2005 book 8

rachel field's all this, and heaven too
for my popular materials class, we had to read a bestseller written between 1930 and 1950--i suppose it's ok to count school books toward my total when they're novels. :) anyway, i was pretty excited about this one--a historical fiction potboiler sort of thing was going on. it's about this french governess--played by bette davis in the movie version, apparently--who has to deal w/ the very jealous wife of her employer. i was sort of expecting the wife to die of a fit or something--it takes place in 1844, and people always die of mysterious maladies in books from that period--but instead her husband murders her brutally, and poor french governess henriette is caught in the middle of a sensational murder trial just as the restored monarchy is losing popular support. she ends upfleeing to america just after napoleon III comes to power and there she hobnobs with the literary and political elite of the period. there was so much name-dropping that i began to suspect the story must be true--the introduction,by field, is ostensibly by french governess' great-niece--and sure enough, the acknowledgements at the end indicate that this melodramatic potboiler is based on FACT! it's a pretty interesting story--one strong, sort of sassy woman's life amid tons of political turmoil, the civil war, and the atlantic cable. pretty entertaining stuff.