JULIET by Anne
Fortier
Book Quote:
“How far did I
fall? I feel like saying that I fell through time itself, through lives,
deaths, and centuries past, but in terms of actual measurement the drop was no
more than twenty feet. At least, that is what they say. They also say that,
fortunately for me, it was neither rocks nor demons that caught me as I came
tumbling into the underworld. It was the ancient river that wakes you from
dreams, and which few people have ever been allowed to find.
Her name is Diana.”
Hands up anyone who
doesn’t know the story of Romeo and Juliet. No-one? Thought not. Chances are
you cut your literary teeth on it, and it probably holds some special
associations for you. That’s why it’s such a good subject for a modern/historical
parallel romance story with sinister overtones.
Julie Jacobs is the
quasi-eponymous heroin of the novel. Orphaned as a very young child, she has
been brought up by her Great-Aunt Rose along with her twin sister Janice… who
is as like to Julie as a marble is to a strawberry. Great-Aunt Rose has brought
the sisters up in the States, but when they are in their mid-twenties she ups
and dies, leaving Janice the estate and Julie (rather inconveniently) merely a
letter and the address of a banker in Sienna. A heartbroken and down-at-heel
Julie makes the best of a bad deal and packs her unfashionable bags for Sienna.
Matters get
complicated almost immediately with a chance befriending by the glamorous Eva
Maria Salimbeni – and that’s before Julie ever even reaches Sienna. The
narrative rapidly develops distinct fairy-tale colours, which grow richer by
the page. Julie soon discovers that few things really happen by chance in this
neck of the woods. What with Julie’s historical trouble with the Italian police
(don’t ask) and Eva Maria’s handsome nephew Alessandro being Captain Santini of
the Sienna police, a certain amount of intrigue becomes inevitable from the
word go.
The mystery trail
of the letter leads from the bank, to a box, to clues, to the Pallio, to
museums and clan rivalries, to subterranean passages and clean through to the
14th century. Sienna, it seems, not Verona, is the original location for the
historical characters that inspired Shakespeare’s tragedy: a story already two
hundred years old and re-told countless times by the time he got to it. To gain
the treasure that the historical Romeo and Juliet supposedly left behind, Julie
must immerse herself into her own past, which extends far beyond what one would
think reasonable in chronological terms.
Fortier displays
brilliant craftsmanship in weaving the multi-faceted timelines of her story
into a cohesive narrative. She intersperses new mystery, romance and violence
at a pace which will leave no reader able to resist the next page. But above
all, she really loves her Shakespeare. This work has obviously arisen from a
love of the original text. The imagery of warring opposites, fire and ice,
danger and beauty that characterize Shakespeare’s work have given birth here to
whole neighbourhoods, new characters and impassioned landscapes. This is no
half-baked, ill-fadged limping mess that so many supposedly more
straightforward “historical” novels fall into. It’s an inspired work of art
with a backbone not only of research but of understanding, one could almost say
sympathetic resonance. It’s so clever one wishes it were true.
However, not
everyone will like it. Readers often divide into camps between the two sisters
Julie and Janice: some finding the latter two-dimensional, many considering the
former mawkish and generally kickable. The main plot is pretty easy to guess
from the start, which is perhaps not ideal for a mystery. I didn’t find this a
problem at all, as there were so many details in between A and B that just
because one knows the outcome it doesn’t make the journey any less pleasurable.
Possibly its main
detraction for many might be that it’s essentially chick lit. Let me qualify
this swiftly: I don’t read chick lit and I found Juliet thrilling. It’s the
sort of thing you put down with a glow and wonder whom to tell about it first;
and then possibly consider that boys might not be so keen on it. I hate to say
it, but with 80% of serious readers being female, I still think it’s got a
pretty good market. Chick lit it may be, but very good chick lit. As I read it,
I was taking notes on structure and tactics, thinking, “if only I could write
more like this.” I’m not sure what higher form of admiration one could offer.
If you like your
stories well-written, exciting, properly researched, and you have a tendency
towards things pre-1400s with a dash of the paranormal and several cask-fulls
of romance, don’t delay in reading this especially now that it is available in
paperback.
(First published in
Mostly Fiction Book Reviews, 2011)
