Title: The Forgotten GardenAuthor: Kate Morton
How would you react if you found out that someone you knew and loved wasn't who you thought they were? After Cassandra's grandmother Nell dies, Cassandra discovers that Nell wasn't the Australian-born woman she always thought she was, but rather a woman whose childhood was a mystery. Cassandra takes on the task of unraveling the mystery of her grandmother's origins, and in the process, starts fully living her own life again after a decade of mourning the accidental deaths of her husband and son.
Morton does a wonderful job tackling shifting perspectives. The story is told from the point of view of at least three characters (Nell, Cassandra, and the mysterious Authoress, Eliza), and spans more than 100 years. While sometimes I felt a little bit let down at having to leave Eliza's story to hear more about Cassandra, I prefer to think that's because all three stories were engrossing, not because the point of view shifts were jarring. The characters were also well-drawn-- prickly and mysterious enough to make you want to know more about them, but not such jerks that you don't care about their lives. My main criticism of the novel is that I thought the main mystery of the story was pretty darn transparent and I couldn't believe how dense all of the characters were not to be able to figure out the secret of Nell's origins. But then again, I also knew from the second scene in Glee last night that the Vocal Adrenaline coach was going to adopt Quinn's baby. What can I say, I have a second sense about these things.
Writing conventions aside, the thing that kept me most interested in The Forgotten Garden is the way Morton explores secret family relationships. We had a similar disclosure about my great-grandmother after she died 10 years ago (although my grandma, unlike Nell, perpetrated the story herself), and I've always though that it would be great fodder for writing. It turns out that Madden's story was inspired by a similar case within her own family.
2 comments:
I immediately thought of your G'ma M and her fluency in a foreign language no one knew she knew!
Just to add to your list of family secrets: my husband didn't know until this year, just after his father died, that his older brother was only his half brother and that his mom was pregnant by her first husband when she left him for my husband's father (who was also her step brother--beginning at age 18). He chose not to tell his stepson he wasn't his biological father, and he treated him like his own son. (sadly the real father had died the year before, but now he's met other half-siblings) That was a doozy, huh!? Sorry for the long, irrelevant comment.
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