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Dec. 11th, 2016 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI'm a little sad the cover of the copy of Belva Plain's Crescent City that I snagged off the free bookshelf at the Traveler Restaurant is not as amazingly EIGHTIES! HISTORICAL!! as the one on the Goodreads page, but we can't have everything.
Anyway, I grabbed Crescent City because, EIGHTIES! HISTORICAL!! aside, it's about a Jewish family in New Orleans during the Civil War -- not a thing one sees frequently in historical romance -- and I was super curious how that would play out.
(Sidenote: I'd never heard of Belva Plain before, but apparently she was basically like the Jewish Philippa Gregory and spent the 80s and 90s writing tons of bestselling books about Jewish women having dramatic historical times and/or Contemporary Issues. Reviews seem to think Crescent City is pretty same-old as far as her stuff goes, but it was new to me!)
Crescent City starts out when Ferdinand, a formerly poor European Jew who has Made His Fortune in New Orleans, comes home to collect his two kids David and Miriam from their aunt and grandpa in the shtetl and bring them to their new life of Southern debutante wealth and fortune!
On the way over, a serious Jewish boy named Gabriel befriends David and Miriam and rescues a.) David and b.) Miriam's puppy from drowning (DAVID: Possibly I should have remembered I don't know how to swim BEFORE diving in after Miriam's puppy!) and then remarks on how pretty Miriam is, so you know that he and Miriam are PROBABLY destined to fall in love.
FERDINAND: OK kids, here is the tiny Jewish community where we just sort of round up whoever we can to be rabbi
DAVID: um
FERDINAND: and here is your new Catholic stepmother, don't worry, it's chill
DAVID: um??
FERDINAND: and here is your new personal slave to take care of you and --
DAVID: UM, NOPE. I'm out!
So David bounces off North to study to be a radical doctor, leaving behind eight-year-old Miriam, who grows up to become a Southern Lady with occasional vague twinges of guilty feelings about the fact that she's pretty sure David is right about slavery being bad.
Anyway, Miriam hits sixteen, and marries Extremely Eligible But Deeply Incompatible Jewish Southern Gentleman Ephraim.
MIRIAM: OH NO I AM TERRIBLY UNHAPPY
EPHRAIM: I mean, it's not like I have a secret wife in the attic or hidden leprosy dungeon or anything!
MIRIAM: Yes, I know, I realize readers used to Gothics may have been expecting this, it's just that you're sort of a pompous jerk and we are wildly incompatible and have no physical chemistry whatsoever D:
HANDSOME ANDRE: Hello Miriam, I realize we've spoken all of like twice, and also you are married and so am I, but we have UNDENIABLE physical chemistry!
MIRIAM: ... you are correct. >.>
SERIOUS GABRIEL: >:(((((
Meanwhile, David comes briefly home and helps Miriam deliver twin babies, and then gets involved in abolitionist movements and has a lot of conversations with Gabriel about direct activism vs. slow wait-and-see progress --
SERIOUS GABRIEL: Remember, you are David and the system of slavery is Goliath!
DAVID: ....buddy did you forget the actual point of that story --
SERIOUS GABRIEL: OK FINE MAYBE IT WAS NOT THE BEST ANALOGY.
-- and then accidentally shoots his Catholic stepsister's husband in the face during an abolitionist thing and then has to run away back North again!
David is aided in all this by his free black assistant Lucien. I was very excited about Lucien, who comes across as deeply competent and basically in charge of David's abolitionist agenda; unfortunately he does not appear ever again after this section of the book.
DAVID: WELL it is too bad that I can't continue to work towards abolition in the South, so instead I'm going to get involved in fighting for women's rights!
MIRIAM: ...I guess that's also nice?
However the book is not interested in David's attempt to fight for women's rights, and instead we get Ferdinand's financial woes, which leads through a convoluted series of events to Ephraim getting tragically blinded and Miriam learning how to manage a business while also engaging in a torrid affair with Hot Andre without ever actually having a real conversation with him.
(SERIOUS GABRIEL: >:((((( )
Anyway! Then finally there is the Civil War, and David is fighting for the Union and Serious Gabriel and a whole bunch of assorted friends and relations are fighting for the South and Miriam has divided loyalties because she is sort of pro-abolition, but, like, not enough to really do that much about it besides sort of thinking wistful thoughts about how she would like to free all their slaves if her husband hadn't said no that one time she brought it up.
Anyway she is busy being one of the two people in her extended family & social circle who is actually able to cope with keeping their family alive and fed through the various hardships of war, on account of her tough shtetl roots!
(The other person who can cope is spinster stepsister Eulalie, who is mean and bitter and passive-aggressively anti-Semitic, but also has spent a lot of time learning how to do actually useful things while everyone else was going to parties, so eventually she and Miriam come to a truce of agreeing to cordially dislike each other while nonetheless usefully coping to keep everybody alive. I actually quite liked this story thread.)
Meanwhile, David writes a lot of letters back home about what it's like for Jews in the Union Army, because Belva Plain did a lot of research and would like to demonstrate this fact.
Finally, the war is over! Ephraim dies! Hot Andre comes back!
HOT ANDRE: HELLO Miriam I have made a fortune in the black market and divorced my wife so now we can be wed and engage in blissful sexual passion forever!
MIRIAM: Ummmmmm yes ok but now you are actually proposing, with a ring purchased from your immoral black market gains, I realize that we have never before had a real conversation and I am not really enjoying the real conversation we are having now. So maybe let's not!
HOT ANDRE: Well, you win some, you lose some, I guess.
MIRIAM'S SON: Hey Mom guess what! Now that the war's over, I have somehow magically absorbed abolitionist sentiments despite the fact that you were never brave enough to openly talk about them with me and everybody else around me growing up was firmly pro-slavery! Human rights are just common sense!
MIRIAM: That's great, honey! I'm so glad this magically happened without my having to do anything about it.
FERDINAND: Now that we have lost everything in the war, I have remembered that my Jewish heritage is important to me and started going to synagogue again!
MIRIAM: That's great, Dad! It's cool that this also magically happened without me doing anything about it.
DAVID: I got back safe North after the war! I lost all my teeth from scurvy, but it's cool. Now I'm getting very involved in labor rights!
SERIOUS GABRIEL: I also am home from the war, where I comported myself seriously and honorably. On the downside, I've lost my arm. On the upside, I've grown a serious beard and now I look like Abe Lincoln!
MIRIAM: ... oh no he's hot.
(The fact that the book makes a point to call out that Gabriel now looks like Abraham Lincoln just in time for Miriam to suddenly realize that she's loved him all along is maybe the funniest thing to happen in the whole narrative. How do you know a man's REALLY hot? WELL LET ME TELL YOU --)
So on the very last page Miriam proposes to Serious Abraham Lincoln Lookalike Gabriel, who hilariously after four hundred pages of pining immediately is like "I, A ONE-ARMED MAN, CANNOT POSSIBLY TAKE YOU TO WIFE! YOU DESERVE SO MUCH MORE!!!" and flees the scene, and Miriam's just like "lol what a drama queen, it's fine, I'll wear him down eventually." The nicest of Jewish boys, at last!
I'm not sure I necessarily need to seek out anything else by Belva Plain after this, but I am glad I picked up and read this one. The book is, you know, the kind of EIGHTIES! HISTORICAL!! that it is, and certainly its Jewish-but-nonetheless-extremely-white perspective on the Civil War leaves a LOT of room for intersectional improvement, but it is pretty cool to see historical fiction about Jewish people that has the fact of their Jewishness interwoven into the story without making specifically-Jewish-suffering the entire point and plot. And there's still not a whole lot of that going around.
Anyway, I grabbed Crescent City because, EIGHTIES! HISTORICAL!! aside, it's about a Jewish family in New Orleans during the Civil War -- not a thing one sees frequently in historical romance -- and I was super curious how that would play out.
(Sidenote: I'd never heard of Belva Plain before, but apparently she was basically like the Jewish Philippa Gregory and spent the 80s and 90s writing tons of bestselling books about Jewish women having dramatic historical times and/or Contemporary Issues. Reviews seem to think Crescent City is pretty same-old as far as her stuff goes, but it was new to me!)
Crescent City starts out when Ferdinand, a formerly poor European Jew who has Made His Fortune in New Orleans, comes home to collect his two kids David and Miriam from their aunt and grandpa in the shtetl and bring them to their new life of Southern debutante wealth and fortune!
On the way over, a serious Jewish boy named Gabriel befriends David and Miriam and rescues a.) David and b.) Miriam's puppy from drowning (DAVID: Possibly I should have remembered I don't know how to swim BEFORE diving in after Miriam's puppy!) and then remarks on how pretty Miriam is, so you know that he and Miriam are PROBABLY destined to fall in love.
FERDINAND: OK kids, here is the tiny Jewish community where we just sort of round up whoever we can to be rabbi
DAVID: um
FERDINAND: and here is your new Catholic stepmother, don't worry, it's chill
DAVID: um??
FERDINAND: and here is your new personal slave to take care of you and --
DAVID: UM, NOPE. I'm out!
So David bounces off North to study to be a radical doctor, leaving behind eight-year-old Miriam, who grows up to become a Southern Lady with occasional vague twinges of guilty feelings about the fact that she's pretty sure David is right about slavery being bad.
Anyway, Miriam hits sixteen, and marries Extremely Eligible But Deeply Incompatible Jewish Southern Gentleman Ephraim.
MIRIAM: OH NO I AM TERRIBLY UNHAPPY
EPHRAIM: I mean, it's not like I have a secret wife in the attic or hidden leprosy dungeon or anything!
MIRIAM: Yes, I know, I realize readers used to Gothics may have been expecting this, it's just that you're sort of a pompous jerk and we are wildly incompatible and have no physical chemistry whatsoever D:
HANDSOME ANDRE: Hello Miriam, I realize we've spoken all of like twice, and also you are married and so am I, but we have UNDENIABLE physical chemistry!
MIRIAM: ... you are correct. >.>
SERIOUS GABRIEL: >:(((((
Meanwhile, David comes briefly home and helps Miriam deliver twin babies, and then gets involved in abolitionist movements and has a lot of conversations with Gabriel about direct activism vs. slow wait-and-see progress --
SERIOUS GABRIEL: Remember, you are David and the system of slavery is Goliath!
DAVID: ....buddy did you forget the actual point of that story --
SERIOUS GABRIEL: OK FINE MAYBE IT WAS NOT THE BEST ANALOGY.
-- and then accidentally shoots his Catholic stepsister's husband in the face during an abolitionist thing and then has to run away back North again!
David is aided in all this by his free black assistant Lucien. I was very excited about Lucien, who comes across as deeply competent and basically in charge of David's abolitionist agenda; unfortunately he does not appear ever again after this section of the book.
DAVID: WELL it is too bad that I can't continue to work towards abolition in the South, so instead I'm going to get involved in fighting for women's rights!
MIRIAM: ...I guess that's also nice?
However the book is not interested in David's attempt to fight for women's rights, and instead we get Ferdinand's financial woes, which leads through a convoluted series of events to Ephraim getting tragically blinded and Miriam learning how to manage a business while also engaging in a torrid affair with Hot Andre without ever actually having a real conversation with him.
(SERIOUS GABRIEL: >:((((( )
Anyway! Then finally there is the Civil War, and David is fighting for the Union and Serious Gabriel and a whole bunch of assorted friends and relations are fighting for the South and Miriam has divided loyalties because she is sort of pro-abolition, but, like, not enough to really do that much about it besides sort of thinking wistful thoughts about how she would like to free all their slaves if her husband hadn't said no that one time she brought it up.
Anyway she is busy being one of the two people in her extended family & social circle who is actually able to cope with keeping their family alive and fed through the various hardships of war, on account of her tough shtetl roots!
(The other person who can cope is spinster stepsister Eulalie, who is mean and bitter and passive-aggressively anti-Semitic, but also has spent a lot of time learning how to do actually useful things while everyone else was going to parties, so eventually she and Miriam come to a truce of agreeing to cordially dislike each other while nonetheless usefully coping to keep everybody alive. I actually quite liked this story thread.)
Meanwhile, David writes a lot of letters back home about what it's like for Jews in the Union Army, because Belva Plain did a lot of research and would like to demonstrate this fact.
Finally, the war is over! Ephraim dies! Hot Andre comes back!
HOT ANDRE: HELLO Miriam I have made a fortune in the black market and divorced my wife so now we can be wed and engage in blissful sexual passion forever!
MIRIAM: Ummmmmm yes ok but now you are actually proposing, with a ring purchased from your immoral black market gains, I realize that we have never before had a real conversation and I am not really enjoying the real conversation we are having now. So maybe let's not!
HOT ANDRE: Well, you win some, you lose some, I guess.
MIRIAM'S SON: Hey Mom guess what! Now that the war's over, I have somehow magically absorbed abolitionist sentiments despite the fact that you were never brave enough to openly talk about them with me and everybody else around me growing up was firmly pro-slavery! Human rights are just common sense!
MIRIAM: That's great, honey! I'm so glad this magically happened without my having to do anything about it.
FERDINAND: Now that we have lost everything in the war, I have remembered that my Jewish heritage is important to me and started going to synagogue again!
MIRIAM: That's great, Dad! It's cool that this also magically happened without me doing anything about it.
DAVID: I got back safe North after the war! I lost all my teeth from scurvy, but it's cool. Now I'm getting very involved in labor rights!
SERIOUS GABRIEL: I also am home from the war, where I comported myself seriously and honorably. On the downside, I've lost my arm. On the upside, I've grown a serious beard and now I look like Abe Lincoln!
MIRIAM: ... oh no he's hot.
(The fact that the book makes a point to call out that Gabriel now looks like Abraham Lincoln just in time for Miriam to suddenly realize that she's loved him all along is maybe the funniest thing to happen in the whole narrative. How do you know a man's REALLY hot? WELL LET ME TELL YOU --)
So on the very last page Miriam proposes to Serious Abraham Lincoln Lookalike Gabriel, who hilariously after four hundred pages of pining immediately is like "I, A ONE-ARMED MAN, CANNOT POSSIBLY TAKE YOU TO WIFE! YOU DESERVE SO MUCH MORE!!!" and flees the scene, and Miriam's just like "lol what a drama queen, it's fine, I'll wear him down eventually." The nicest of Jewish boys, at last!
I'm not sure I necessarily need to seek out anything else by Belva Plain after this, but I am glad I picked up and read this one. The book is, you know, the kind of EIGHTIES! HISTORICAL!! that it is, and certainly its Jewish-but-nonetheless-extremely-white perspective on the Civil War leaves a LOT of room for intersectional improvement, but it is pretty cool to see historical fiction about Jewish people that has the fact of their Jewishness interwoven into the story without making specifically-Jewish-suffering the entire point and plot. And there's still not a whole lot of that going around.
