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UK Authors - Mystery |
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The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte |
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| The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte by James Tully Robinson Books 284 pages, 1999 ISBN 1841191310 Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde When is a novel not a novel? When it is the account of supposed events in the lives of real people. Criminologist James Tully has served up a strange concoction based on his researches into the murky lives of the Brontes, which is part fiction and part fact. His narrator is a modern solicitor who unearths the papers belonging to one Martha Brown, servant to the Brontes, who has a strange story to tell. We plunge into her narrative, interspersed with asides by the solicitor, informing the reader what records tell about various incidents. So - was Branwell a blackmailer and sodomite, and was he murdered? Was Charlotte’s husband, Arthur Nicholls, guilty of having a relationship with Emily and did it result in her getting pregnant? How did the sisters know so much about love and its darker side? I had not thought that any such sensational mysteries existed. Whether readers are left thinking that this book puts the record straight or left shaking their heads is up to them. It is surely a must-read for all Bronte fans. Tully describes the claustrophobic parsonage at Haworth well enough. I would have preferred either a straight novel or a work of non-fiction, rather than something that is not truly either. There is too much switching backwards and forwards between the two, which prevents the reader from really getting immersed in the novel at all. Overall, this is a dubious assessment of the Bronte's lives. It would be illuminating to know where the author got his facts. |
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