(no subject)

[skygiants]

Reading Barbara Michaels' Patriot's Dream was .... an interesting experience. One that frequently made me want to bang my head against the nearest window. But interesting!

Patriot's Dream is set in Colonial Williamsburg, whither Our Disillusioned 22-Year-Old Heroine Jan has retreated to live with her sweet but racist elderly aunt and uncle in their historic family home after a difficult year of being a teacher in an inner-city school followed by an equally difficult year of being a teacher in a private school.

CONSTANT READER: So Jan, why are you so disillusioned at your young age? Do you have a terrible past or a grave disappointment?
JAN: Teaching is the WORST, the children are RUDE and HORRIBLE and get in GANG FIGHTS and they don't appreciate the beauty of LITERATURE and nothing MATTERS in this world!
CONSTANT READER: So ... you really have no positive feelings towards your students at all, huh.
JAN: Nope! Every single one of them was an uncultured little shit.

As is generally the case in a Barbara Michaels novel, a set of suitors rapidly line up to compete for Jan's attention:

RICHARD, a sweet Colonial Williamsburg employee who agrees with Jan that the world is garbage and is going to spend the rest of his life making historical violins and pretending nothing else exists
ALAN, a rude and ugly lawyer whose favorite thing is picking fights with people, especially Jan, and who therefore is obviously going to be the final guy
A BORING DOCTOR, who is so boring I can't even remember his name
JONATHAN, a conflicted Quaker from from the Revolutionary War era that Jan starts stalking in her dreams from her first night in Colonial Williamsburg!

As revealed through Jan's dream-scenes, Jonathan is conflicted because he is a.) a pacifist and b.) vehemently abolitionist, and so even though he supports independence he ALSO starts helping slaves escape to the British ranks because the British army promises freedom which nobody in Virginia is about to do. OK; as an angle on the Revolutionary War this is kind of better than I was expecting from a historical romance written in 1976.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the historical B-plot involves Jonathan's best bud/Jan's great-great-etc.-grandfather Charles, who comes to realize that Slavery is Wrong only when he falls in tragic mutual totally uncoerced love with a beautiful white-passing house slave Leah in a plot that is literally straight out of a 19th-century melodrama.

And then, of course, our Jan, reacting to all this in the present:

JAN: So I've started reading up on this stuff, is it true about Jefferson and Sally Hemings?
RICHARD: Oh no! That's not in noble Jefferson's character!
ALAN: Oh yeah, it's definitely true.
CONSTANT READER: OK, Barbara Michaels, I'm kind of impressed that you went there in the Jefferson-worshipping bicentennial year of 1976 -
ALAN: Well, you know, probably what happened was he really loved her but they couldn't legally get married, so the only way they could be together was for him to keep her as a slave. It's very tragic.
JAN: Gosh, before I started having these historical dreams I never thought before how difficult it must have been for all those white men tragically in love with their slaves! Slavery really WAS the worst.
CONSTANT READER: I take it back!! I TAKE IT BACK.

ANYWAY, Jan gets very engrossed in this historical melodrama, and also starts falling for Jonathan. It's true love! ... in a one-sided dream-stalking crush sort of way because Jonathan still has no idea who she is or that she's been dream-stalking him since he was sixteen.

However, Jan somehow gets the notion that the only way to make sure she has the dreams at night is to make out with someone during the day, so she develops a habit of going on dates with Richard, perfunctorily making out with him, and then bouncing home to fall asleep and dream about her idealistic conflicted dead Quaker, who is now acting as a double agent and working with James Armistead Lafayette and doing all kinds of legitimately interesting things.

Meanwhile, in the present:
RICHARD: Marry me!
JAN: Ummmm it's 1976 and we've been on five dates and I'm literally just using you for your lips???
RICHARD: Look, you don't want to interact with anything outside of the fantasy past and neither do I, it's a match made in heaven.

Occasionally Alan also drags her out on dates, in order to fight with her.

ALAN: Want to come see me coach underprivileged kids' baseball?
JAN: No, my year as a teacher has taught me that I hate children and don't want to see them ever.
SOME UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILD ON ALAN'S BASEBALL TEAM: [HAS LEGITIMATE COMPLAINTS ABOUT HIS ABUSIVE HOME LIFE]
JAN: ...huh
ALAN: What?
JAN: I'm feeling .... sympathy for this child? This is new and weird.
ALAN: Well, it certainly seems out of character.
JAN: OH YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS, it's because after seeing Charles fight with his dad about not being allowed to join the war effort or date his beautiful slave, I suddenly understand that maybe when kids express distress about their home lives, they might have legitimate things to complain about! HUH.
CONSTANT READER: ....................

Eventually, Jan goes on a life-endangering trek to the abandoned, snake-infested, crumbling family plantation! ... so she can take a nice nap there! and dream the end of Jonathan's story!

IN THE END OF THE STORY, GOOD HEROIC JONATHAN

- has switched places with Charles so Charles can run off to Philadelphia and live happily ever after with Leah
- has therefore, after an entire book in which THE ONLY THING he consistently fought for was the principle of abolition, ended up as A PLANTATION MASTER AND SLAVE-OWNER
- felt too responsible to Charles' family, legacy, etc. to free any slaves until he was LITERALLY DYING
- at which point his wife poisons him before he can amend his will to free his slaves!!!
- so the family goes on owning a bunch of slaves until the Civil War!!!!

I bet you can guess what Jan thinks about this, right?

If you guessed: "this turn of events is so tragic FOR JONATHAN, he fought so hard for his dreams and it all ended up being fruitless," DING! you are CORRECT!

Anyway Charles and Leah turn out to be Alan's great-great-etc.-grandparents and Jonathan and his poisoning wife are Jan's great-great-etc.-grandparents so somehow this was all destined, romantically, and that's the really important thing.

ALAN: If you marry me instead of Richard, I'm going to go work for the DoJ and come home miserable and angry about politics every single day! We'll be unhappy and argue basically all the time!
JAN: Well, I've learned from Jonathan that it's important to fight for the good you want to see in the world no matter how useless all your efforts will probably end up being in the end, so sure, that's sounds good to me. Also, I've realized that Richard, my only other viable non-historical love interest, is a coward who retreats from the present, so -
ALAN: Oh, well, I mean, he was in Vietnam and has serious PTSD, so I don't blame the guy for retreating into a nice harmless enterprise like historical violin-making.
JAN: .... well this was relevant information that MAYBE I should have gotten EARLIER but anyway! Whatever! I'm marrying Alan! It's destiny! Also, I'm going back to teaching!
CONSTANT READER: But you hated teaching, and also, it sounds like you were incredibly bad at it, so ...
JAN: I will definitely be miserable and ineffective! But in a good cause! This is the lesson I've learned, from my miserable, ineffective, tragic slaveowning friends in the past.

THANKS FOR THAT MORAL, BARBARA MICHAELS.

I mean, look. I understand what she was going for. I understand that she tried! But I am still left with a desire to seek out the nearest window and bang my head against it, immediately.

Comments

[misbegotten]

I just adore your recaps.

[percysowner]

I know I read Patriot's Dream because I read practically all of Barbara Michaels books at one point in my life, but I honestly don't remember it. When I saw the name I remembered it was mediocre, but I pretty much blocked the plot totally.

Certainly the two views that the book presented about the Sally Hemings/Thomas Jefferson relationship were the big ones from back in the day. It was either TJ was celibate and in love with his dead wife and would never have an affair (especially with a black woman) or they were in love and it was SO SO tragic that they were unable to marry because the world wouldn't let them and poor, poor TJ. The fact that he kept his own children as slaves, and made his sons buy their freedom was not really mentioned. The fact that, as a slave, Sally Hemings couldn't say no to Jefferson, so she could never really give consent to his advances never came up as well.

[sovay]

JONATHAN, a conflicted Quaker from from the Revolutionary War era that Jan starts stalking in her dreams from her first night in Colonial Williamsburg!

Was not expecting the hard right into astral projection, I have to say.

and so even though he supports independence he ALSO starts helping slaves escape to the British ranks because the British army promises freedom which nobody in Virginia is about to do. OK; as an angle on the Revolutionary War this is kind of better than I was expecting from a historical romance written in 1976.

Agreed: I've seen that history in M.T. Anderson's Octavian Nothing books and possibly nowhere else in fiction. (There may well be other instances! I just haven't run into them and no matter what I believe it's relatively rare.)

If you guessed: "this turn of events is so tragic FOR JONATHAN, he fought so hard for his dreams and it all ended up being fruitless," DING! you are CORRECT!

How was he even able to switch places with Charles? Was this some kind of Carton/Darnay doppelgänger situation or did everybody on the plantation just agree to keep mum until Charles' wife could bump off the new dude? Also, seriously, Jonathan, what?

Anyway Charles and Leah turn out to be Alan's great-great-etc.-grandparents and Jonathan and his poisoning wife are Jan's great-great-etc.-grandparents so somehow this was all destined, romantically, and that's the really important thing.

I am confused as to how the romantic predestination is meant to work, unless the significance is that back in the Colonial period Charles and Jonathan were supposed to bone.

[rachelmanija]

That was also my experience with the book! And now I know why.

[aella_irene]

...so...Jan was in love with her great-etc grandfather? Racy, Barbara Michaels, racy.

[gramarye1971]

I almost feel like I should read this book purely for the purposes of ranting about the Colonial Williamsburg aspects.

[skygiants]

Thank you! :D

[skygiants]

Huh! I think by the time I was learning history the only two versions I ever heard were "TJ was a saint who was so in love with his dead wife" OR "TJ was a hypocrite who banged his wife's slave sister," with no soft-focus middle ground in between.

[skygiants]

The book cover was like "time travel romance!" so I was expecting either astral projection or ghosts, what I wasn't expecting was that the time travel romance would be so hilariously one-sided.

Octavian Nothing was the first place I encountered that particular lens on the Revolutionary War, too. I feel like I've since seen or read at least one more book or movie that referred to it -- maybe Blindspot? But it's definitely not common.

I thiiink by the time the book ended both of Charles' parents were dead, and Charles' fiancee always liked Jonathan better anyway (until the end of the book and the poisoning) so everyone just kind of politely agreed to agree about it? IT'S FINE. WE'RE ALL FINE. Also, I'm really not entirely sure we weren't supposed to be taking away that Jonathan and Charles were supposed to bone.

[skygiants]

More common in fiction than you'd think! I think the first time I encountered that particular trope was in a pair of kids' books called The Wizard Children of Finn and The Lost Legend of Finn. In the first book, the heroine goes back in time and crushes on Finn Mac Cool. In the second one, it turns out that her mom also went back in time and Finn Mac Cool is her actual dad, and she's named after herself.

...also in Diana Wynne Jones' Dalemark, where the heroine goes back in time and falls in love with a teenage boy, who turns out to be a.) immortal enough to date her in the future and b.) her great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. But it's fine! No one cares!

[skygiants]

I STILL HAVE MY COPY. I could bring it down with me when I go to DC .... :D?

[evewithanapple]

Personally, I'm on Team Jonathan's Wife. She had the right idea!

[vass]

And then there is Heinlein.

[vass]

- at which point his wife poisons him before he can amend his will to free his slaves!!!

I'm hoping you mean something other than this?

[ekaterinn]

...this is amazing. In both good and bad ways.

On the subject of TJ and Sally Hemings, the book I loved growing up was Wolf By The Ears by Ann Rinaldi (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143115.Wolf_by_the_Ears), which was written before we had conclusive DNA evidence.

In the book, Harriet Hemings, daughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, must make a choice to leave Monticello and everything she knows but remain a slave or leave and be free. Once she does decide to leave, she must also choose whether to live as a freed black woman or pass as white - both of which are dangerous in different ways. Powerful and convincing stuff - I must have re-read it at least a dozen times.

It's probably more sympathetic to TJ than I would feel comfortable with now, but it doesn't shy away from the hard choices he forced unto Sally and their children: one reason Harriet does decide to leave is that she is told by a relative that Jefferson is up to his eyeballs in debt and there's no guarantee that she wouldn't end up being sold when he died (despite any promises of him to free her and her siblings in his will).

[sovay]

a.) immortal enough to date her in the future and b.) her great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. But it's fine! No one cares!

To be fair, I don't care.

[percysowner]

Ah, yes one of the ickiest scenes in a book I have ever read. Just no!

[evewithanapple]

Oh, no, I was just talking about the poisoning part. I missed the bit about the will amendment.

[skygiants]

Honestly, Jonathan is actually the most sympathetic character in the whole thing (Leah & the other slaves aside, none of whom ever get POVs or much screentime, because of course) UNTIL THE LAST SCENE.

[skygiants]

The only Ann Rinaldi I ever remember seeing at the local library is the one about Benedict Arnold. I wish they'd had this one! I don't remember hearing about the Jefferson and Hemings thing at all until the DNA evidence came out and suddenly it was EVERYWHERE.

[skygiants]

I don't care at all but I feel like ... had I read the book as an adult first ... I might care a little ......... or rather, were I Maewen, I might care!

[pedanther]

also in Diana Wynne Jones' Dalemark, where the heroine goes back in time and falls in love with a teenage boy, who turns out to be a.) immortal enough to date her in the future and b.) her great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.

I thought her great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Moril, not Mitt? That's why her surname is Singer, and her full name is the modern version of Moril's sister's full name.

[skygiants]

As I remember the end, it's likely that her dad's descended from Clennen because of the surname (which could mean Moril or any of his siblings was her great-great-grandparent), and extremely certain that her mom is a descendant of Amil the Great. On this fact rests a hundred 'Maewen's actually Undying after all!' fix-it fics.

[cinaed]

...Man, we both ended up with weird slave-owner novels this past week! I am slowly going through my Kindle because I kept buying free or discounted ebooks and now I have like...200 unread....

So at some point I bought some Gothic Thrillers collections by Jennifer Blake, and decided to try them out. Yikes. Yikes yikes yikes.

First one, BRIDE OF A STRANGER, expects me to root for a love interest who:

A) Forces the woman to marry him by threatening to murder her cousin in a duel if she does
B) Is a slave-owner
C) Is a slave-owner whose mistress is one of his slaves

Nope!

The second one, STRANGER AT PLANTATION INN, managed to be less awful, because I actually really liked the love interest (ex-Confederate soldier, but at least he is like "so I fought for the right to succeed, but we lost the war, gotta accept that and move on and let everyone do their thing") and he had legit reasons for being dark and brooding.

...But the book is still set in the post-Civil War South so I had to endure a potential love interest sighing over how hard things are now that he doesn't have slaves anymore, and racism about the bad guy's black mistress and his half-black children.

There are five more books in this two-part collection. Somehow I suspect I won't be reading any more. >:(

[skygiants]

lol, I'm only at 100 unread on my Kobo! NOT TOO SHABBY ACTUALLY

also: dang, 'yikes' sounds like the word INDEED

[lokifan]

This recap is amazing. The book sounds... less so.