether, as Tilsbury believes, her future lies in India, linked to those stories her Ayah once told about the sacred Hindu gods. And finally, with regard to Duleep, I hope you find some sympathy and see that the British Empire’s dream of conquest and trade in India could sometimes lead to sadness – when a boy torn between two different worlds might end up belonging nowhere.

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Huge thanks to Essie for sharing her thoughts here!

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My review

'Those years I lived in India, I think they were my paradise.'

As a little girl, Alice Willoughby lived with her father in India, raised by her dear ayah, Mini, who tells her stories about Hindu gods, in particular Shiva and Parvati. Alice is devastated when taken by her father from this home that she knows and loves, and brought to live in Windsor, supposedly for a moral upbringing, with her self-centred aunt Mercy, who unbeknownst to Alice's father is in fact a spiritualist medium. When she lived in India, Alice once saw the precious, priceless Koh-i-Noor diamond, which was taken from India and brought to England after the end of the second Anglo-Sikh war, and it is set to play a significant role in her life to come. One day a mysterious man named Lucian Tilsbury enters Alice and Mercy's lives, and a plot is put into motion regarding the diamond.

Alice finds herself under the control and whims of her aunt, made to play a role and not cared for lovingly as she had been in India: 'I was the puppet whose strings were pulled by the whims and desires of her aunt.'  She finds herself with little option but to help her Aunt with her activities as a medium despite her desire not to be a part of them. A moment I particularly enjoyed was when Mercy, who, despite her assertions, has no genuine abilities as a medium, witnesses the very real psychic abilities of Alice. 

The Goddess and the Thief is a beautifully written, intricate, gothic and dark Victorian novel weaving together so many intriguing layers, many that I knew little of before reading this story. I loved the descriptions of India and hearing the stories of the Hindu gods that Alice had been told, stories that I might have otherwise never come across. 

It feels as though Essie Fox writes with a real passion and fascination for her themes, and this comes across, it drew me in and aroused my interest. In fact, right from the first page, reading the letter from Alice's mother to her sister Mercy that was 'never sent', I was intrigued. I liked how Queen Victoria and her mourning were incorporated into the storyline. Another fascinating character brought into the tale is the Maharajah Duleep Singh, taken from his homeland to England, becoming Queen Victoria's 'beautiful boy'. The plot holds surprises and twists, and I found myself reading a little slower sometimes to make sure I fully digested what was happening, sometimes to pause and think about what had happened, and I had to ask myself sometimes if I things were real or imaginary. 

Alice's world whilst in India feels so rich and full of colour and joyous experiences, and her life in England seems by contrast to be constrained, bleak and grey, stifling her. At times I felt very sad for Alice at the situations she found herself in, very vulnerable, sometimes with little or no way out, being manipulated or controlled by others.

It's a read strong on atmosphere, plot, imagination and mystery, with characters driven by passion and obsession. I felt immersed in a different place, hearing tales of mysterious people, precious objects, of mythology, gods and spirits, and learning a little of colonialism. The story ended on a poignant note.  For me this was an unusual, clever and captivating tale by an author talented in successfully weaving so many facets of history and imagination together into her narratives. I don't know if I've done this story justice in my review but hopefully given a flavour of it and how I enjoyed it. Do read the afterword by the author that sheds more light on what you've just read.

I was lucky enough to read the lovely hardback edition of this novel, which is beautifully designed and textured. 

I received a copy of this novel for an honest review.

Author links - twitter @EssieFox | website | Virtual Victorian |

Published by Orion

Tuesday Intro: The Goddess and the Thief by Essie Fox

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea - every Tuesday, sharing the first paragraph (or a few) of a book you are currently reading or thinking about reading soon. Visit the blog here to join in.

I'm reading The Goddess and the Thief by Essie Fox.

What a stunning cover design this book has.

First paragraph

'The Letter - Never Sent

Benares

Tuesday, July 22nd, 1843

My Dearest Sister, Mercy,

How pleased I was to receive your letter, and to know that you and Mama have settled into the Windsor house, although Charles (and please, you must call him Charles - Doctor Willoughby is too formal by far!) says he will not countenance one more word of you being the 'poor relations'. He insists that Claremont Road is yours to do with exactly as you choose, and that when the time comes for us to return the house is perfectly adequate to accommodate the four of us - and any children too.

I only wish I were with you now, to select the new hangings and furniture - all those pleasures that I dreamed about before Charles was so prematurely called to return to his duties in India. Oh, Mercy, how I miss you! England is too far away, both in distance and in memory. I beg you not to tell Mama, but your letter has found me ailing and really at the lowest ebb. This homesickness consumes me.'

Well, I'm halfway through and really absorbed in this brilliant tale. I liked the opening and was intrigued about the fact that the letter was never sent.

What do you think, and would you keep reading?

Synopsis

Uprooted from her home in India, Alice is raised by her aunt, a spiritualist medium in Windsor. When the mysterious Mr Tilsbury enters their lives, Alice is drawn into a plot to steal the priceless Koh-i-Noor diamond, claimed by the British Empire at the end of the Anglo-Sikh wars.

Said to be both blessed and cursed, the sacred Indian stone exerts its power over all who encounter it: a handsome deposed maharajah determined to claim his rightful throne, a man hell-bent on discovering the secrets of eternity, and a widowed queen who hopes the jewel can draw her husband's spirit back. In the midst of all this madness, Alice must discover a way to regain control of her life and fate...

The Engagements - J. Courtney Sullivan

I'm very pleased to be part of the blog tour for The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan, published by Virago. Below are my thoughts on the novel, as well as a Q & A with the author. 

My thoughts

The Engagements is a captivating, delightful novel that invites us into the lives of various characters and spans the years from the 1940s to the present day. In it, the author looks at the significance and history of the diamond engagement ring as a recognised token of love, devotion and commitment, at different attitudes to marriage, at different women and men and the choices they make, and the emotions which connect us all. The underlying or main thread if you like, is the story of Mary Frances Gerety, an independent unmarried female copywriter at a time (1947) when this was exceptional, and a wonder in the advertising world - working for the dominant advertising agency, she was tasked with convincing everyone that every woman who was to be married needed a diamond ring, and she brought us the famous words A Diamond is Forever. 

'The diamond would last even if the love did not. Even though youth would not.'

I found it fascinating to discover more about her through the author's portrait of her, to learn about her personal life and work. Though much of her life's work was devoted to something idealised as the height of romance and commitment, her own personal life was somewhat of a contrast to this; 'she found her job far more exciting than any man she had met...' Frances has to contend with the expectations of her day, when women married and ran the home; other women observed that 'It's not natural for a woman of a certain age to want to work in a stuffy office with men all day...'  so her career and her being single went against this, and others viewed her with suspicion, yet she seemed content. I loved her confidence, her drive, talent and self-belief. Many moments stood out as I read, especially a comment she makes with regard to trying to join the all-male golf club. She watches as other women, even those who had worked, were more or less forced to stop once married. And later in her life, she sees how women are changing and taking chances that were never there for her.

The novel then introduces us to the other strands; there is Evelyn in 1972, James in 1987, Delphine in 2003 and Kate in 2012. Evelyn has been happily married for many years but is concerned about her son's behaviour in his marriage, James is a man devoted to his wife and trying to do the right thing but beset by financial problems, Delphine had a steady marriage but has left France for America with her lover, and Kate who 'was distrustful of marriage' and is happy to live with Dan. Each relationship is different, whether a marriage, an affair, one partner richer or poorer, yet there are emotions, and difficulties, joys and sadness in common for them all.

The narrative is skillfully structured, building together a little from each of the different stories, stories that take us back and forth in time, that illustrate the choices people make in life and love, about passion, loyalty, independence, commitment. There are five stories, and five parts to the novel, and each part takes us back to each story once. The years covered by novel allow the author to illustrate the changes in marriage, in attitudes, from traditional to modern values, from divorce being almost impossible to becoming an everyday occurrence.

My copy, with so many bits I loved tagged.

I adored this novel and I absolutely didn't want it to end. I was swept up in each of the different story strands and I couldn't wait to return to each of them. I took a photo of the paperback copy I read because it just shows how many sentences or events or elements of the prose really struck me or resonated, and which I tagged to refer back to; there were so many in this book. I felt that each of the stories was strong and absorbing; they were each strong tales in their own right and brought together they made for a brilliant read. I wondered if I would be able to keep each of the stories and all the characters in my head as I read, because of the way the narrative shifted, but I found this worked well and each tale, and the primary characters within it, were distinctive and memorable.

I think readers will react differently to the stories depending on their experience and opinions; this would be a great book for discussion. It would also be a wonderful book to take on holiday and get lost in. I escaped into this story and was absorbed; I didn't want to be interrupted or distracted from this book, it was the type of read for me that it both an escape and reminded me of the great enjoyment that comes from a book that you really 'click' with, and it was also an intelligent, thought-provoking read.

I really looked forward to picking it up again every time, and I found that the characters and their lives were in my thoughts even when I wasn't reading it. I found them all interesting and fully formed, and there were things I was drawn to in each of them - Frances' drive in her work, Evelyn's love of her grandchildren and her love of books, plus her feelings about her ring, very similar to how I feel about jewelery and my ring; 'She had never been much of a jewelry person, but her ring was the exception. She loved it.'

Then, James' devotion to his family, Delphine's experience of living in another country, though I think I identified with Kate most of all, and some of the thoughts and beliefs she holds are things that I often think about so it was great to see them represented here through this character. 

The author picks up on several significant moments in the background as she narrates her characters' lives; we hear about precious belongings stolen in WWII, about Vietnam, September 11th, a recession, Iraq; this novel is sweeping in scope but always ultimately focused on the intricacies and beautiful observations about the characters themselves, their thoughts and behaviour. I liked the different locations, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Paris, they added depth to the lives being played out. There are other themes and ideas too; the beauty and joy of music, the influence of modern technology on a marriage, the struggle for equality for all who want to be with, and make a commitment to, their beloved partner whatever their sexuality.

I'm always a bit nervous about longer novels, will it be worth the investment of time as a reader? Plus, sometimes, the synopsis of a novel doesn't always totally hook you, and with this one I wasn't totally sure if it would be for me, so I was ever so pleasantly surprised when I found I genuinely loved the story; this was certainly worth my time. I realise I sound very enthusiastic but that's because I enjoyed it so much, a standout read for me and a book I'll be keeping on my shelves for years to come. In the novel, J. Courtney Sullivan writes that, when Frances was studying, 'like everybody else, she was planning to write the Great American Novel.' Well, this is certainly a very good one.

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Q & A with the author, J. Courtney Sullivan

1.       Can you tell us a little bit about the character of Mary Frances Gerety?

When I started writing The Engagements, it was a story about four marriages. I felt there was a character missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on who he or she might be. I first saw Gerety’s name in a nonfiction book about the diamond industry called The Heartless Stone. The author, Tom Zoellner, included just a paragraph or two about her. He said she wrote the line “A Diamond Is Forever” in 1947 and that she herself never married. I knew right away that I had to write about her. I actually wrote “Put her in the book!!!!” in the margins.

Gerety was a pioneer, working in the male-dominated advertising world starting in the late nineteen-thirties. She wrote every De Beers ad until she retired in 1970. I was drawn to the contradictory nature of her story—utterly unromantic in her personal life, she was responsible for creating our modern attachment to the diamond engagement ring.

I wanted to be as true to who she was as I possibly could. She passed away in 1999, and other than Zoellner’s brief reference, there was nothing written about her. But I was able to interview several of her former co-workers, neighbors and friends. I visited her house, read her correspondence (and confidential company memos that she left in the garage!) I made a photo album of her pictures, which includes a four-page spread of her Great Dane, Blazer. I grew tremendously fond of Frances. She was a sharp, bold, tough woman with a great sense of humor, who often defied convention. I wrote the book with her photograph hanging over my desk. Now that I’m on to other projects, I still haven’t taken it down.

2.       Do you write every day?      

I don’t. When I’m working on fiction (as opposed to an essay or a book review) I need long stretches of time to write—usually somewhere between five and seven hours. It takes me so long to get into the world of my characters, that once I’m there I like to stay a while. Not every day allows for writing fiction. I assuage my guilt over this by reminding myself that so much of a novelist’s job happens off the page—when I’m in the thick of working on a book, even if I don’t write, I’m constantly thinking about the characters and what they are going to do next.

        

3.       Who are your favourite authors?

I love Dickens, Austen, and Thackeray. My favourite contemporary novel is A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. My all-time favourite is Bleak House.

I adore the work of novelists like Maile Meloy, Ethan Canin, Kate Atkinson, Sigrid Nunez, Meg Wolitzer, and Jhumpa Lahiri. (I could go on and on.) Writers who closely examine the complexities of family, marriage and friendship.

4.       How long did it take you to write and research The Engagements?

It took just under two years.

The Engagements is my third novel, but it’s the first that isn’t rooted in a world that I know well. I wanted to get it right, so I did extensive research for every character and I had a tremendous amount of fun doing it. If there were no such thing as deadlines, I’d still be researching this book.

Frances Gerety’s co-workers provided insight into the business of advertising in general and N.W. Ayer (the agency where they worked) in particular. The Cambridge, Massachusetts paramedics took me on ambulance ride-alongs and answered hundreds of questions. I was lucky enough to convince the violin virtuoso Anne Akiko Meyers to let me interview her multiple times, and I wrote P.J. (the virtuoso in the book) with her music playing in the background. To get the character of Delphine right, I interviewed women who had moved from Paris to New York, and I traveled to Paris, where I spent time walking the steps that Delphine would walk every day. I picked a location for her shop on a quiet street in Montmartre, and for her home on a little private road just around the corner.

Because the characters don’t intersect until late in the book, I wrote each story almost like a standalone novella, and only cut them together at the end. This allowed me to really get into the heads of all the characters, though each is very different from the next.

5.       Are you writing another novel and when can we expect it?

I’ve just started writing a new one. Not sure yet when it will be out!

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A thank you from me as I found these answers fascinating, and even more so when I re-read them after finishing the novel. 

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About the author

J. Courtney Sullivan is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels Commencement, Maine andThe Engagements. Maine was named a Best Book of the Year by Time magazine, and a Washington Post Notable Book for 2011. The Engagements was one of People Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2013 and an Irish Times Best Book of the Year. It is soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon and distributed by Fox 2000, and it will be translated into 17 languages. Courtney’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Real Simple, and the New York Observer, among many others. She is a co-editor, with Courtney Martin, of the essay anthology Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Find the author on twitter @jcourtsull and visit her website here

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Other blog reviews: The Writes of Women | A Bookish Affair |

Like to visit the other stops on the blog tour? They are listed below.