This isn't a bodice ripper, but more of a romantic saga (with whores, forced seduction, death, blackmail, and nasty people with lots of money).
Oh wow, what a book! It’s one of those fat sagas that encompasses a woman’s life from childhood to old age, a genre I love, but this one stands quite above so many others due to its precise characterization, pacing, and catchy turns of phrase. The author knew what he wanted to show and showed it, and didn’t try to cover everything, thereby avoiding doing only half-assed justice to the whole epic. It was a very deliberate story, but never slow, creating a rich and absorbing read. By seeing Lily’s life unfold so intensely and, at times, minutely, it really dragged me in and made the situations and characters seem very real.
The bulk of the story takes place during two decades in the life of one Lillian Malone, with the finale set during the 1906 earthquake. Orphaned at 10, she and her older brother Fergy are shipped off from the tenement slums to St. Patrick’s orphanage. There, Lily ponders her present and future, in matters both material and spiritual. After a couple other tragedies, she decides that she has suffered just about enough at the fickle whim of God. She goes out into the world as a between-stairs maid and encounters no end of trouble there as well. However, for every setback she suffers, she presses onward with more determination to make the best of it, dust herself off, and strive ever onward and upward. Being a good Catholic girl, she tells herself that a lie or a deception or lapse into immorality will see her burn in Hell for sure (and this fear never leaves her), but she plows ahead anyway. Her determination to obtain her own dream of a worry-free and impregnable Paradise sees her through some pretty bad times, including a prolonged period as both whore and glamorous brothel madam in booming 1850s San Francisco. A bird in a gilded cage is our Lily.
Eventually Lily does realize her dream of peace and respectability, but it is a long road she hauls and she does it with a panache that made her one of the best female protagonists I’ve ever read. She’s solid, patient, clever, dependable, driven, warm, a calculated risk taker, and brutally honest with herself and others. And she’s very very human. This book grabbed me from the first, as Lily’s mother lays dying and tells her daughter to “save your tears, for one day you may truly need them.” This Lily does, rationing out her tears and emotions through the years, getting stronger and stronger with each setback she suffers without giving in to weakness and hopelessness. Because Lily is always expecting there will be tougher times ahead, and she doesn’t want to waste those precious tears mindlessly. She’s a cautious optimist with bouts of pessimism. She’s sentimental without being weak. And far from being the clichéd feisty redhead, she’s ladylike and of dogged temperament, tenacious and admirable. What can I say? I loved her!
Lily’s story is interspersed with that of her dream guy, Brooks Chaffee, a member of old Dutch New York society. Chaffee and Lily only meet once and he soon forgets her (who remembers a maid that gives you directions to the library?), but Lily cherishes the memory of his good looks and gentle manner and uses him as a personification of that Brass Ring she is eternally striving for. While Lily is on the rocky road to success in California, Chaffee continues with the life that was laid out for him since birth, cushioned with money and few obstacles, and finds increasing disillusionment and misery courtesy of the Civil War and his marriage.
Rather than seeming intrusive and chopping up the flow of Lily’s journey, I thought that this subplot perfectly complemented Lily’s. Both of their lives are affected by the “inevitable” upheavals of the era (expansion/boom and war), and Lily meets the worst obstacles early in life while Chaffee’s trials come later, when he is less resilient. Eventually, their paths converge and her hard-earned strength is there for him when he needs it and heals him.
There’s so much packed into this book that I could go on and on about it. I loved the early chapters set within the orphanage where Lily and another girl become BFFs but end up suffering the slow and gradual dissolution of a friendship that often happens before one becomes aware of it. I loved Lily’s “education” within the world of the nouveau riche, wisdom that can’t be acquired through an entire library of books. I loved Lily and Fergy’s rocky relationship and enduring sibling love through thick and thin, and the realistic fears that keep Lily loyal to him. And most of all, I loved Lily’s determination to endure what she must in the present (but not for a moment longer) in order to create an idyllic peace for herself in the future.
The entire story was beautifully done and Lily was a solid heroine-protagonist. Not to be sexist, but I wouldn’t have expected such depth of female characterization from a male author, a breed whose track record from this period tends to be pretty spotty when it comes to ability to write convincing female characters. Also restrained was the sex. It wasn’t salacious or graphic - the only truly graphic scene was in a brothel, when Lily is an observer being shown the ropes of the trade.
So what didn’t I like about it? (There’s got to be something, right?) Well, the transition in the relationship between Lily and her daughter Kate was too pat and smooth. Granted, Kate doesn’t know exactly why her mommy was “Auntie” for so long, but the kid still adjusts way too easily to calling Lily “Mother.” So I’d have put in a bit more tension. But then again, I don’t know the psychology of 6-year olds to be convinced just how one would react to the bombshell.
Also, although it did seem like Lily was too visionary at times, it never got to the point where it was annoying. Since the story is set in the era of growth and innovation, she felt like a product of her times. This goes for her forward-thinking attitudes towards orphanages and agriculture (she reads farming journals almost exclusively) as well as her obsession and pessimism with how “High Society” will punish her family for her past. For all her confidence in some areas, she is highly conscious that a woman’s bad reputation can be wielded like a weapon by others. And underlying that is her old Catholic guilt that she will be punished for the things she's done. So, my quibbles are nearly invisible. Things that would annoy me in other books (like Lily's references to God and angels) didn't bother me in the slightest here because it didn't feel like it was being pushed onto me like in the Christian lit I've read. Instead, it was simply an understandable part of who Lily is, rooted in her upbringing and the era in which she lives. Plus, her musings were personal and referred to herself alone. She wasn't preaching the Word or loudly pointing fingers.
An interesting side note about the author: the very brief bio in the back says that he, at the time, was a VP of Bozell & Jacobs, an ad agency. You might know them from the slogans “Pork. The Other White Meat,” “Got milk?” and “Corinthian leather.” I wonder just what inspired Mr. Murphy to write this saga. Whatever it was, I’m glad he did. It’s a marvelous book and really deserves to be back in print.
If you have any interest in 1840s/50s America or like a smart and tough heroine, do pick this one up!
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