Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140521 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780156032643
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Amazon.com Review
One of the satisfactions of Emma Donoghue's masterful fourth novel, Life Mask, is the tension between the writer's contemporary interests, like lesbianism and the balance of power in marriage, and her 18th Century subject matter. Life Mask is a fictional recreation of a plausible (but unproven) love triangle between the comedic actress Eliza Farren, the sculptor Anne Damer (the niece of Horace Walpole, a fantastic minor character here), and Edward Smith-Stanley, the twelfth Earl of Derby, a Whig (liberal) politician who left his name to the horse race he founded. Like her bestseller Slammerkin, the novel spins an intricate story from the slightest of historical traces, in this case a single reference in the commonplace book of Hester (Thrale) Piozzi: a snarky four-line epigram that hints at the danger to Miss Farren's reputation in consorting with "one whose name approaches 'Damn Her.'"

Readers who stay with Donoghue through the crowded and confusing early chapters of Life Mask will find a skillful, partly sympathetic portrait of English aristocracy during and after the French Revolution, a trove of period detail, and a spellbinding tale of unlikely but enduring love. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
Few sexual liaisons among the gentry went unnoticed in 18th-century beau monde England—the gossip papers of the era make our own tabloid culture look respectful—and though fleeting same-sex affairs were somewhat fashionable, suspected homosexuals were condemned to public humiliation and criminal punishment. Offering a fictionalized account of real-life scandal, Donoghue (Slammerkin) tells the story of three minor historical personages: the actress Eliza Farren, the Earl of Derby and the widowed sculptress Anne Damer. Famously ugly Lord Derby has been pursuing chaste young Eliza for years, hoping to marry her when his estranged, invalid wife dies. In the meantime, Eliza meets Derby's friend Anne and the two strike up a close, platonic friendship. Though she denies them vehemently, rumors of Sapphism haunt Anne Damer and endanger the reputations of everyone around her. Spanning the decade from 1787 to 1797, the novel follows this cast of characters through their complicated romantic and political entanglements. All the while, the French Revolution rages, causing major upheaval among the British nobility. Even as Derby and Anne befriend common folk like Eliza and support the liberal Whig party, hoping to topple mad King George, the mounting wave of European democracy threatens to extinguish their life of indolent leisure. Donoghue, who has written a historical examination of 18th-century British lesbian culture, Passions Between Women, has an extraordinary talent for turning exhaustive research into plausible characters and narratives; she presents a vibrant world seething with repressed feeling and class tensions.
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From The Washington Post
Who can resist the seductions of a lush period drama? The parade of fabulous clothes, the genteel manners, the veiled eroticism that always seems to burst forth in a breathless flurry of petticoats and wigs in some broom closet. Repressive social mores and constricting dress make for a fertile dramatic backdrop -- one that's ripe for a scandal. Irish writer Emma Donoghue plumbs this territory in Life Mask, her mesmerizing new novel, which at 650 pages is like one of those great 19th-century tomes that you're sad to see come to an end. Donoghue's approach with her two most recent books -- the bestselling novel Slammerkin and the provocatively titled story collection The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits -- has been to spin an intricate fictional web around bits of historical marginalia. Among the documents that inspired Slammerkin, for instance, was a broadsheet from 1764 that claimed that a servant girl named Mary Saunders, hanged for the brutal murder of her mistress, was driven to it by a lust for fine clothes. Donoghue recognized that tantalizing trifle of information as literary gold and developed it into a Dickensian tale of a penniless child whose intense longing for a red ribbon led to a life of dissolution and crime.

With Life Mask -- set in the waning decades of the 18th century, the French Revolution raging in the not-so-distant background -- Donoghue shows that she is equally at home in the drawing rooms of the Beau Monde and the squalid cellars of poor working-class London. Training her eye on the lavish lifestyle of the "glittering throng," she dissects the very world that Mary Saunders yearned for but could not reach. At one point in Slammerkin Mary contemplates making a clean start and maybe becoming an actress -- "or a rich man's wife. Something that lets me wear silk all day. Something to lift me above the mob." Donoghue's new heroine, the lovely but low-born Eliza Farren, who rises to prominence as the Queen of Comedy at Drury Lane Theater and marries an earl, is the very embodiment of poor Mary's dreams.

The cast of characters (all real people) listed at the back of the book spreads over six pages and includes such notables as the fiery Whig leader Charles James Fox, "Prinny" (the profligate Prince of Wales), and the legendary society beauty and Whig campaigner Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (who was the model for Lady Teazle in Richard Sheridan's "The School for Scandal"). Donoghue's story focuses on a less historically prominent threesome that moved in the same elite circles: the fantastically rich and ugly Lord Derby (for whom the horse race is named); his longtime inamorata Eliza Farren; and the widow and accomplished sculptor Anne Damer. Anne and Derby are childhood friends, and it is with Anne's help that Derby hopes to introduce Eliza, an actress with no pedigree, into the fold of fine society.

Derby's romantic predicament is unlike that of other married men in his set, who pursue dalliances as unabashedly as they bet on horses. But Eliza's fear of being marked as a kept woman has led her to impose a set of draconian limits on the relationship -- no gifts, no excessive flattery or familiarity in public, and private meetings permitted only in the company of her mother -- all of which Derby has stoically accepted. His long-suffering devotion is a source of endless amusement for the scandal sheets. As Derby had hoped, Anne Damer takes an instant liking to Eliza, and the two become fast friends, paving the way for Eliza's acceptance by the World -- the Beau Monde. But the women's mutual regard can't withstand the rumors of Sapphism, that "unnatural vice," which have been dogging Anne ever since her husband's suicide. The latest circulating epigram is too much for Eliza to ignore: "Her little Stock of private Fame/ Will fall a Wreck to public Clamour,/ If Farren herds with her whose Name/ Approaches very near to Damn her. "

Political fireworks backlight these private dramas. The liberal Whigs, led by Fox, are trying to wrest power from William Pitt's Tory government, which has the support of the deranged George III, and to usher in reforms. Derby and his friends are ardent Foxites (though Derby draws the line at renouncing his title and stripping his carriage of the family crest, and Anne and Eliza can't quite bring themselves to give up sugar for the anti-slavery campaign: "What would one serve for desserts, apart from oranges and walnuts?"). But the escalating violence of the French Revolution breeds fear of domestic revolt among the upper classes and in government and drives a wedge into the Whig party. The gist of the clashing political viewpoints may seem familiar: "This is our civilisation's stand against an enemy of a kind we've never encountered before. . . . They aim to spread their infection of anarchy till all Europe is one howling furnace." The rejoinder: "I'm more afraid that Pitt and the King, on the pretext of national security, will destroy everything I love about England."

Donoghue, who is also a playwright and historian, has alighted on another terrific story, and she pulls off a dazzling feat of choreography in setting it all in motion. She takes obvious delight in the sumptuous details of dress and comportment, the subtle inflections in conversation and the slow blooming of erotic tension. As Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire would say, "It was all simply ravish."

Reviewed by Julia Livshin
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Life Among the Ladies and Gents
In her previous novel, Slammerkin, Ms.Donoghue created a superbly realized piece of literature based on a tiny historical footnote: one Mary Saunders, a prostitute, in 1760's England, was put to death at the age of 16 for murdering her benefactor. Out of this tidbit came a vivid, engrossing and deliciously lurid tale.

In this, her latest novel, she is quite a bit more ambitious. For now her tale encompasses the lives of not one, but three characters in 18th century England, each of whom is far more complex than poor Mary, being as they are at the forefront of London society, politics and culture. Although the historical record gives Ms. Donoghue more to work with, there is still plenty of room for her imagination to soar, and soar it surely does in this magnificent novel.

The notable accomplishment here, and the thing which historical fiction aficionados most desire, is that it wholly transports one to another time and place. More than just recounting events or the clothes one wore, the reader wishes to come to know people. What were their thoughts, their motivations, their fears, their hopes in this long ago period? How were they able to cope, and what were society's expectations of and limitations on them?

Ms. Donoghue expertly brings this era to life--the ten year period beginning in 1787 London--through the lives of her three main characters. They are: Eliza Farren, the premiere comedic actress of her day; the Earl of Derby, her suitor, a member of the House of Lords, and the richest man in England; and Anne Damer, a member of the nobility, and a noted sculptress.

Eliza Farren was not born to the nobility but finds her ticket out of the dregs is her beauty and superb composure on the London stage. She attains fame, but interestingly in these times, fame does not necessarily translate into wealth, although she does well enough. Nevertheless, she is morbidly aware that a slip, a slur, a misstep, could end her career in a heartbeat. Life in the colorful London theater was fraught with anxiety.

During this time she is courted by Lord Derby, who is married but estranged from his wife. We learn that a lady's virtue in 18th century London was of extreme importance, and fascinatingly, throughout the entire lengthy courtship, Ms. Farren never has a single meeting with Lord Derby without the accompaniment of her chaperone mother. In today's day and age, this is almost hard to believe, but back then, a lady's reputation was quite often her only asset. In Miss Farren's case, everything depended on it.

But the novel does not simply leave it at that. Their contrived behavior has a profound effect on their relationship. Derby must be almost inhumanely patient, and occasionally boils over with suppressed desire. Eliza over time becomes brittle and distant, resisting as she must the advances of her suitor, while at the same time sublimating ever more deeply the longing in her heart.

Derby, as a member of the House of Lords, has vital, political concerns. George III is on the throne, and resistant to the reforms England so desperately needs. To come into power he and the members of the Whig party to which he belongs feel they must court and cajole the Prince, the loutish, debt-ridden, indecisive "Prinny," an enormously complicated task. In the meantime, events are occurring across the water in France, which also cause a great deal of concern. The narrative, again, makes these events very personal. To us, Marie Antoinette was the woman who said, "Let them eat cake." To Derby, Marie was an acquaintance. News of her lonely execution was both shocking and horrifying, and sent a collective chill of fear throughout his circle.

The most fascinating character in the novel, however, is the widowed sculptor, Anne Damer. Ms. Damer is a member of the nobility, putting on dinners, sponsoring plays, and visiting her clever and distinguished relatives, but always moving with a sense of trepidation in, "the tiny universe of rules and whispers," she inhabits. She eventually becomes ensnared. You see, Ms. Damer is a lesbian, and in the England of the late 18th century, such a thing was not acknowledged, even to oneself. Ms. Damer, emotionally complex and hugely sympathetic, never even considers the possibility. The reader, however, begins to suspect this long before she does. In reaction to her sharp criticism on an unrelated matter, the tabloids unfairly accuse her of "sapphism." Even the whisper of such a thing could bring catastrophic consequences to one's life, and for Anne it brings to her an agonizing journey of self-discovery. When her moment finally arrives, the reader reacts with an almost palpable sense of relief, of joy even. It is an emotionally wrenching, subtle, and intensely erotic scene.

It becomes apparent that the "Life Mask" of the title is quite a bit more telling than simply being a description of the method by which Anne begins her sculptures. In this rigid, rule-bound society, wearing a life mask in one's daily affairs was practically a necessity. And perhaps only slightly more so than the ones we ourselves wear today.

This book is a masterpiece. It is complex, detailed and with multi-layered, nuanced, painfully human characters. At the same time it is a very readable and engrossing entertainment. Admittedly, the opening is little daunting, as one is introduced quickly to a rather large number of Earls and Lords and Ladies and Dukes, but after fifty pages or so, it moves along painlessly. With her previous novel and now this, Ms. Donoghue has established not only that she is an outstanding writer of fiction, she has established that she is currently among the finest writers of fiction in the English language.

Worth the time
I've read reviews complaining of this novel's length. In my view that's one of its strengths. It's like a gourmet meal with unfamiliar dishes, as opposed to a fast-food burger and fries. It helps to be familiar with 18th century British history--I found all the characters to be marvelously drawn. Although I was familiar with most of the historical figures, her rendering of Walpole, Fox, Sheridan and the others made them come alive. It would be useful to have read the wonderful recent bio of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (exact title and author escape me). I picked "Life Mask" up in an airport bookshop, looking for a quick read on a plane, never having heard anything about it and knowing nothing about the author. I was wrong about the "quick read", but delightfully so. I'm so sick of novels that can be read pretty much in one sitting and/or lack complexity. So many novels seem to be written with a screenplay in mind. This one took over a week to read, and I was sorry when it was done.

What a writer
I was introduced to Emma Donoghue through her previous novel "Slammerkin", and am currently reading everything she else she has written so far.
"Life Mask" is a complex novel, both in it's characters as well as in it's settings. The story follows the loves and lives of Eliza Farrow, actress, Lord Derby who is in love with Eliza, and Anne Damer, a sculptor who also appears to be in love with Eliza. Thus we are introduced to their triangluar relationship and become privy to open and closed secrets.
The book is fascinating, although at times the politics of the time overwhelm the story somewhat. I am familiar with European politics having grown up in Austria, but I imagine it could be challenging to someone less familiar. Still, a smashing read!