"THE THIRTEENTH TALE" by Diane Setterfield (B+)

This novel is the first effort by Diane Setterfield, and it has been a resounding commercial success with many weeks spent on the best seller lists. I love her writing style, as the dialogue is very natural and each sentence and thought flows easily to the next. This book is a pleasure to read. Her writing style is such that if I wrote fiction, I would aspire to write the way she does.

Setterfield lives in England, so there is an distinct tempo, wording, and style to her writing that quickly distinguishes it from American literary cadence and style. No matter; it makes for wonderful reading. This novel is a sterling example of masterful writing.

My few complaints about this book are that little is ever known about the main character, a young woman in her mid-twenties, who inexplicably is chosen to become the biographer of a famous novelist approaching death. We do find out why she has been chosen to write the biography, but the windows that this effort opens up in her own soul are few and far between. She spends the entire life of this book observing the author to the point that we don't get to know very much about who she is as a person.

Her relationship with her father is deep and loving, but I am astonished (and troubled) that they never discuss the one subject that is of paramount importance to the daughter. This is all the more tragic because her not bringing this issue up has prevented the daughter from developing a better understanding of her mother, who regards her own daughter with such pain that she can't stand to be with her. Maybe this is the way the English deal with these things, which is to sweep it under the rug. Jessie, who never sweeps anything under the rug, excuses this, which is something that I find rather surprising.

Additionally, there is a minor point near the end where the biographer has the chance to shower some grace to a nice person by providing him with a financial windfall, but she passes on the opportunity. Or, more exactly, the thought never occurs to her (or Setterfield). Curious.

Like a few other novels profiling the English landed aristocracy, this novel deals with the decline of an ancient family into tragedy, poverty, insanity, and murder. The story is related to the biographer in a strictly time line manner, so her deductions from the clues take a while to develop. On top of that, Setterfield throws in a weird curve ball near the end of the book that turns the entire story on its head. So much for my making deductions on my own... Be forewarned that you won't be able to jump ahead of the story here.

While this book has been judged to be a mystery, and there are several mysteries in it, it is more like an extended slice of life about an odd relationship between two loners who come to relate strongly to each other. Neither will change much, especially the novelist who eventually passes away, but both achieve a certain acceptance of the strange hand in life that they each have been dealt.
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"The Thirteenth Tale" takes place not too long ago in England and the title comes from the first novel written long ago by a woman who goes by the nom de plume of Vida Winter. She is the most prolific and famous novelist in the country much like the recently deceased Barbara Cartland, only along a much more serious vein. "The Thirteenth Tale" was the title of her first novel, which, for some unknown reason, was quickly yanked from publication. Few copies are known still to exist and they are avidly sought after by collectors.

The writer herself is an enigma and lives the life of a recluse. Even the whereabouts of her home is unknown. She has written many books and has given hundreds of interviews over the course of her long and prolific career. Unfortunately, none of her interviews gibe with one another and all have to be presumed to be figments of her fertile imagination. She is especially guarded as to who she really is and where she came from, even where she was born and raised.

Margaret Lea is the daughter of a man who runs a rare book store. He does rare book searches for clients and travels a lot while Margaret stays home to manage the bookshop. Both are bibliophiles of the first order, but their reading preferences differ. While she is very close to her dad, she has a deeply troubled relationship with her mother due to the fact that her mother can barely stand to be with her. She is a sickly, emotionally drained woman who rarely leaves their nearby house while Margaret lives upstairs at the family owned small antiquarian book store.

When she was still a young child, her parents trusted her enough to stay at home without a baby sitter, and Margaret used this opportunity to snoop in her parents bedroom. Opening an old chest under the bed, she happened upon the birth and death certificates of a sister that she does not consciously remember. However, the knowledge of this sister has explained to her why she has gone through her life with a deep sense of loss, an emptiness that something important has been missing from her life.

Margaret is, of course, aware of Vida Winter, the famous novelist, and her book shop even holds a rare copy of her "The Thirteenth Tale," which she has recently read. She comes to find out the great mystery of this particular book, which is that there never was a thirteenth tale in the book, only twelve tales and a blank page for the thirteenth.

One day a strange, large mail packet ends up on her staircase addressed to her in a nearly illegible hand writing. She opens it up and is shocked to find that it is an entreaty from Ms. Winter to visit her and become her biographer. In a long, rambling discourse, Vida Winter explains that she is near death and is tortured by the thought that now is the time, the last time, to unburden her soul, or, as she puts it, "to tell the truth."

After getting permission from her father and doing the requisite archival newsprint research on Vida Winter, Margaret heads off on the strangest adventure of her life. Strangest of all is why this woman has chosen her to be her biographer when the two have never met and Margaret previously had no inkling that Ms. Winter was even aware of her existence. Even more curious is why she now feels the need to "tell the truth," or, as Margaret wonders, will she, can she, ever be honest about anything in her own life?

Curious? Read the book, the missing thirteenth tale!