What Book to Read?

Kate Morton is an Australian writer, though she sets her books mostly in England. She also uses the conventions of Victorian and early twentieth century English literature, in particular the gothic mystery, which is the area of her academic research. I mention this because I thought her two earlier books, The House at Riverton (2006) (also known as The Shifting Fog) and The Forgotten Garden (2008) both had an air of being manufactured from an assembly of Victorian components, rather than coming alive as fully imagined. I didn’t think they were significant enough to post on. Needless to say, a lot of other people disagree; they have been on best-seller lists in the UK and the US, and The House at Riverton won General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards. If I didn’t like the first two, why did I bother with another one? I was given The Distant Hours (2010) as a present, and it seemed a waste not to read it. And I do actually like this book better than the earlier ones.

The action takes place in 1992, and at several dates in the period 1939-41. The 1990s story is mostly narrated by Edith Burchill, a young woman who works in a small publishing house, and is fascinated by books. One day her mother, Meredith, receives a redirected letter, sent in 1941 but lost in the chaos of the war. She tells Edith that it is from Juniper Blythe, a friend she made when she was evacuated from London in 1939 to Milderhurst Castle. Juniper is the daughter of Raymond Blythe, the author of a famous children’s book, The True History of the Mud Man, which Edith still loves. Soon after, Edith finds herself at the gates of the castle, and remembers that she has been there before with her mother. Slowly she is drawn into the literary mystery which surrounds the writing of the True History, and the secrets of Juniper and her twin sisters, who still live at the castle. The 1939-41 sections of the story, which interleave with Edith’s narration, tell the story from the sisters’ point of view, and gradually reveal how Edith’s life is entangled with theirs.

Edith is an engaging enough character, though in a fairly conventional way. She likes books, is dreamy and imaginative, is getting over a broken romance and has a rather prickly relationship with her mother. And her assumptions about things aren’t always correct. What is there not to like? She is perhaps a little too consciously naïve – to use a phrase from another book about a castle. All the major characters are quite skilfully drawn, though none is really striking. Morton in general writes well, though at times her style is a little lush and wordy. I thought the dialogue a bit stilted at the beginning, but it improved as the story progressed.

For most of the book, the plot moves slowly; there is a lot of detail about what is happening in both of the periods. I don’t mind this, though I did sometimes wonder where it was all going. Shifting back and forwards in time can interrupt the narrative flow, but I think Morton has managed her plot well. The time shifts give a sense of moving inevitably – if slowly – to a point where the narratives will meet, and all will be revealed. And so it is, though only to the reader, who learns the true story of the mud man; there are some mysteries that Edith cannot solve. The conclusion is perhaps a bit frenetic – and perhaps in places a bit obscure – especially after the leisurely pace of the rest of the story. But it is gothic melodrama we’re talking about here –even if it is a twentieth century version of it.

I guess that any modern writer who uses conventions from an earlier period runs the risk of producing something that feels a bit artificial. Elements of the gothic are central to the story: the decaying castle, with its secret passage, the sense of mystery and menace arising from the mud man described in the prologue, and continued by suggestions that the very walls of the castle have absorbed fears and nightmares of times past – the ‘distant hours’ of the title. There is madness and guilt. And the sisters are in a real way confined to the castle, even if that confinement is not physical. But I think Morton has applied these conventions with a lighter hand than in her previous books; they are allusions to the gothic, rather than a full scale adoption of it. It is contrived, but not egregiously so.

You can find out about Kate Morton here: her web page includes an interview with her by the Brisbane Times. I might even read her next book, The Secret Keeper (2012).