Misfortune

by Wesley Stace

book data

392 ratings, 3.60 average rating, 88 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		16%
4		44%
3		26%
2		7%
1		4%

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published

2005 by Little, Brown and Company

binding

Hardcover, 544 pages

isbn

0316830348 (isbn13: 9780316830348)

description

One of the most auspicious debuts of recent years, Wesley Stace's Misfortune follows the rise, fall, and triumphant return of Rose Old, a foundling re...more

[close] One of the most auspicious debuts of recent years, Wesley Stace's Misfortune follows the rise, fall, and triumphant return of Rose Old, a foundling rescued from a London garbage heap in 1820 by the richest man in Britain. Lord Geoffroy Loveall, whose character has been shaped by perpetual mourning for a sister who died in childhood, seizes on the infant as a replacement for his beloved sister. With the help of trusted servants, he arranges for the child to be lovingly brought up at his ancestral mansion, Loveall Hall--to all appearances, his biological daughter and unhoped-for heir. No matter that the baby is not a girl.

The story thus far is so engaging, and the details of Rose's childhood so playfully rendered (when she was first brought to Loveall Hall, the staff of 250 included a servant whose sole responsibility was to iron newspapers before their second reading), that it is with reluctance that the reader meets the inevitable rude, scheming relatives whose plotting will lead to the "misfortune" of the title. Luckily, Stace (the given name of the musician John Wesley Harding) takes too much delight in Rose to dump her back on the garbage heap, or at least not for long. The cross-dressing love child of Great Expectations and A. S. Byatt's Possession, Misfortune will find you breathlessly tracking the movements of its principal players, and applauding the most ridiculous twists of fate. --Regina Marler

<html><head> <meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <meta content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1491" name="GENERATOR"> <body> <p clear="left"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1" color="#cc6000">Amazon.com Bonus Content
Born in Hastings and educated at Cambridge, Wesley Stace is also known as the musician John Wesley Harding. Musical influences are on display in his gender-bending debut novel, Misfortune, a historical tale set in 19th-Century England about an abandoned boy raised as a girl. Read on to listen to three original songs inspired by the book.

A Message from Wesley Stace
Songs weave their way throughout Misfortune--some are ballads, crucial to the plot and written by one of the characters, others are traditional songs sung at various points of the narrative, others are folk songs from a collection in the Octagonal Library of Love Hall, the home of the central family.

Songs aren't anything if they aren't sung, so I decided to match melodies and words and record some of them. I picked these because they were the first two. There will be a full record of the songs of Misfortune, performed by The Love Hall Tryst (myself, Kelly Hogan, Nora O'Connor, and Brian Lohmann) which will be released by Appleseed Recordings later this year. --Wesley Stace

"Lambkin"
From Chapter One: "For a moment, the laundress was unaware that there was anyone beneath. She began to sing as she worked and this is what finally breathed life into Pharaoh again. It was one of the old songs, his favourite of the many she sang: the story of Lambkin the builder who tortures Lord Murray's family when his note is refused. The purity of Annie's voice contrasted starkly with the words of her song and the street below:
"'Where is the heir of this house?' said Lambkin:
'Asleep in his cradle,' the false nurse said to him.
And he pricked that baby all over with a pin,
While the nurse held a basin for the blood to run in."
She had sung it so many times as a lullaby that the horror of the story was somehow soothing."

<li>Listen to "Lambkin"

"Lord Lovel"
From Chapter Two: "Loveall recalled a previous Lord Loveall and the song that bore his name, and he sang it softly to the baby. This ancestor had deferred his marriage for seven years while he went travelling. He returned after only twelve months, but as he rode home, he heard the church bells ringing, "for Nancy Bell who died for a discourteous squire." He died too of grief, as he gazed on her corpse lying in its coffin, and was buried next to her. From her heart grew a red rose and from his heart a briar:
"They grew and grew to the church steeple
Till they could grow no higher
And he pricked that baby all over with a pin,
And there entwined in a true lover's knot
For true lovers to admire."

<li>Listen to "Lord Lovel"

"The Ballad of Miss Fortune"
"Miss Fortune" is the song from which came the original idea for Misfortune. The Ballad of Miss Fortune is a re-recording of this song from John Wesley Harding's album, Awake.

<li>Listen to "The Ballad of Miss Fortune"

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#cc6600">Music from John Wesley Harding
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" width="100%" cellspacing="4"> <tbody>

<tr class="tiny" align="middle" valign="top"> <td>
Awake <td>
Adam's Apple <td>
Here Comes the Groom <tr class="tiny" align="middle" valign="top"> <td>
Trad Arr Jones <td>
Confessions of St. Ace <td>
John Wesley Harding's New Deal

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08/01/07

Andrea rated it:

(review of isbn 0316154482)

Read in November, 2006

Confused gender identity, English humor; sometimes very clever and sometimes quite slow paced... While I enjoyed the writing style and the overall plot, the latter portion of the book isn't constructed as well as the first. Oh, but I did enjoy it, and was disturbed by it.

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01/23/09

Sarah rated it:

bookshelves: 2006, fiction

Read in July, 2006

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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08/17/08

Amber rated it:

Read in December, 2008

I'm not sure what I have to say about this book. I feel like I should have some comment on what it says about social issues of gender, wealth/poverty, etc., but I haven't thought too deeply about it yet. I'm sort of a plot-whore, and this book has lots of plot. I think I'm still too busy sifting through all of that to think about larger implications.

I'm just kind of mad at the parents (though they were nice and did, after all, rescue an abandoned baby) for making the main character d...more

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08/02/08

Lucy rated it:

This was a very interesting book to say the least. About a very, very odd, wealthy man who finds a baby boy in a garbage heap and raises him as a girl in remembrance of his dead sister who he never quite got over (I think this was in the mid-1800s). Unfortunately the boy, named Rose, doesn't realize that he is a girl until he is 17 years old, and can't understand why he needs to shave, amongst other things, that his girl friends don't have to do. Really though, the way they explain everything it...more

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06/26/08

Stacy Milacek rated it:

Read in February, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I realize that I really like most of the books I read. The problem with this is that after giving glowing reviews to good, and even great work, I have a hard time convincing people when I've read something truly magnificent. I have just read something truly magnificent. Amazingly magnificent. Unbelievably magnificent. Enchantingly magnificent.

I have just read Misfortune by Wesley Stace. Not only is this novel magnificent, it was also Stace's debut novel. He now has a life-long devote...more I realize that I really like most of the books I read. The problem with this is that after giving glowing reviews to good, and even great work, I have a hard time convincing people when I've read something truly magnificent. I have just read something truly magnificent. Amazingly magnificent. Unbelievably magnificent. Enchantingly magnificent.

I have just read Misfortune by Wesley Stace. Not only is this novel magnificent, it was also Stace's debut novel. He now has a life-long devoted fan. Misfortune takes place in England in the 1800's. A baby, taken from a dying mother during a botched abortion, is left on a trash heap to die. She is picked up by a very rich lord and adopted as the next heir and named Rose. Only, she is a he. Her father, terribly missing his sister, who died at age 5, ignores the baby's genitalia. Her mother, the librarian her father married in order to make her look legitimate (and not adopted) is a fan of an early feminisia poet, named Mary Day, and looks upon this as an experiment to show that gender is a social construct. In the wings, a horrible family, who needs the family fortune which will one day belong to Rose. Only her true identity is discovered, by both herself and her family and things become terribly complicated.

When I picked up this book I thought it would be an adventure book, the story of someone figuring out who they are. However, I was unprepared for the dignity, respect and insight Stace gives the character of Rose. Stace does not acknowledge reading Foucault's The History of Sexuality, but Rose's internal struggle often mirrored that story (The History of Sexuality revolves around the diary of a hermaphrodite in 19th century (maybe 18th) France who eventually kills him/herself because he/she feels alienated, not only from society, but from him/herself). Rose's self-discovery, self-hatred and eventually, self-acceptance are lovingly told. Rose is not someone who should be shunned, but someone who should be admired for the way in which she learns to love and accept who she truly is.

The story itself is remarkable. Once it is discovered that Rose is a he, it is also discovered that she is a bastard, and therefore, not the legitimate heir of the family fortune. At this point, I became a tad bit disappointed because I felt a Tom Jones (the book, not the singer) ending coming. However, Stace threw in such a delightful twist, that I did not mind at all. Although this book is 500 pages, it flew by and I can't wait to pick up Stace's latest book.

Misfortune should be a must read for anyone who has felt like they didn't fit in their own skin. I figure that all of us have felt like that at one time or another. I definitely think this book should be required reading for gender study courses. Stace is an incredibly talented man and I look forward to reading him for years to come. (less)

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02/12/08

Nancy rated it:

bookshelves: british-fiction, historical-fiction

Read in May, 2005

I bought this book because I was intrigued by the teaser on the dust jacket. it was well worth all of the time I spent on it. If you can get over the fact that the book is 500+ pages, you will find it to be one of the best books to hit the bookstore shelves in a long time.

I'll try to synopsize the story briefly, but what sucked me in was not so much the story, but the beautiful and well-constructed prose. You can just tell that the author had a great deal of fun simply writing the n...more I bought this book because I was intrigued by the teaser on the dust jacket. it was well worth all of the time I spent on it. If you can get over the fact that the book is 500+ pages, you will find it to be one of the best books to hit the bookstore shelves in a long time.

I'll try to synopsize the story briefly, but what sucked me in was not so much the story, but the beautiful and well-constructed prose. You can just tell that the author had a great deal of fun simply writing the novel.

"brief" synopsis

One night, the Lord Loveall from Love Hall is returning from an errand for his mother, and makes a stop near a pub. He surveys the rubbish heap and finds, to his surprise, a dog carrying a bundle which is making noise. He trades the dog a lamb chop for the bundle and inside he finds a baby. The baby is brought home to Love Hall, where the Lord Loveall announces it as his new heir. Because his sister, Dolores, had died when she was younger, and because Lord Loveall (Geoffroy) had lived his life distraught over her death and his loss, he tells his mother that he has Dolores back. Sadly, she breaks the news to him that it is not Dolores and that it is not even a girl; the foundling is really a boy. Geoffroy's mother has a plan, but before it can get set into motion, she dies.

Once she's dead, Geoffroy has to make the baby's title as heir legal; he marries his former governess and between the two of them they raise the baby, allowing the town & the rest of the relations (who all want possession of the title and the estate) to believe not only that the baby was their legitimate offspring, but that the baby is a girl! The new baby becomes the Lord Rose. It isn't until her father's death, when she finally comes to the realization of her situation and her sexuality. But if that were the sum total of this novel, you could say "been there, done this," and that would be that. But wait, there's more! In a delightfully Dickensian way, there are players who know the secret who will stop at nothing to have it revealed. If you get the feeling that the ending is a little contrived, get over it; go read some Dickens or anything else Victorian and you'll get it.

I absolutely loved the characterizations of this novel; I thought that the author breathed life into each and every person in this book. The story is marvelous. The transition between the first three books and the fourth may be a little tough for some readers; however, if you've paid a lot of attention to Rose's childhood, you shouldn't have a problem understanding what's going on here. It was well worth the cover price and the time it took to read it. Delightful.(less)

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05/18/07

Claire rated it:

(review of isbn 0316154482)

This book is really bizarre. It's good, but it's bizarre. The back cover describes it as a cross between Charles Dickens and Pedro Almodovar (which I so thought would be right up my alley) and it definitely was exactly that. It's witty, sexy, quirky and intelligent satire a la Almodovar (if you liked "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!", this book shares that same sick-and-twisted-and-sexy-and-funny vibe), while also managing to be earthy and gritty and, well, Dickensian. So I really can't thi...more

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11/27/08

Eric Bennett rated it:

(review of isbn 0316154482)

Read in November, 2008

A rags-to-riches story that dabbles in the nature/nurture debate and discusses child sexual identity while creating a compelling story about 19th century bourgeois society. Reveals like a mystery novel. A baby is rescued and raised as a girl, even though it's a boy, and the novel explores his coming-of-age amidst a juxtaposition of Victorian England - greed and fiscal responsibility, idiocy and learning, splendor and squalor. A compelling read, indeed.

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11/23/08

Katchoogranger is currently reading it

bookshelves: currently-reading

Pale aristocrat accidentally saves a baby - the product of an abortion attempt - from death and then brings the little boy up as a girl in 19th century England. This is porn-classic-perfect for me. Gender bending? England? Love? Wit? Crossdressing? Wacky characters? Jesus, throw in Eddie Izzard and I'll be in love. So far the concept of this book rocks my world. Hoping it lives up to its promise.

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04/23/08

Az rated it:

bookshelves: gender-etc

Read in May, 2008

recommends it for: ayone who likes semi-historical gender-benders

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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06/24/09

Jane rated it:

Read in July, 2009

Although this book eventually reaches an improbably ludicrous happy ending that takes the story from "weirdo historical fiction" straight to "damn hell ass fairy tale," I have to admire the crazy-complex steps Wesley Stace takes to make sure the ending is no easy deus ex machina flash of lightning. The seeds of that ending are sown from Page One, and I'd love to read the book again with full knowledge of how it all turns out.

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07/07/07

Jennifer rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in August, 2007

A fun romp, with a Dickensian ending that would have worked better for Dickens than it does for Stace, unfortunately. The story of a boy raised as a girl takes you from an English great house to Turkey and back, with hints at dingier places in between like gutters and ships. I'm not quite sure if I am grateful or disappointed that these details were omitted.

I found the writing and pacing flagged a bit as it headed toward the conclusion. Great care is taken in creating eccentric suppo...more

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05/15/09

Donna rated it:

bookshelves: biography, fiction

Read in May, 2009

This book is fictional, but actually is somewhat biographical as this is really about Rose Old Loveall. Apparently a memoir of his/her life will be published on the 100th anniversary of Rose's death or the demise of Jeffrey Loveall, whichever occurs first. Good reading.

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05/04/09

Greg rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in May, 2009

Did you ever wonder what Dicken's would be like if there was more gender confusion and hand jobs? Well if you did then this novel could put your mind at rest. If you didn't ever wonder about those things then maybe you'll just read this book and enjoy the story as being a fun English novel with villainous villains, wronged innocents, creepy family secrets and an almost magical country estate.

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

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07/26/07

Crystal rated it:

bookshelves: fiction, historicalfiction

Read in January, 2005

recommends it for: Fans of Middlesex

This is what I thought Middlesex would be more like. I really enjoyed this book a lot. About a little boy who is abandoned on a garbage pile, a mad lord finds him and decides to raise him as the daughter he never had. Yep you got that right. He raises the little boy as a girl. His sister had died years before and when he looked at this baby boy all he could see was her. His servants think he is to fragile and don't say anything about him. As the child grows older he/she starts developing feeling...more

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06/14/09

Sylvia rated it:

bookshelves: debut-novels

Read in January, 2009

Lord Lovell still, grieving for his dead daughter, rescues an infant boy from a dung heap and raises him as a girl. The mystery of the child's birth, the family feuds over land, property and birthright, and the manners and mores of 1600's Europe are interwoven in this coming-of-age novel with a hell of a twist. An engaging read, good debut, interesting.

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06/24/09

Julie rated it:

So much fun. A discarded baby boy is found by a wealthy nut and raised as a girl. Beautifully written. Like Dickens but sexier. A must read. Loved.

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01/28/09

Samantha rated it:

Read in January, 2004

What a weird book. Really. Tre' bizarre. I got it on the $5 shelf at Barnes & Noble and you know what? I really liked it.

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06/10/09

Christopher O'Brien rated it:

(review of isbn 0316154482)

Read in September, 2008

This has become one of my favorite books! Great characters and situations, and just a delightful narrator. Highly recommended.

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08/27/08

D.M. rated it:

Read in January, 2007

recommended to D.M. by: Tim Coombs
recommends it for: readers of 19th century literature.

First off, let me say the jacket to my paperback is SO much nicer than this crappy Mills-and-Boon-ish hardcover!
That said, I was sent this book out of the blue by a longtime British friend of mine. Turns out the authour just happens to be singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding under his real name, and I'm a bit of a fan of him already.
The book looked an imposing length, especially for the Orlando-esque subject matter. However, by the time I'd reached the end, I found myself wishing it...more

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