Summary
Summary
At the end of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, we know that Pearl, the elf-child daughter of Hester Prynne, is somewhere in Europe, comfortable, well set, a mother herself now. But it could not have been easy for her to arrive at such a place, when she begins life as the bastard child of a woman publicly humiliated, again and again, in an unrelentingly judgmental Puritan world.
With a brilliant and authentic sense of that time and place, Deborah Noyes envisions the path Pearl takes to make herself whole and to carve her place in the New World. Beautifully written with boundless compassion, Angel and Apostle is a heart-rending and imaginative debut in which Noyes masterfully makes Hawthorne's character her own.
Author Notes
Deborah Noyes writes nonfiction and fiction for young readers and adults. Her books include One Kingdom: Our Lives with Animals, The Ghosts of Kerfol, Ten Days a Madwoman: The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of the Original Girl Reporter Nellie Bly, and Encyclopedia of the End: Mysterious Death in Fact, Fancy, Folklore, and More. She has also compiled and edited the short story anthologies Gothic!, The Restless Dead, and Sideshow.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A is for ardent, avid, adoring-and such is Pearl, whose coming-of-age as Hester Prynne's bastard child is the subject of Noyes's debut. A reimagining of The Scarlet Letter's characters, Noyes's drama unravels the puzzles of "heart and history that consumed" impish Pearl, taunted by puritanical "cretins" as the devil's spawn. While Hawthorne's Pearl serves his novel primarily as a symbol of innocence, provoking contemplation of morality and social organization in his adult characters, Noyes, a young adult writer with a penchant for the historical and gothic (Gothic!: Ten Original Dark Tales), writes a Pearl of flesh and wit, who both dotes upon her stoic mother and despises her for their status as pariahs. As a child, Pearl's feminist musings frame the narrative: "Why did God hate the apple so?" Not until she leaves the New World and grows into womanhood does she feel the legacy of the scarlet A. Pearl settles in England and marries the brother of her sole childhood friend, Simon. But it is Simon, blind and sullen, who sees Pearl for who she is. Noyes engages with atmospheric charms of time and place, and though the major turns of the novel are predictable, she delivers an ending revelation that would surprise Hawthorne himself. Agent, Jill Grinberg. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Noyes' lyrical debut tells the story of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and beyond from the vantage point of Pearl, Hester Prynne's wild, elfin child. In Pearl's eyes, it is her mother who is mysterious and distant, and she seeks solace with another outsider, Simon Milton, whose blindness makes him fearful of the world around him. Pearl is both intrigued by and mistrustful of Dr. Devlin, the man treating the minister who takes a keen interest in her and her mother. Eventually, Pearl learns the truth about her origins, and, to her dismay, she and her mother leave the New World for England; and even though Simon and his family are headed to London, it seems worlds away from the countryside where Pearl and Hester end up settling. Pearl grows into a bewitching young woman, but it is Simon's older brother Nehemiah and not Simon who comes courting. Noyes does a remarkable job of capturing Puritan New England and the spirit and willfulness of Pearl, who is a compelling, sympathetic character in her own right. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
It is 1649 Boston in Noyes's debut novel, which overlaps with the end of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne's daughter Pearl is now a fiery wood sprite, reveling in her mother's guarded love even as she rebels against the ever-present shameful, fading red A pinned to Hester's bodice. Pearl, bright, funny, and given to impatient rages, befriends and enchants the isolated, blind Simon, son of a seaman; however, it is Simon's much older brother, Nehemiah, who marries Pearl when she is barely out of her teens and sets into motion a tragic romantic triangle of enormous consequence. As Noyes takes readers beyond the end of Hawthorne's tale and into Pearl's adulthood, the tragedies and mistakes of the past are reconstituted and feed on one another both in Boston and across the ocean. In language nearly as beautiful and powerful as Hawthorne's, Noyes tackles passion and Puritanism in a riveting historical tale with timeless overtones. Strongly recommended.-Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.