Nom de Plume

Rose Olds is born just to be abandoned. Saved from a garbage heap by Lord Geoffroy Lovell in answer to his prayers for an heir, the baby is taken home and named after his sister, who fell out of a tree and died many years before. Geoffroy had an unhealthy obsession with his sister when she was alive–and an even more unhealthy obsession with her memory. So great is his grief that he retained her governess, Anonyma, who now holds the post of house librarian and who, to exclusion of all else, pursues a scholarly obsession with the poet Mary Day. Thus, when the baby girl is brought home, Geoffroy sees her as the incarnation of his dead sister and marries Anonyma to provide the child legitimacy.

Which is all very good and well, but there’s a hitch: Rose Olds is not, in fact, a girl. She is a boy. And she doesn’t discover the fact until she’s ten years old. And this leads to a gender-bending confusion of identity that culminates in the family being kicked out of Love Hall by pecuniary relatives intent on their own gain. But the poet Mary Day saves the day, as surprises everyone but Anonyma. As it turns out, she is more closely connected to Love Hall than anyone had guessed, and the novel proceeds to its predictable ending.

I first chose this off the library shelf because it sounded like Middlesex meets The Crimson Petal and the White. And it was, with the merest tip of Tipping the Velvet, a dash of John Irving, and a even a sprinkle of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. As a result, I wanted to like it. I really, really did.

But I didn’t. Oh, I didn’t hate it or anything. Its imagery was delightful, both whimsical and endearing in its peculiarity. It was one of those start and stop novels; I lost interest in the pages of sometimes didactic explication, only to be drawn in again with great, well-written scenes. But overall, the story plodded, especially after Rose discovers that she is actually a she.