Peg KingmanCritiques

I felt like I was reading a Jane Austen novel--set in the mid-1800's, the characters were of an educated class, involved in the issues of the day (scientific discoveries, the Chartist movement in Scotland, author's who write anonymously), spoke wittily, paid attention to social mores. The story held my attention all the way through, intrigued by how people of a former era adapted to changes wrought by new understandings of how the world was made. Does evolution happen by chance or by design? Are humans the peak of creation or are we just a brief (in geologic terms) experiment? There were a number of subplots, and at first we are unaware of the connection between them: the man hiding out on an island & working unseen in a rock crevice, the quiet single gardener who ponders creation and tries to make sense of his religious doctrine and writings on evolution, the relevance of the detail about the infants supernumerary digits, the wet nurse who keeps her background a secret. The book then shows a focus on Constantia, the wet nurse, and we are privy to her private thoughts. She mourns her dead son, misses her husband whose name and whereabouts she is determined to keep secret, remembers her dead mother and her upbringing by an upperclass Rani in India where she was orphaned, and wishes to know who her father was.
I really enjoyed the intelligence of the young children in the Chambers' household, the respect paid them by their parents as they taught them to be aware of the workings of the world around them, and the thought game played by the whole house of thinking of a different scientific name for humans (Homo sapiens) based on a different characteristic that might distinguish us from animals.
So many topics to juggle! Yet they all come together as the novel progresses.
I do think the detail about the death of Mrs McAdams could have been left out without harming the story as a whole.
My copy was an Advance Reader's Copy, so I assume that the few sections toward the end of the book, where parenthetical explanations encapsulated some events, were going to be rewritten in the final edition. I've never had such an unfinished ARC before, however, but I would hate to think the author just couldn't be bothered to flesh out these few sections, or was aware that doing so would pull the reader's attention from the main action, the story's arc toward a conclusion.

In 1845, Constantia MacAdam, just delivered of twins (one of whom died), serves as wet nurse to the large, ever-growing Chambers family, temporarily residing outside Edinburgh while their city home undergoes renovation. Constantia, unable to be with her beloved husband, makes the best of her grief over her lost son and her struggle to make ends meet, but she has lucked out. Not only has she landed among the kindest people in Scotland, who treat her like a family member rather than a servant, she’s never found such intellectual stimulation in her life, and she thrives on it.

Mr. Chambers, a newspaper publisher, takes a keen interest in the natural world and urges his immense brood to do likewise, even (if not especially) the girls. He impresses Constantia, who also loves natural science, because of the breadth of his knowledge and the liberality of his mind. A sensational book has appeared, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, and its unorthodox views receive a warm welcome in the Chambers household. The reader will guess that Vestiges anticipates Darwin’s influential book almost fifteen years later.

While this is happening, the Chambers’ gardener, who has been at this residence all his life, has derived similar revolutionary ideas from observing the randomness of life and death, thriving and deformity, among his beloved plants. And on a Scottish island reasonably near in mileage yet isolated and hard to reach by even the fastest transport, a quarryman seeks to split apart a limestone ledge, in which, he believes, important fossils lie.

To say, therefore, that The Great Unknown is a philosophical novel about the origins of life restates the obvious. The story, at first glance, may seem thin. Constantia longs to rejoin her husband. She also strives to learn who her father was, which the Chambers family, being the soul of tact, infer is a troublesome matter, a secret best left unprobed. Her good character is plain; what more need anyone know?

That doesn’t satisfy Lady Janet, a distant relative of theirs who possesses neither tact nor sensitivity, though she does express much righteous superiority. (When Constantia finally gets the courage to talk back to Lady Janet, it’s delicious.) Lady Janet is the foil for the good-hearted spirit of inquiry that reigns chez Chambers, and a reminder of how different they are from most Britons.

But there’s much more besides the evocation of a country on the brink of a moral upending through scientific discovery, or the excellent, personal portrayal of the conflict between religion and science. We have a thought-provoking daily drama playing out chance and consequences, fortunate or tragic, and people trying to figure out whether these outcomes mean anything or merely display the benign indifference of the universe. (Note the name Constantia in this regard.) Add to that what makes a person human, and how we differ (or don’t) from other species; or is it just our vanity that we do?

In sentences that have a Victorian ring, Kingman has crafted a plot that often turns on Dickensian coincidences, perhaps too fortuitously, at times. But she’s also created a family as a perfect test case for her themes, and not just because of their scientific curiosity. The male species of Chambers are born with a sixth finger on each hand and a sixth toe on each foot. Random chance, indeed, as with the success of surgeries necessary for these digits’ removal.

As for Mr. Chambers, imagine a Mr. Bennet of Pride and Prejudice as a witty, urbane man of science who’s more immediately concerned with his daughters’ grasp of Linnaean nomenclature than how to attract a husband—though, rest assured, they have dancing and music lessons too.

Not everyone will gravitate toward a quiet, reflective story like this, a daguerreotype of the moment when brave thinkers began to ask the most earthshaking questions without fear of divine retribution. But readers who take The Great Unknown for what it is will be greatly rewarded.

It was a time of social turmoil.

The working man wanted his voice heard in government. The Chartist movement was met with a violent reaction from the powers that be; the leaders were imprisoned or they fled the country.

It was an age of science.

Gentlefolk became amateur naturalists, collecting specimens of life living and dead. Fossil discoveries caused great wonder. Theories were created to explain the fossil records, some contorted to fit the Christian idea of time and history. Scandalous books were published suggesting a natural history that upset the Christian hegemony.

My Victorian Age professor had our class read pivotal books published in 1859, including The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The professor told us that the ideas behind Darwin's book had been around; Darwin's genius was to put the puzzle pieces together, grounded in sound scientific research. Darwin dragged his feet publishing his theory, knowing the havoc it would bring.

The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman is set in 1846 when people were beginning to think about the questions Darwin finally, publicly, addressed in 1859.

There is a mysterious woman at the heart of the novel who goes by the alias Mrs. McAdams. She left her husband and traveled to the city to give birth to twins, one of whom died a month later. She is enlisted to be a wet nurse to a brilliant family who warmly welcomes her.

Mrs. McAdams struggles with issues of identity. Her mother's early death left clouded her true paternity. And she wonders about the big questions: are we ruled by chance, nature, or God? What does it mean to be human? What separates us from other creatures?

Several books are central in the novel, books that arouse deep thoughts from the characters. One is the 1845 best-selling, iconoclastic Vestiges of the National History of Creation. Another is the 1831 On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, which sounds like a yawner, but its appendix included a discussion of natural selection.

Vestiges became a best-seller. It appears and reappears in the novel, traveling from hand to hand.

They were dangerous things, book; best locked safely away in cages, like fierce beasts in a menagerie. ~from The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman

Mrs. McAdams's backstory is slowly revealed. Her quest to find her natural father takes her on an interesting and surprising journey. She questions many things--why a baby with extra digits is not embraced as an evolutionary improvement; whether things happen by chance or design; if humankind has the power--clearly, it does have the will--to reverse the spinning of the galaxies.

The Great Unknown is an idea-driven story, and I found myself intrigued to read on for the questions posed are timeless.

As a quilter interested in quilt and fiber history, I was interested in Mrs. McAdam's vocation creating 'bizarres', designs for roller-printed cottons that were popular in the 1840s. Her designs were inspired by the minuscule life she discovered under the powerful new microscopes. Science had even invaded fashion! Colors, too. The newly discovered aniline dyes replaced the plant-based dyes, and new colors rose to popularity: mauve and purple, chrome yellow and orange, and greens that did not fade to blue or tan or rely on arsenic.

Our heroine's journey takes her into her past to discover her true family roots before she returns to her husband. All their hopes are realized in a strange and circular way in a satisfying resolution.

In the 19th c, science was embraced as a panacea to society's ills, a way to reverse the natural order. Science disturbed the status quo and challenged Biblical authority, upended humanity's place in the universe and scheme of things.

But as Mrs. McAdams and we know, it appears that chance is what really rules the universe.

I was granted access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

I struggled with this book and just couldn't get engaged with the story. A summary is captivating enough - a young Scottish widow recieves a mysterious package from her twin brother who died in India, begins to suspect he may not have died after all, and so begins a journey half way across the world. Still, there are a number of subplots, characters, and almost too many details about steamships, Scottish ballads, and tea (and I love tea) to wade through in order to get to the heart of this book. The author had the gem of a good story here, it just wasn't well executed, and I hope to read the author again when she is a more developed writer.

I know this is mean but I was disappointed.

Dear Peg Kingman,

I'm sure when you were coming up with the ideas for Not Yet Drown'd - you thought you couldn't go wrong. India, bagpipes, tea, steamships, orphans and widows and tigers - what's not to love? But let me give you some advice for your next novel.

First of all, even if you do a whole lot of research, it doesn't all have to go into the book. Sometimes, too many details about how to brew tea or how the bagpipes work, really slow the narrative down.

Secondly, and this is linked to # 1, you obviously have great skill and experience as a technical writer but it doesn't serve you well here. I don't need to know how a steam engine works in great detail. I never will. All the lengthy how-to and descriptions made your story feel bloated and weighty. Perhaps all that technical descrption prevented you from creating characters that a reader could care about.

Which brings me to #3. Some of your characters are a tad cliched. The preternaturally gifted orphan, the repressed widow, the amorous sea captain, and most egregious of all, the two, not one, but two, heroic, forthright, honorable women of color who manage to save the emotionally stifled white people time and time again. Ick.

Not Yet Drown’d by Peg Kingman is a mixture of historical fiction, mystery and romance and ultimately my feelings toward this book were quite mixed as well. Young widow Catherine MacDonald has also been grieving the loss of her twin brother who was said to have drowned in India during the monsoons of 1821. After a full year passes, she receives a package from him. Among the assorted contents is a cryptic message sent as a retitled musical piece. Not Yet Drown’d, the message says. She is then forced to flee from an over-bearing relative of her step-daughter Grace, who wishes to take the child to America to be raised. She and Grace join her older brother on a trip to India which gives her the chance to search for some answers.

The author has done meticulous research, but so much detail really slowed the book down and interrupted the flow of the narrative. Although some of this information was very tedious, other parts were quite interesting . The storyline I felt, was overly predictable but I loved the setting and thought that author was excellent at describing these exotic surroundings.

Ultimately, I found plenty to savour in Not Yet Drown’d and I think the story would have been much improved by some very tight editing. As this was the author’s debut novel, I would certainly like to see how her writing develops in future books.½

Original Sins is a difficult novel to describe. It's not especially plot-driven, yet there is certainly an enthralling and complex story woven throughout. I neither loved nor hated most of the characters, which to me is a mark of a very real cast. I was more invested in seeing certain principles succeed than in any particular character. I thought Peg Kingman did an excellent job piecing together a firm foundation on which she could then set her story, but readers who prefer plot to philosophizing will most likely be frustrated. I found the ending immensely satisfying, though not every question was answered. Overall, I found Original Sins to be a very interesting novel and there are many others out there who will feel the same.

Full thoughts on Erin Reads.

I wanted to like this book. I loved the premise of a free black woman--a successful business woman--returning to the antebellum south to rescue her child. I was excited to receive a copy from the Early Reviewers' Program.

However, the book began with a long slog through the daily life of a miniaturist (never a good thing) and then pole-vaulted into disaster by sticking with the miniaturist. It never became a story I wanted to read.

Grace MacDonald Pollacke has come to live in Philadelphia, the home of her husband's family, after spending most of her life in the far east. Originally Scottish, she fled with her step-mother to India to escape attempts by her late mother's American family to force her to leave her home and live with them in Virginia. Eighteen years later she is working as a painter of portraits while awaiting her husband's return from a trading voyage to China. His return also brings Anniebaddh, the slave girl who accompanied her mistress to Scotland all those years ago and who escaped bondage by joining Grace and her step-mother on the ship to India. The girls grew up as friends.

Grace is worried at Annie's insistence on remaining in America rather than going on to London as planned. She is even more concerned when Annie tells her she will be travelling to Virginia on business - she has brought a supply of mulberry trees and silk worms with her. Virginia is a dangerous place for free blacks in 1840, so when Grace realizes that Annie actually plans to return to her old master's plantation to retrieve "something" she left behind, she volunteers to go in her place. After all, she has been invited to come and paint portraits of the entire family by the Virginia ladies who have been sitting for her. The same ladies who just happen to be her cousins.

I enjoyed reading this book enormously. But it is not flawless. There are too many coincidences of the kind just described. The main focus of the book is the evil of slavery, and I enjoyed the descriptions of the different viewpoints and arguments for and against the "institution". However, Kingman didn't restrain herself to just railing against slavery. There is an especially long tirade near the end of the book that had little to do with anything that had come before and should have been cut out or at least edited severely. It came near to ruining the entire book for me, but it ended as abruptly as it began in time for a rushed conclusion. Ignoring the last section, it is a very enjoyable, if unorthodox, look at American society in the ante-bellum period.

I usually read 100 pages of a book before I make a decision; however, this time I couldn't even get that far. To me it was a lot of pretentious babble. By this I mean, that the dialog between the characters was written as if someone was pretending to be "high class and snobby". I found it irritating and could not continue to read any further.

I feel badly when I give a bad review because I know how much goes into writing a book. I have no patience for a book that doesn't capture my attention right away. I love to read and have many, many more books waiting for me.

Catherine MacDonald has recently lost both her husband and her brother. She is trying to hang onto her stepdaughter, even when the stepdaughter's blood relatives send a servant from America to obtain custody of the girl. Catherine has received a parcel from India suggesting that her brother may not have drowned in the floods as had been assumed. Eventually she sets out to India to try to locate her brother with a runaway slave and a girl from India who have been helpful to her accompanying her. I found that the plot of the book was not what I expected based on the description. The story line is different from most, and it certainly pushes the fringes of what could have realistically happened at that period of time. I did enjoy the author's bringing William Carey, the renowned missionary, into the plot. Music and tea play important roles in the narrative. The portion of the book which dealt with the period before setting sail could have been reduced by 50 to 75 pages without hurting the story. I found the latter part much more pleasurable to read.½

ORIGINAL SINS
A NOVEL OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM
Peg Kingman, W.W.Norton and Company,2010,HC, $25.95 416pp, 978-0-393-06547-3.

Grace Pollacke is an artist, she paints portraits in miniature. Her husband arrives home to Philadelphia after being in China for several years. Traveling with Daniel is Anibaddh, The Rani of Nungklow. It is not the first time she has been in America for she is a runaway slave from Virginia. At great personal risk she has returned to establish a silk business, but this raises suspicion in Grace.

Grace, is a woman with a sharp intellect, well read in politics and literature, a rare find in 1840. Her current patron is Mrs. Ambler who is accompanied by her sister Mrs. MacFarlane. Engaged in a conversation about religion and slavery, Grace becomes disturbed with her subject, as her views are completely contrary. Anibaddh overhears the women and immediately recognizes their voices. They are the daughters of Judge Grant of Grantsboro Plantation and therefore Grace’s cousins.

When Grace steps in harms way to save her son, she realizes why Annibadh has returned. There could be only one reason she would risk her own life to sacrifice freedom: a child. Unaware of their common ancestral lineage, the woman invite Grace to visit Grantsboro to paint other family members. Realizing she can help Anibaddh with her maternal mission she accepts their request.

What follows is a complicated almost too coincidental yet thrilling story of Grace’s past and the discovery of her family’s slaveholding past and their unspeakable transgressions. Grace, is a character with vitality: bold, daring with unconventional thoughts and actions for the period she lives. As a painter, she is mesmerized by daguerreotype photography process and saddened by the newly installed gaslights in her city.
Original Sins, the author’s second novel is a deeply creative honest look at slavery and the ugly truths of human bondage that still emerge from America’s past. Highly recommended.


© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2008-2011].

Original Sins is a historical novel that is more philosophical diatribe than one that contributes a greater understanding to historical events. It tries too hard to be grand in scope and ends up being polarizing as it discusses topics that are more appropriate to today's society than Philadelphia and Virginia in the 1840s. While Ms. Kingman uses historical figures in her novel to lend an air of authenticity to the novel, these true-life characters do not blend well with their fictional counterparts. The result is a novel that is largely inconsistent and jagged, moving from one topic to another with little fluidity.

The biggest fault of Original Sins is the multitude of topics. Ms. Kingman attempts to blend such topics as daguerreotypes, silkworms, religion, slavery, politics, painting, gardening, Indian and Virginian cultures and more. This is simply too much information to combine into one 428-page novel. As a result, character development is distinctly lacking, and the reader remains removed from Grace's plight. The rest of the characters remain decidedly stereotypical and one-noted. One gets the impression that certain subjects were only introduced in an effort to discuss other topics, and all the topics do not mesh well together but appeared forced together out of sheer will. There is a distinct stuttering to the novel. Just as the reader settles into a new subject matter, Ms. Kingman introduces another one. As a result, the story flows awkwardly.

The novel has the subtitle of A Novel of Slavery and Freedom. It truly should state A Novel of Slavery and Religion because the novel is more a diatribe against slavery and organized religion. One has no doubts as to the sentiments of Ms. Kingman. Those readers who are deeply religious may do well to avoid Original Sins because the religious Southerners are caricatured and portrayed in an extremely unflattering light. The discussions of slavery are distinctly religious in nature, as the slaveholders use the Bible to defend their actions, while Grace uses the same Bible to denounce slavery. The debate rages over many pages, much to the detriment of the main plot.

Original Sins is enjoyable but distracting. While the physical descriptions are beautiful and vivid, the dialogue is awful - stilted and trite. There is just too much of everything - too many different subjects, too many twists and turns, an ending that is too pat and too neatly accomplished. There are enjoyable sections of the novel; Ms. Kingman's focus on the natural beauty and physical descriptions of nature are amazing and detailed enough to please the most discerning gardener. Unfortunately, descriptions do nothing to help improve the overall connectivity of a novel that tries too hard to address two extremely difficult topics while presenting itself as enlightened and amazingly well-rounded. Unfortunately, Original Sins falls prey to the adage, "jack of all trades, master of none," as its tackling of such diverse topics is ultimately its downfall.

For me, the best thing about historical fiction is the chance to learn something new while being entertained with an engrossing story. Original Sins meets both of those criteria. Grace, a young white woman in early 19th century America is a painter of miniatures, is exceptionally independent for the times, was a world traveler, has a husband who travels frequently and a racist mother-in-law. When she was a young orphan living in Scotland, an aunt came to drag her back to live with relatives. Not only was that not successful, but the aunt's slave escaped, declared her freedom in a country that does not allow slavery.

Of course, all these characters, gone their separate ways, come back together in the story. Grace, heaven forbid, is apparently both an atheist and an abolitionist, conditions that relatives do their best to correct. Thornton Stringfellow preaches about how God approves and even demands slavery, and his rhetoric is based on the very real Stringfellow's essay. Fascinating, sad. There were other factual figures fictionalized to fit into the story, and I appreciated how that was done. I learned about the early, and doomed, silk industry in America, about errindy, or ahimsa, silk in which the worm is not killed. I learned about early daguerreotypes, and there were three (I think) lovely examples in the book. I was very much entertained.

I loved the Sanskrit poem that Grace translated, even though she said it was “not a very decent one.”

The drawstring of my skirt was already loosened;
it scarcely stayed on my hips.
And when my man came to bed
the knot came untied all by itself.
That's the last thing I knew.

The book loses one star for me because of the last 50 or so pages. There was too much dialogue, and even monologue, too much telling. Still, I very much enjoyed this historical fiction, enjoyed the characters, the story, and for the most part, the telling.

I was given a hardback copy of this book by the publisher through LibraryThing.

Peg Kingman very obviously did her research for "Original Sins", and there are times when it feels like she was trying to fit in all of the details of that research, even when they seemed to drag the story off-track. That aside, it is a well written book that is thorough in its telling, though at times it was easy to lose the central story in all of the excess information. The characters also suffer at times from the abundance of details, but pull through for the most part in the end. I am curious to go back and read the first book of the series now.

*I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.*

While enjoyable, I was somewhat disappointed that this book did not focus more on the character of Anibaddh Lyngdoh, the runaway slave who returns to claim her daughter, and was instead centered on Grace MacDonald Pollocke. Grace is an interesting character herself, but I did feel that her atheism was given too much emphasis and gave the novel a sense of less historical accuracy. In addition, Grace can be somewhat naive at times - or overly idealistic - making her a less believable character. Overall, however, I found Original Sins to be a good read, somewhat hard to get through in spots, but otherwise good. I would recommend this book to readers interested in slavery and religious viewpoints as historical issues.

Although Original Sins felt more like a treatise than a novel, it is a beautifully written time piece that does, in fact, have a lot to say about a lot of topics! The downside is that the novel, and characters, suffer. In character, this book reminded me quite a bit of Kingsolver's Lacuna, where the author simply uses novel as a platform to preach about various wide-ranging topics. At its core, this book is certainly about slavery, but also about the genesis of the Daguerreotype print, various forms of chemistry, the early creation of various paints and painting processes, the Asian silkworm care and silk production/trade and (too) much talk of religion(s), Christianity and morality. The novel would go on and on, then I'd think, when on earth are we getting back to the plot? The plot itself would take up about 30 pages, so perhaps that is why all the rest must be in there. The shame is the protagonist (Scottish wife/painter Grace) and the other "main" character, Anibaddh (a house slave who left into free Scotland during a trip there to accompany her master's sister in law) are pretty interesting and could have been REALLY interesting. But instead of fleshing them (for instance, Ani is supposedly married to a man of Indian royalty. He is in prison and we never really know why, what happens to him, how they met, how a Virginia 15-year old slave became so educated and brilliant) and their stories out, we just have to slough through endless essays on the above subject matter. Also, the supporting cast, other than maybe Grace's husband Dan, are even more one dimentional, or just buffoons stuck in there to play the idiotic side of the slavery/religious debates. The end of the book is absolutely unrealistic, to the point of eye-rolling goofy, and requires a reader to suspend all intelligence. So sadly, this novel, with what I felt had amazing potential, just did not add up to much more than one author's views on the subjects of the time (1830s) and research on various topics. I still believe this author has a lot of potential and I would love to see her develop some real characters with believable histories/stories. Now that the preaching is out, I'd love to read a novel of some real depth from Kingman.½

I thought this book was beautiful. It had a great storyline and very likeable characters. I won this book through Early Reviewers and I learned that this is the second book in the series. I read the first one before this one and loved both books. This book I think was a lot better than the first one. Grace Pollocke is the main character and it's very hard not to like her. She is very strong and knows her beliefs and sticks to them. She is very much against slavery and believes that all people regardless of race, color, sex, etc. should have rights. She is surrounded by people in an era and time where there are few who feel the same way. This is a wonderful story to read. It was a little wordy at times, but I loved it and would read anything else Kingman writes.

Kingman is a very talented writer, this book however is "wordy" and long winded. A great story is told, 20 years prior to slavery at it's peak, very difficult to make it through.

Beautifully written! You can tell that Kingman had done her research! There were a few parts I didn't enjoy and it did get to be long-winded at times. But all in all, great for those who like historical fiction!

Much to my surprise, "Original Sins: A Novel of Slavery and Freedom" was NOT about the Civil War. In a varying approach to the subject of slavery, the author, Peg Kingman, places the narrative about 20 years before the start of the war, and follows from a non-slave owner’s point of view (Grace Pollocke) as she encounters both free and enslaved blacks and the difficulties experienced by both. In a rather inspired twist, Kingman gives Grace an international background (Scotland, India, China) which allows myriad insights on race to rise to the surface in a natural manner.

There is a LOT going on in this book, and Kingman did significant research to incorporate relevant facts into this wholly fictional story. We have the introduction of photography to America, Religion, art history, trade with the Orient, chemistry, silkworms, and more – all interwoven with stories of slaves and their owners. While I became engrossed in many of the storylines she developed – and they all wove together quite nicely – my problem with the book is that they came together a little “too” nicely. What begins as a simple coincidence which clearly existed to move the story to its next level, is then combined with so many “right place, right time” events that it begins to strain the idea of realistic fiction. Based on the author’s skill in developing the narrative she provided, I am confident she had the ability to resolve these issues differently. However, I must re-emphasize the quality of the writing, and in the end, the book works and is well worth reading.

Peg Kingman has wrote a beautiful book on an ugly subject. Slavery/Racism is a subject in fictional literature that I haven't really touched upon much but recently have delved into with the likes of The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. I thought both were fantastic, with Mudbound being a stand out novel. I would honestly put Original Sins up there with Mudbound. The time and location are different, and while racism comes in many shape and forms, they share those common bonds. The writing of Peg Kingman flows beautifully. I think the characters could use some work but I was able to look past that. I think the quality of writing shows signs of what is to come from Kingman and that is great things.

I finally finished Original Sins by Peg Kingman. It took me a while to read... I think because I was savorying the wonderful flow of her writing. I truely loved this novel. I connected with the protagonist, Grace Pollocke, and I felt like Annibadh was a unique character which was refreshing. The plot moved a bit more slowly than other novels I've read but it never made me want to stop reading and it never bored me. I would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially histroical fictions fans.

**This was an advance reader's copy that I received from Library Thing**

There will be spoilers. Be forewarned.

If it hadn't been for the fact that I had agreed to review this book in order to receive a free copy, I would have abandoned it long ago. Alas, I am a woman of my word when it comes to getting free stuff, so I trudged through all 400+ pages. I may have to alter this view and just stick to paying for the good stuff in the future.

Why did I volunteer to read this book, other than the fact that I received it ex gratia? The advertised premise intrigued me: "Why would a runaway Virginia slave—having built a rewarding life in the East Indies as a silk merchant—risk everything by returning to America in 1840, eighteen years after taking her freedom?" Hmm. I like stories about the East Indies, I like stories about the silk trade, and I like stories about repressed people making good. That was my line of thinking. However, did I get a story about the East Indies? about the silk trade? about repressed people making good? The answer to all of these is a resounding no. What did I get instead? A story about an insufferable and arrogant New England portrait painter who goes and plays Nancy Drew for 3/4 of the story at a Southern plantation. And now I shall, in list form for clarity of organization, enumerate the many reasons why I did not like this book.

Things I Did Not Enjoy About This Book:

1) The main character of Grace MacDonald Pollocke, the fiery, short-tempered, independent red-head (what I wouldn't give, just once, to meet a literary red-head who isn't a cliche; if all fictional blondes aren't dumb, then why are all red-heads tempestuous and feisty?) who is our protagonist. Grace was born in Scotland, but raised in India and China and now lives in America. She's a cultural mutt. Grace is a self-sufficient woman, an atheist, a political astute, and an abolitionist. Grace is something of a superwoman. There's nothing she can't do. If there's a wrong being done, she'll recognize it. If there's a clue overlooked, she'll find it. If there's a flaw in a line of reasoning, she'll mend it. She is so obnoxiously perfect that I just once wanted to see her fail. But, oh, no. We can't have that. In one scene, it's even revealed that she can read a daguerreotype of a document (which appears backwards) without the aid of a mirror, all thanks to an unexplained childhood accident (seriously, that's all it says--because of a childhood accident). Why couldn't the author have just let Grace go get a friggin' mirror like everyone else?

2) The novel relies heavily upon coincidence. Everything falls into place just perfectly for perfect Grace. The narrative feels contrived and loops back around so nicely to tidy everything up that I could never give myself over to the story. I was always too aware of it as something being "made". It's akin to seeing a beautiful item from a distance, but when you get up close you can see the seams or stitches holding it together. You can see every seam and every stitch here.

3) And another thing about Grace. Oh, how she hates America. We're a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites who know nothing of our founding documents or about proper grammar. Grace takes every opportunity to contemplate what a bunch of assholes we are, far inferior to every other culture that she's ever lived in. I'll admit that, yes, all of that probably was (and is) true to an extent, but all Americans (with the exception of Grace's husband and Miss Julia Grant, the beauty who would have been as ignorant as everyone else if she weren't marred by her lazy eye; being seen as undesirable has left her with oodles of time for independent thought) are portrayed as ignorant, religious zealots. But it's like having family members that you hate--you can bad mouth them, but woe upon anyone else who does. It just gets tiresome, this intolerance she has of everyone while at the same time bemoaning how intolerant Americans themselves are.

4) A lot of the book reads like a 2nd grader proudly saying "Look what I learned!" There is so much unnecessary historical detail crammed in that it bogs down the narrative. Much of it is also presented in the form of long-winded dialogue, because there's no legitimate way of making it part of the story without doing so; one character may espouse the merits of bleach for an entire page, as well as explain how the process works. It's very obvious that Kingman did her research, but what a wealth of information is included here. A historical fiction should have historical detail, yes, but it should be applied judiciously. It is, after all, still a fiction. If one wants to write about chemistry in 1800 or about the daguerreotype process, maybe one should consider writing a non-fiction book. Just saying.

5) In one scene, Grace plays a chess game against the plantation master. The master chooses the white chess pieces (which remind Grace of white supremacy) and Grace chooses the black chess pieces (which remind her of Cleopatra and the other dark races). Grace wins. Got symbolism?

6) The most fascinating character, Anibaddh Lyngdoh, is seldom on the page. This should have been her story. Anibaddh began as a slave known as "Annie Bad" for her unruly ways and was sent to Scotland with Miss Johnstone (who was sent to bring her brother-in-law's orphaned niece, Grace, back to America). When things go awry, Miss Johnstone kidnaps Grace, but it's Anibaddh who saves Grace and obtains her freedom when she runs away from her white master. Anibaddh later marries the Rajah of a West Indies nation and becomes a wealthy, educated, and independent woman. She returns to America to search for and buy the freedom of the mulatto daughter she had to leave behind. However, Anibaddh's story is subjugated to Grace's story as it is Grace who is sent to the plantation to find out if Anibaddh's daughter is still there. Why this is necessary is still a mystery to me--Anibaddh seems perfectly capable of finding her daughter on her own. As she tells Grace time and again, she's not ignorant. She has already taken proper legal steps for protecting herself from reenslavement while in America and for securing her daughter's freedom. In a novel whose main character is constantly reminding us that blacks should be equal to whites in this time period, it's rather ironic that we have to get the black woman's story through the white woman's.

7) The most intriguing part of the book is when Anibaddh's daughter is spirited away from the plantation where Grace is staying. Grace strongly suspects that Anibaddh arrived in the middle of the night and rescued her daughter (again, begging the question posed in #6--why was Grace even needed?) During the following days, the plantation crops are destroyed by a variety of caterpillars and silk worms (about which Anibaddh was an expert). Grace begins to think, while suffering qualms of loyalty for so doing, that Anibaddh unleashed a series of plagues upon the plantation as retribution for past sins. But did she? We never find out and there is the suggestion that it was all coincidence, which just takes an awesome premise and undermines it for fear that we might see Anibaddh as a bad person then. Damn it, I want to know for a fact that she went back there and wreaked havoc and I want to know how.

Things I Did Enjoy About This Book:

1) Finishing it.

The ethnic diversity of the characters and the complexity of their respective backgrounds contributes to the holding power of Original Sins by Peg Kingman. This multi-faceted storyline transports the reader into the interest areas of photography, the silk trade, slavery, music, and religion. The story opens in Philadelphia, with Grace Pollocke's anticipation of her husband, Daniel's, return from a merchant voyage to Canton. Grace is a portrait artist; and while Daniel is away, she continues to paint in her home studio. Normally, a married woman would live with her mother-in-law while her husband travels. But Daniel's mother, "the Elder Mrs. Pollocke," has a significant problem with the repeated visits that Grace's "sitters" must make before their portraits are completed. This is the story of Grace's involvement in the life of Anibaddh Lyngdoh, a slave who accompanies her master to Scotland then takes refuge under the laws of that country — thereby declaring her freedom. She does this by simply refusing to return to the Grant Plantation in Virginia. But her freedom comes with a price — an 18-year separation from her then infant, and enslaved, daughter Diana.

Kingman does not play favorites in the development of her characters. Primary and secondary characters are given the same care and attention. In many scenes, I perceived Grace's thoughts and anticipated her actions before the author disclosed them. Grace possesses a heightened sensitivity that enables her to be in tune with those around her and to sometimes influence their reactions. She is a serious and genteel woman who makes good use of her mind and is not amused by folly — as are her current sitter, Mrs. Ambler, and her sister, Mrs. MacFarlane. The latter two are simple-minded southern women who seem to rely on their husbands' ideas to pass off as their own. And their knack for misinterpreting Sunday sermons is uncanny. They find humor in things that are not intended to be funny and probably cackle when they laugh. They figure prominently in the story, however; so I had to get used to them. Yet they still managed to astound me with their ineptness in one of their many efforts to chastise Grace about sympathizing with slaves. After that, I began to feel kind of bad for them and wish they would wake up and think for themselves.

I enjoyed reading Original Sins and highly recommend it for historical fiction fans. When I learned that the author's first book, Not Yet Drown'd, introduces Grace's mother, Catherine, with Annibaddh as her maid, I immediately checked it out of the public library. Needless to say, Kingman is an author I will continue to follow.

As a participant in the Early Reviewers Program at LibraryThing, I received a complimentary Advance Uncorrected Proof of Original Sins directly from the publisher. This has in no way influenced my review of the book. I have not received any monetary compensation for writing this review.