REVIEW: Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

Unlike Kearsley’s other books, however, Bellewether is a colonial American story. The modern part of the novel feels as if it is given a bit short shrift. It’s hard for me to tell whether that’s accurate, though, because it may just be that unlike her books set in Europe and the UK, the language of Bellewether and even the history that’s discussed in the modern section is familiar to me. It’s set on Long Island, where I grew up. The petty politics of the modern house museum’s board, the small-town family entanglements…it doesn’t feel as fresh as the modern stories she tells in her other books.

On the other hand, the historical novel contained inside the modern novel is absolutely fascinating. This is the kind of history they should teach in school. Not “memorize the dates of these battles and who the commanders were.” Give history a face, a heart, a narrative that everyone can relate to, and they’ll remember it.

The historical section of Bellewether takes place on the North Shore of Long Island during the French and Indian War. A French-Canadian soldier, Jean-Philippe, is captured and sent on parole of honor to live with an American family, the Wildes. Although the French soldier with him speaks enough English to serve as a translator, Jean-Philippe himself speaks none. He is isolated and the terms of his parole frustrate him. Plus, he is living in the home of the enemy, many of whom do not want him there. Kearsley touches on a huge number of issues here: slavery and the practice of “slave leases;” the Acadians and the misery they endured for wanting to remain neutral, Quakers; how the nascent American army and trading fleet maneuvered within—and around—the restrictions of their monarch overseas; and, most of all, how little people change, even when everything around them does.

The Wilde family is complex. Lydia Wilde, our heroine, is trying to hold her family together after the death of her mother, who died of natural causes, and one of her brothers, who was killed in the war. The last thing she wants is another man in the house (as well as her father and one brother who is home occasionally, she has a brother who lives at home), let alone two, and Frenchmen at that, soldiers like the one who killed her beloved brother. The various Wilde men are well-imagined, and in them Kearsley shows the kinds of conflicts that came to characterize America from colonial days right through the Civil War. Rather than lumping them together as “well, this family is this way,” Kearsley carefully shows all their personalities and motivations.

In short, although this book is unusual, and I’d say the modern part is less than thrilling, you should read it because you will love the historical story. It’s beautifully told, and it never flinches.