Miss Fuller

This historical novel by novelist/poet Bernard (Pirate Jenny) focuses on the adult life and tragic death of Margaret Fuller, an early feminist best known for her Woman in the Nineteenth Century. The story is filtered through the lens of Anne Thoreau, an imagined sister of Henry David Thoreau, part of a group that befriends and then nearly shuns the maverick Fuller for her personal unorthodoxies and professional ambitions. Anne is a budding naturalist and painter whose yearnings for a life beyond marriage and motherhood are squelched by the times in which she lives. After Fuller, her husband, and their young son perish in a harrowing shipwreck, Anne's brother rescues Fuller's letters, which reveal the costs of independence. The letters also offer an antidote to the harsh judgments of Fuller's friends. Most interestingly, the effect on Anne of Fuller's public call for equality shows that Fuller's impact began with individuals and how they used her words to reenvision themselves.