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It wouldn’t be appropriate to say that I savoured Paulette Kennedy’s Parting the Veil like a well-aged whisky, because to do so would be to suggest that I polish off a bottle of 30-year-old Lagavulin in a day or two. Thankfully, I could gorge myself on this sultry, gothic entanglement of romance and tragic mystery without suffering any physiological consequences other than a small heartbreak.
Unfortunately, I must safeguard any reader against ever opening Parting the Veil. That is, if only for the suspicion that they will be bewitched as I have; cast beneath a spell which transmutes whole days into hours, and those hours into achingly swift minutes while reading it.
Having experienced this witchcraft firsthand, I would not recommend cracking open this book if one has anything that needs getting done with great urgency, for this novel's prose is intoxicating, its characters remarkably enduring, its plot beguiling. I made the mistake of bringing the book with me to my car, nearly causing several accidents, such was the temptation while at a red light.
The story itself has a deceptively simple premise. Eliza, an American heiress, takes on an enigmatic suitor, Malcom Winfield of the darkly rumoured Havenwood Manor. But oh, does mystery and complexity bloom so seamlessly as their feverish romance unfurls, unearthing secrets that perhaps are bette left buried.
Despite Kennedy’s snappy prose, her writing aches with an impassioned richness that one must often scrounge for by sifting through much more verbose styles.
Though relying on familiar symbols of the genre, Parting the Veil is not confined to dreary, clouded skies. Nor is her haunted mansion so hackneyed. Kennedy takes the pains to raise up her characters and their environment beyond gothic motifs, making the novel only that much more evergreen. She is not shy when it comes to immersing them in situations and predicaments which demand hefty research given the time.
History buffs will appreciate the finer details. Others will find it simply commands one’s ability to suspend disbelief.
Eliza’s story arrives with no shortage of love, dark twists, nor classic tragedy. Within this breathtaking drama is an artist's eye for architecture, a historian's obsession with detail, a poet's insistence on lyricism, and perhaps most crucially, a cunning and deeply empathetic writer's unwillingness to leave a single page without its tricks.
In this lengthier review, (added upon from the one I left on Goodreads), I’m going to put up a bulwark against some scathing opinions that Parting the Veil received. (They caused such a scoff of disbelief that I feel personally compelled to defy them.)
A handful of critics have chastised Kennedy’s work for not depicting the setting accurately enough, going so far as to suggest that some locations and even characters’ mannerisms are totally off the mark.
I’m of the belief this comes from a misguided and clichéd view of the Victorian Era at large, one in which characters in the 19th century are often relegated to caricatures of stuffy propriety and etiquette, rather than what they truly were: complex people with separate personal and professional lives, just like us. It’s only logical to assume their behaviour changed depending on the social encounter.
Although I’m not a professional historian by any means, (nor were the critics, mind you), my podcast requires a great deal of research in the 19th, 18th, and 17th centuries, respectively. Over the years that I’ve written Mania, I’ve researched many anecdotes, autobiographies, and writings from these time periods, enough that it’s shifted my previous, two dimensional view of how people in these times spoke and behaved.
Firstly, we must take into consideration that writers from the 19th century enjoyed dressing up their prose in a way that contemporary authors are scolded against. Therefore, one of the core mediums we have to understanding the Victorian mind is often through a veil of quite elaborate and dramatised art.
It’s my belief that we often take this at face value, to a fault.
After all, if we looked back on the mid and early 20th century only through the lens of black and white films, we would think most people conducted themselves with great civility, a deep concern for their every intonation and utterance, a careful regard for their behaviour. We would suppose that silliness and vulgarity was rare, overblown for comedic purposes only.
But we know this is simply not true.
Secondly, the overwhelming amount of media produced about this time period today leans heavily into these clichés. They often suggest that these sombre characters never truly loosened their ties at night or found moments to behave as freely as we do today—pure hogwash.
In fact, I believe many stories set in the 19th century suffer from writers trying too hard to alienate the characters from our modern sensibilities.
No, Kennedy’s setting and characters, (from my own, humble view) are not lazily portrayed nor lacking historical foundation. I believe they’re depicted with an honest, perhaps even brave authenticity, given the tropes historical writers perhaps feel cornered, or simply fall, into.
Suffice it to say, there are precious few places as worthy of an autumnal excursion as Havenwood Manor. (Then again, I'm a glutton for curses, disquieting spirits and old secrets.) The country mansion is manifested with all the melancholy and haunted chambers one would expect; yet, it is refreshed by Kennedy's graceful resurrection of a late 19th century English countryside and an utterly original cast, their story made to feel as authentic as a memoir, yet as accessible and enticing as, well ... a bloody good romance.
It's the sort of story you wish came with a bout of amnesia, if only to be allowed to experience the seething climax once more for the first time.
Kennedy's spiralling novel teems with literary ardor and unrelenting guile influenced by a deep respect for historical accuracy. Suffice it to say, finishing it has left a hole in my chest in the shape of Havenwood Manor. One can only hope, therefore, that there is more to follow after this spectacular debut, bursting with shadows, tragedy, and an amour that could spark even the heart of a ghost.
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