The White Garden by Stephanie Barron
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- Why I picked it up: Christmas present, set in Kent, England, about gardens
- Disclosure: Christmas present (received no reimbursement from author or publisher)
In March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in England’s River Ouse. Her body was found three weeks later. What seemed like a tragic ending at the time was, in fact, just the beginning of a mystery. . . .
Six decades after Virginia Woolf’s death, landscape designer Jo Bellamy has come to Sissinghurst Castle for two reasons: to study the celebrated White Garden created by Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West and to recover from the terrible wound of her grandfather’s unexplained suicide. In the shadow of one of England’s most famous castles, Jo makes a shocking find: Woolf’s last diary, its first entry dated the day after she allegedly killed herself.
If authenticated, Jo’s discovery could shatter everything historians believe about Woolf’s final hours. But when the Woolf diary is suddenly stolen, Jo’s quest to uncover the truth will lead her on a perilous journey into the tumultuous inner life of a literary icon whose connection to the White Garden ultimately proved devastating.
Rich with historical detail, The White Garden is an enthralling novel of literary suspense that explores the many ways the past haunts the present–and the dark secrets that lurk beneath the surface of the most carefully tended garden.
I wish I had read this novel before I had read
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I
hated that book. If you're not convinced, just
read my review, the first one I ever did for this blog.
The White Garden had many ingredients which should make a book enjoyable for me: A literary tie-in (Virginia Woolf!), a gardening tie-in, quick pacing, an English setting, and decent writing. But unfortunately the plot was a few too many shades close to
Physick Book for comfort.
First of all, I understand that people find and/or return rare books all the time -
remember Hitler's stolen art book? But usually there is some fanfare in the news and then the book is returned without too much ado. I don't understand why so many mysteries are based on miraculous primary sources being discovered and then chased halfway across the world. It's just not plausible to me, especially when there's a clear antagonist involved.
The White Garden avoided many of these pitfalls, especially by avoiding a direct antagonist and making it more about the characters' emotional attachments to the objects, but I have so little tolerance for that particular implausibility that I took every little cliche as proof that the book was terrible, even though I probably would have forgiven them in another novel.
There were quite a few character cliches - the brusque gardener, smooth-talking rich employer (that really wants to sleep with his employee), etc., etc., but thankfully the author did avoid many of the story pitfalls she could have fallen into. All in all, I'd have to say it was good, especially by the end - I was fascinated by the theories presented on Virginia Woolf's true cause of death - but it was just too closely associated to things I didn't like to be too enjoyable for me.
Perhaps this is a bigger issue. When I read for fun, I read YA. (That's not to say I don't find beautifully written YA books, I just have greater tolerance for the bad ones if they're funny or entertaining.) When I read to be informed, I read nonfiction. Authors have a lot more room for error in those two genres. But when I read adult fiction, I usually make sure I'm reading the cream of the crop. For example, the last adult novels I read were Toni Morrison's
Beloved, Bernhard Schlink's
The Reader, Octavia Butler's
Parable of the Talents, and Margaret Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale. Those were good books by pretty much anyone's standards. So perhaps my criticisms of this book come more from me expecting too much than the book falling short.
Still, unless you're a fan of Virginia Woolf, mysteries, or rare books, I can't say I'd recommend this too highly. I would add "gardening" to that list, but there actually was disappointingly little horticultural content in the book considering the title, which disappointed me. Yes, it had a satisfying ending, but all in all this book just didn't deliver on the back flap's promise.
The Final Verdict: Good, but not great, this book fell short of my high expectations. A Da Vinci Code style chase across the universities of southern England is just, apparently, not my thing. Two and a half stars in my opinion, but objectively I'd probably have to give it three and a half. Read it and judge for yourself.
