Palmerino

August 19, 2013
Violet Paget, who wrote under the name Vernon Lee, is now largely forgotten, but in the Victorian era, she was a well-known intellectual, writer, and eccentric (she wore men’s clothes and was likely a lesbian) who palled around with the likes of Henry James and John Singer Sargent. Palmerino, Paget’s house outside Florence, is the site of Pritchard’s (The Odditorium) novel and the place where Sylvia, a writer of historical fiction whose last books did poorly and whose husband has just left her, has come to write about Paget. Increasingly engrossed in her subject—she is even, it comes to seem, haunted and possessed by her—Sylvia tries to imagine the intimate details of the relationships between Paget and the women she loved. The book toggles between the past and the present, between Sylvia’s more biographical efforts and her more novelistic ones and her waning connection to present-day life. Pritchard focuses on the complexities of love and the limits and possibilities of empathetic imagination, but while the Italian setting is deftly handled, the extra layers of story, notwithstanding the supernatural touches, don’t add enough, and the book never achieves the synthesis it needs to carry weight as a novel rather than as a sympathetic précis of Paget’s life.

October 15, 2013
Pritchard (The Odditorium, 2012, etc.) blurs past and present, male and female, living and dead, and reality and fiction in a supernaturally infused, innovative story about Victorian-era novelist Vernon Lee and her modern-day biographer. Newly divorced historical fiction author Sylvia Casey arrives at Villa il Palmerino without a clear purpose. Her husband, Philip, left her for a male colleague the day after his 60th birthday, and her last two books have suffered mediocre sales. In fact, her agent has instructed her to write a book targeted for commercial success, something juicy, and Sylvia hopes to find inspiration in the historically rich area she and her former husband once visited. Living in a rented room at the villa seals her destiny: Sylvia becomes obsessed with--and possessed by--a long-dead writer who once inhabited the premises, Violet Paget. Born into an eccentric family in 1856, Paget spent most of her life in Italy and developed a reputation as an intellectual devoted to art, perception and the supernatural. (A contemporary of John Singer Sargent, the two once vowed to commit themselves to art as they stood over the body of a dead sparrow.) Her homely face, abrasive personality and mannish attire were considered repulsive by some, but she traveled in esteemed circles and held forth on a variety of subjects. Paget was a lesbian who adopted the pseudonym Vernon Lee and claimed that only male authors were taken seriously. She became enamored with two women during her lifetime: naive Mary Robinson and vivacious, willful Kit Anstruther-Thomson. As Sylvia traces Paget/Lee's life, the lines between modern existence and events a century earlier become distorted, and even the continuous presence of a dog that follows Sylvia holds significance. Pritchard's fertile imagination and presentation give new meaning to the expression "a meeting of the minds." Although the florid prose and pages of 19th-century discourse sometimes suffocate the story and may prove off-putting for some readers, Pritchard excellently maintains control of a multifaceted exploration of lesbianism.

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September 1, 2013

British intellectual and writer Vernon Lee, born Violet Paget (1856-1935), spent much of her life at the Villa Il Palmerino in Tuscany, where she dressed as a man, carried on a long-term love affair with another woman, and engaged in literary, philosophical, and artistic debates with the greatest minds of her time. Pritchard's novel alternates between a contemporary story about Sylvia, a 60-year-old British novelist recently dumped by her husband for his male lover, who travels alone to Villa Il Palmerino to conduct research for a historical novel about Vernon Lee, and scenes from the life of Lee herself. The most interesting portions of the book imagine the writer's real-life encounters with other historical figures, such as American art historian and aesthete Bernard Berenson, with whom she clashed. The transitions between the time periods are plodding, especially when Sylvia is literally haunted by the earlier writer. VERDICT While there is undoubtedly a fascinating story to be told about Vernon Lee's life and work, Pritchard accomplishes a rather artless historical novel about writing a historical novel that doesn't live up to the promise of its premise.--Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2013
In her enthralling new novel, award-winning fiction writer and biographer Pritchard (The Odditorium, 2012) asks, Is biography resurrection? Can resurrected spirits possess the living? She explores these mysterious subjects in a historical novel that matches a fictionalized version of the real-life Violet Pageta brilliant, fiercely independent British Victorian lesbian author of the supernatural who used the pen name Vernon Lee, and whose artistic circle included Oscar Wilde, John Singer Sargent, and Bernard Berensonwith a wholly invented contemporary biographer, Sylvia. Sylvia's husband of 15 years has left her for his male Russian lover, leaving her alone at 56, just when her agent instructs her to write something juicy. She feels unanchored. Peripheral. A bit pointless in her room at Palmerino, the Italian villa where Lee once lived. Soon, though, she is filled with Lee's spirit, as the renegade writer guides Sylvia's hand, sending the message that all seduction is supernatural. As Pritchard tells both women's stories, she also reveals the secret lives of Victorians. An intriguing introduction to Violet Paget, and an unusual look into the mysteries of writing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)