Most helpful customer reviews
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25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant debut, Oct 6 2006
When a first novel is immediately (and enthusiastically) compared to the works of such literary luminaries as the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, a large dose of skepticism is in order. I read this book with a jaundiced eye, expecting to eventually uncover at least one unconvincing character, a plot twist that failed to surprise, or a passage less than vivid, unworthy of the masters.
I did not.
Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale carries the reader along like a turbulent river, with unexpected eddies and undertows you can't escape. The characters are absolutely true to the worlds of Dickens and Austen, but they're originals, not derivatives. They grieve and you do, they rejoice and you do, they die and you do- almost. The whole atmosphere of the book is powerful and sweeping, in the manner of Henry James or even Joseph Conrad. (Well, minus all those ships, of course.) If I had to pick one story that gave the same overall effect as Setterfield's book, I'd pick The Turn of the Screw, since the ghost element in Setterfield's book is equally shocking and unique, although James's classic novella lacks the grand span and scope of The Thirteenth Tale. Then again, Setterfield's characters could just as easily find a home in Dickens' dangerous London squalor or in the halls of a Bronte mansion, the air thick with secrets and heavy with troubled specters anxious to make themselves known.
Intriguing, daring and even downright heart pounding at times, The Thirteenth Tale might well give you nightmares at the end, but they'll be the best- and most original- nightmares you've ever had.
-Mark Wakely, author of An Audience for Einstein
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Stunning Tale of Insanity, Deceit, and Horrific Neglect, Mar 4 2007
Only a highly skilled author can write a compelling tale about a reclusive family whose world is small and not overly exciting. Yet Diane Setterfield does exactly this in The Thirteenth Tale.
The story centers around the deep emotional and physical bond of identical twins, Adeline and Emmeline Angelfield. This is a story of insanity, death, and the risk that telling the truth about the past imposes on others. It's also about how those proverbial little apples never fall far from their trees.
The novel opens when biographer and bibliophile, Margaret Lea, is hired to write the biography of world-famous fiction author Vida Winter, a woman who's nearing the end of her long life. For Margaret, who's only written the biographies of dead people, the challenge is intriguing and daunting because the famous Ms. Winter is notorious for never telling the same story twice about her life. In fact, she's told nineteen different versions about her past over a two-year period alone. The question becomes, what really happened in Vida's childhood, and is she telling Margaret the truth now or another fanciful story?
The more Margaret learns, the more sympathetic she becomes to the cantankerous Vida. For Vida was a twin. Margaret was also a twin who lost her sister at birth, a loss she's never come to terms with. The Thirteenth Tale is mystifying, heartbreaking, and so beautifully written that you won't forget this story any time soon.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Thirteenth Tale, Nov 19 2006
When Margaret Lea, daughter of Ivan Lea, renowned bookseller and owner of Lea's Antiquarian Bookshop in London, returns to her apartment above the bookshop at dusk and discover an envelope with her name on it sitting on the doormat at the top of the short staircase, she is very surprised. Who would specifically request her, of all people? Most people did not even know that Ivan Lea had a daughter. But upon reading the letter inside the envelope---written in the painstakingly slow hand-writing of an invalid---Margaret realizes this is even more important than she first imagined. For the letter is from Vida Winter, England's most popular and prolific living writer, having written fifty-six novels in fifty-six years. What could Vida want with Margaret?
The letter expresses Vida's wish to request for Margaret to come out to her old estate in Yorkshire, in the English countryside, and write Vida's biography. The only problem is, many other journalists and biographers have pursued Vida to obtain her life story, but every time, her "life story" is completely different, getting wackier and wilder each time, and to every journalist, she swears that it is the absolute truth. What has made Vida change her mind about telling the truth, rather than just a mythologized story? Margaret cannot know... yet. But there is one other thing: Margaret has not read a single book written by Vida Winter. Why? Because Margaret only reads the rare or classic books that her father sells in his bookshop. But when she discovers her father does indeed have a copy of a Vida Winter novel on a bookshelf, Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation, Margaret decides to skim through, and she soon finds herself staying up all night to finish it. But, then, she notices: there is no thirteenth tale! Only twelve. This copy is rare, because all the others were recalled after a publishing mistake. What happened to the thirteenth tale? Margaret needs to know, and therefore agrees to meet Vida.
Arriving at stately Winter Estate out in Yorkshire, isolated from the rest of the city world, it seems, Margaret finally meets Vida Winter herself. As she tells Margaret, Vida does not plan to simply give her the facts of her life; she plans to tell her about her life through an exciting story... A story beginning with the birth of a beautiful daughter in the Angelfield family, named Isabelle. When Isabelle's mother, Mathilde, dies in childbirth, her husband George becomes cut off. And thus, the firstborn child, Charlie, begins an abusive, violent, and incestuous relationship with Isabelle, and he impregnates her with twins, the feral Adeline and Emmeline. As Adeline and Emmeline grow older, the mansion of Angelfield continues to decline. All the staff---save for the missus and the gardener---leave; Isabelle is taken away to an asylum; Charlie becomes withdrawn and never leaves the filthy old nursery; and Adeline and Emmeline are stranger than ever.
As Vida tells her story, and Margaret is drawn into the vivid storytelling and records it, many questions arise in her curious mind. Why does Adeline so furiously abuse her sister, and why does Emmeline passively endure it without a fight? Why do they refuse to learn English, and only speak twin language? Why do the twins enter near-comatose states when they are completely separated? Who hit Dr. Maudsley's wife, Theodora, over the head with a violin? What happened to Charlie when he disappeared? Where did the potato-faced but highly intelligent governess, Hester Barrow, go after her incident with Dr. Maudsley and she left Angelfield? What caused the devastating fire at the Angelfield estate? Who is the gentle giant Aurelius Love, truly, and what is his mysteriously connection to the Angelfields? Is Vida really the vicious Adeline, as she says she is? And finally, will Vida ever reveal to Margaret what the thirteenth tale is?
Debut author Diane Setterfield, a professor of French literature in England, crafts an excellent, well-written, and old-fashioned tale filled with mystery, rousing sessions of storytelling, and a few ghost stories thrown into the wonderful mix. After its initial release in September, The Thirteenth Tale skyrocketed to #1 on The New York Times Bestseller List, and after reading the riveting story, one can certainly see why. The realistic, vivid cast of characters seem to spring to life off the page, and Margaret and Vida are especially well-drawn---Margaret's pain over the loss of her twin sister at birth, and her strained relationship with her ever-grieving quiet mother, whom she believes blames her for her twin's death, is heartbreaking and poignant. In the tradition of classic female authors such as the three Bronte sisters, Daphne de Maurier, and Wilkie Collins, Diane Setterfield succeeds with flying colors in her debut.
Highly recommended!
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