Regretfully, I was very disappointed in this. I was so excited when this was chosen for our book group, as the subject sounded fascinating -- the opportunity to learn something about a moment in history, and to bring back to life a "lost" and under-rated individual who did incredible things.
But instead of an exciting adventure, this was a slog. I think Leveen, who is a historian, has fallen victim to the Curse of the Researcher: she is so excited by every little factoid that she has discovered about her period, and the world Mary Bowser would have moved in, she gives everything equal weight, and loses sight of how it affects the dynamic of the narrative.
If ever a story cried out to begin "in media res," it's this one: I think she could have done a lot by embedding us in the breathless thrill and danger of Mary Bowser's undercover work in the Grey House, the official residence of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis and his family. And then use flashbacks to construct the character and courage of a young black freedwoman who went back below the Mason-Dixon Line, and pretended to be a slave again so she could report back to Union spymasters on documents she had seen and conversations she had overheard.
Gets an extra star because Leveen doesn't depict the black characters as helpless victims. Even well-meaning white abolitionists and supporters of the Union are depicted as pretty hopeless when it comes to the realities of the black characters -- no "white saviours" here. And she's pretty blunt in her dislike of Jefferson Davis and his "first lady," Varina Davis -- they are whiny, selfish monsters, and they deserve everything that was coming to them, thanks to people like Mary Bowser. I wonder if Leveen's depiction of Varina Davis is a caricature of a Southern Belle -- everything I've read suggests she was more complicated than that.
By an enormous coincidence, this article appeared in The Washington Post yesterday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/03/24/freed-slave-became-spy-then-she-took-down-confederate-white-house/?utm_term=.36a3057c079a
I'm very grateful to Lois Leveen for making this incredible story available, and saving Mary Bowser from obscurity. I just wish I had liked the book better ...
But instead of an exciting adventure, this was a slog. I think Leveen, who is a historian, has fallen victim to the Curse of the Researcher: she is so excited by every little factoid that she has discovered about her period, and the world Mary Bowser would have moved in, she gives everything equal weight, and loses sight of how it affects the dynamic of the narrative.
If ever a story cried out to begin "in media res," it's this one: I think she could have done a lot by embedding us in the breathless thrill and danger of Mary Bowser's undercover work in the Grey House, the official residence of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis and his family. And then use flashbacks to construct the character and courage of a young black freedwoman who went back below the Mason-Dixon Line, and pretended to be a slave again so she could report back to Union spymasters on documents she had seen and conversations she had overheard.
Gets an extra star because Leveen doesn't depict the black characters as helpless victims. Even well-meaning white abolitionists and supporters of the Union are depicted as pretty hopeless when it comes to the realities of the black characters -- no "white saviours" here. And she's pretty blunt in her dislike of Jefferson Davis and his "first lady," Varina Davis -- they are whiny, selfish monsters, and they deserve everything that was coming to them, thanks to people like Mary Bowser. I wonder if Leveen's depiction of Varina Davis is a caricature of a Southern Belle -- everything I've read suggests she was more complicated than that.
By an enormous coincidence, this article appeared in The Washington Post yesterday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/03/24/freed-slave-became-spy-then-she-took-down-confederate-white-house/?utm_term=.36a3057c079a
I'm very grateful to Lois Leveen for making this incredible story available, and saving Mary Bowser from obscurity. I just wish I had liked the book better ...
