He puts it into his bound hands, and feels Camille’s fingers close over it.” “Danton reaches down, and takes from around Camille’s neck the locket that holds a twist of Lucile’s hair. It’s no spoiler to tell you that nearly everyone dies (it’s the French Revolution), and so here are two friends awaiting their execution: I think, in some ways, I am not.Īt the end of that book, a perfect moment encapsulated Mantel’s genius, her subtle eye for the gestures that ring with our deepest emotions. Mantel conjured the friends, lovers, idealists, and schemers who fomented and perished in the French Revolution, and I thought I would never be the same. I hugged the book to my chest, dutifully examined the rest of the alphabet, and happily gave Kramerbooks my $16.
Here was a novel about sweeping political events (in this case, the French Revolution), and even better, written by a woman. Until I reached the “M” part of the alphabet.Ī thrill of recognition shot through me when I read the description of Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety.
I had not yet realized that intimate books could have big ideas, too.) So, I kept pulling books from the shelf, frowning, and carefully reshelving them. It was 2006, and I was young and idealistic, so I wanted to read about big ideas. But nearly every book I found which fit those two criteria had words on the back like “family secret” or “deeply in love.”
I wanted to read historical fiction, and I wanted to read a book written by a woman. Sometime after starting my first job, which is to say, when I finally had a little bit of disposable income and lots more free time, I was browsing a bookstore.
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