Recent Reviews
Finding Margaret Fuller by Alison Pataki
Allison Pataki’s powerful novel brings the brilliant feminist Margaret Fuller to life. Delving into the historical record, Pataki celebrates this intellectual heroine who changed 19th century American thinking only to fade into the shadows of history.
Born in 1810, Fuller was a talented journalist, writer, translator and teacher who advocated for women’s equality. Her demanding father was determined to provide her with the same education as a boy. He tutored her himself. Fuller spoke multiple languages and read Shakespeare, Virgil, and Goethe while she was young. By all accounts, her genius stunned all those whom she encountered. Later, she taught school in Boston and Providence and, in 1839, became the first woman editor of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalist journal called The Dial. Later that year, Fuller became the editor of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, where she wrote opinion pieces and literary criticism.
She was a feminist before feminism entered the lexicon and forged a path for women’s suffrage before an organized movement emerged in the United States. Ignoring the restrictive roles dictated by men, she unapologetically advocated for women’s equality and became a model of an independent woman. She said, “We do a great disservice to all people, male and female when we relegate a lady’s talents only to the hearth and home.” In 1845, she published her groundbreaking book Woman in the Nineteenth Century, a feminist critique that bemoaned the injustices inflicted upon American women.
Pataki’s novel starts slow, but gains momentum after the first few chapters. Though Fuller’s articles and books dominated the bestseller lists in the 1840s, it is curious that her legacy has not endured like her friends Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louise May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Barret Browning, and Edgar Allen Poe, all of whom are characters in this novel.
This fact makes Allison Pataki’s novel even more important. Not only is it the first fictionalized account of Margaret Fuller’s life, but it is also an acknowledgement of her fierce advocacy for women’s equality, the end of slavery and prison reform. As Susan B. Anthony said, “Fuller possessed more influence on the thoughts of American women than any woman previous to her time.” If you haven’t read about Margaret Fuller, I recommend this novel.
Thanks to my sister-in-law Mary for giving me this book. 4/5
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
With great insight, Elizabeth Strout’s newest novel probes the complexity of human relationships. How well can we know another person? How well can we know ourselves? She concludes not well: “We are all such mysteries.” But her novel offers an antidote to this isolation. Listening to other people’s stories connects us to them and causes us to empathize with their plight. Exchanging stories is a gift we can give to ourselves and others.
This character-driven novel takes place in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. We have met the protagonists in Strout’s prior books: Bob Burgess, Lucy Barton, and Olive Kittridge. The plot revolves around their deepening friendships, the stories they share, and the murder of an elderly woman on the outskirts of town.
Strout’s characters are defined by the traumas (often unknown to others) that shaped their journey. Her characters’ ordeals occurred in their childhoods and have been the engine (consciously or unconsciously) driving their lives. Olive Kittredge says, ‘If you don’t think everyone is broken in some way, you’re wrong.” The novel’s characters have endured sexual abuse, suicide, alcoholism, disease, divorce, poverty, and the guilt of accidentally killing a parent.
The novel has a wistful tone as the characters wrestle with themselves and those they encounter. They share their fears and worries, their joys and pleasures, and the stories they hear about other people in town. Just when you are about to judge a character’s cruel action or poor choice, the character’s background is revealed, and you feel compassion instead.
The book can sometimes feel like a quirky collection of short stories. Still, Strout weaves them into an existential narrative about how people overcome their hardships and connect with others. Lucy Barton states, “People just live their lives with no real knowledge of anybody.”
In this world filled with so much suffering, Strout suggests that listening to others without judgment is a gift of love and the only antidote to the existential loneliness of our minds. This novel is poignant, provocative and packed with insights. I highly recommend Tell Me Everything. 5/5
