FICTION

Fallen Beauty

by Erika Robuck
NAL. Mar. 2014. 352p. ISBN 9780451418906. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9781101615638. F
COPY ISBN
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was a tragically beautiful figure of the Jazz Age, and in Robuck's latest historical novel, Millay becomes a foil for her fictional protagonist. Edna, who enjoys wild parties and sexual trysts, has fallen for Laura, a quiet seamstress living in a small New York town near Millay's Berkshire estate, Steepletop. After having a daughter out of wedlock, Laura constantly frets over how she is viewed by the townspeople. Her desire to placate others keeps her from befriending the reckless poet and pursuing new romances, despite her personal longings. When Edna asks Laura to sew the costumes for her upcoming reading tour, the young mother must decide whom to please, herself or others.
VERDICT Fans of Robuck's Hemingway's Girl and Call Me Zelda will notice a similar narrative device, a fictional woman's connection to a historical literary figure. Here readers form an immediate intimacy with both Laura and the poet because their individual narratives are woven into a single story. Full of drama with every turn of the page, this compelling novel will delight fans of romance, historical fiction, or women's fiction.
Reviewed by Shannon Marie Robinson, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH , Feb 21, 2014
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