A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
In the Garden of the Fugitives by Ceridwen Dovey
4.0
‘Our memories are always imperfect, Kitty used to say. We have to leave ourselves clues—photos, scrapbooks, journals—or our very own pasts become inaccessible, though we lived through every moment.’
Seventeen years ago, Vita wrote to Royce and told him never to contact her again. But now he is dying and decides to contact her anyway. Contact resumes, in the form of email exchanges between the two. The narrative takes us via these email exchanges, through their selected memories. Royce is elderly, wealthy and living in Boston, USA. Vita, born in South Africa, once a recipient of a generous fellowship from Royce, is middle-aged and living in Mudgee, Australia. The nature of their email exchanges permits a confessional narrative of sorts, but it also serves to enable both Vita and Royce to reconstruct their own versions of the past.
‘I fit in here because I am caught between identities.’
Royce writes of his relationship with Katherine (Kitty) Lushington (for whom his foundation was later named). Kitty was a friend of his from college, and in the 1970s he followed her to Pompeii where her archaeological research took her to the Garden of the Fugitives, with 13 bodies were entombed in the volcanic ash. Vita writes of her earlier life, born in South Africa still then under apartheid, of moving between South Africa and Australia before attending college in the USA.
‘You start out blind. And then you begin to see.’
Identity, guilt and racism are some of the themes touched on as Royce and Vita recall the past. Royce is haunted by Kitty’s death, Vita by her past as a white South African. Vita’s career has stalled, Royce’s life is ending. The future is uncertain, the past needs to be revisited.
‘If you choose to believe that everything is your fault, then the corollary is that only you are the world changer, the giver of everything good as well as bad, the only one with the ability to fix things.’
What can I say about this novel? For most of the novel, Ms Dovey had me spellbound. I felt Vita’s guilt stifling her career. I felt Royce’s obsession taking hold of his life. Is it possible to break free of the past or, like the 13 bodies in the Garden of the Fugitives, are we trapped forever?
‘Each gorgeous age is built around some core of rottenness.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Seventeen years ago, Vita wrote to Royce and told him never to contact her again. But now he is dying and decides to contact her anyway. Contact resumes, in the form of email exchanges between the two. The narrative takes us via these email exchanges, through their selected memories. Royce is elderly, wealthy and living in Boston, USA. Vita, born in South Africa, once a recipient of a generous fellowship from Royce, is middle-aged and living in Mudgee, Australia. The nature of their email exchanges permits a confessional narrative of sorts, but it also serves to enable both Vita and Royce to reconstruct their own versions of the past.
‘I fit in here because I am caught between identities.’
Royce writes of his relationship with Katherine (Kitty) Lushington (for whom his foundation was later named). Kitty was a friend of his from college, and in the 1970s he followed her to Pompeii where her archaeological research took her to the Garden of the Fugitives, with 13 bodies were entombed in the volcanic ash. Vita writes of her earlier life, born in South Africa still then under apartheid, of moving between South Africa and Australia before attending college in the USA.
‘You start out blind. And then you begin to see.’
Identity, guilt and racism are some of the themes touched on as Royce and Vita recall the past. Royce is haunted by Kitty’s death, Vita by her past as a white South African. Vita’s career has stalled, Royce’s life is ending. The future is uncertain, the past needs to be revisited.
‘If you choose to believe that everything is your fault, then the corollary is that only you are the world changer, the giver of everything good as well as bad, the only one with the ability to fix things.’
What can I say about this novel? For most of the novel, Ms Dovey had me spellbound. I felt Vita’s guilt stifling her career. I felt Royce’s obsession taking hold of his life. Is it possible to break free of the past or, like the 13 bodies in the Garden of the Fugitives, are we trapped forever?
‘Each gorgeous age is built around some core of rottenness.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith