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Palmerino
Welcome to Villa il Palmerino, the British enclave in rural Italy where Violet Paget, known to the world by her pen name and male persona, Vernon Lee, held court. In imagining the real life of this brilliant, lesbian polymath known for her chilling supernatural stories, Melissa Pritchard creates a multilayered tale in which the dead writer inhabits the heart and mind of her lonely, modern-day biographer.
Positing the art of biography as an act of resurrection and possession, this novel brings to life a vividly detailed, subtly erotic tale about secret loves and the fascinating artists and intellectuals—Oscar Wilde, John Singer Sargent, Henry James, Robert Browning, Bernard Berenson—who challenged and inspired each other during an age of repression.
Positing the art of biography as an act of resurrection and possession, this novel brings to life a vividly detailed, subtly erotic tale about secret loves and the fascinating artists and intellectuals—Oscar Wilde, John Singer Sargent, Henry James, Robert Browning, Bernard Berenson—who challenged and inspired each other during an age of repression.
192 pages, Paperback
First published December 23, 2013
3 people are currently reading
427 people want to read
About the author
Melissa Pritchard
26 books76 followersFLIGHT OF THE WILD SWAN, Bellevue Literary Press,
March 2024, RB Media audiobook
- Book Award Finalist: Last Syllable, Longform Literary Journal (winner announced 12/25)
- A Favorite Book of 2024: The Washington Independent Review of Books
- 2025 Georgia Author of the Year Finalist, Literary Fiction
-* Portland Book Review, "The writing is beautiful, stark and luxuriant by turns."
_ New York Times, "Best Historical Fiction"
_ New York Sun, "A standout."
- NPR/GPB's Peter Biello, All Things Considered: "...an amazing book. Just an incredible book."
- Denver Post, "An awe-inspiring story."
_ *Publishers Weekly, starred, Featured Fiction.
_ *Kirkus Review, starred.
_ *Foreword Reviews, starred, "An inspiring novel."
- Atlanta Journal Constitution, "An addictive read..."
_ Historical Novel Society, "Powerful...a significant tribute."
_ LibraryThing Review
_ Booklist, "A compelling human portrait of an extraordinary woman."
_ Historical Novels Review, "Powerful."
- Atlanta Journal Constitution, "An addictive read..."
_ Midwest Book Review, "Exceptional."
_ BookBrowse TOP PICK, "...a tremendously written novel...a story to read, reread, and share with others."
- A "Reading with Arizona PBS selection"
- Southern Literary Review: "Rich and detailed...exceptional!"
AWARDS: 2025 Georgia Author of the Year Finalist, Flannery O'Connor, Carl Sandburg, Janet Kafka, NEA, five Pushcart and O.Henry Prizes, Barnes & Noble Great Writers Award, Carson McCullers Fellow. Fiction, non-fiction in Paris Review, Ecotone, A Public Space, Conjunctions, LitMag, Southern Review, O the Oprah Magazine, Wilson Quarterly, the Nation, Chicago Tribune, NYTBR, others. Frequently anthologized. Fiction editor: IMAGE
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 27, 2016
3.5/5
Books like these set visions of wannabe writers trawling the historical records dancing in my head, seeking that figure/war/place/event/unusual combination not yet incorporated into the public view of the past. Much like many a show I've perused in the vein of Vikings and The Borgias and a few books such as The Book of Human Skin, Palmerino draws its strength neither from a healthy amount of truth nor from ingenious spins of the creator's own design. The worst part is, unlike the previous with their random sensationalizing and increasing commitment to sex scenes (if you're going to devote that much screen time to erotics, for pity's sake at least go beyond heteronormative missionary all the live long day), there's a lot going on in this tiny tome that I feel could've been successfully enlarged and interwoven into something far more dangerously intriguing. It's yet another case of great ideas not being given a good enough foundation of realization, and I wonder just how little time was granted to the composition of this work.
There's this special little world in entertainment filled with classical reference and Euro/Neo-Euro solipsism that feeds on itself now as well as it did in the days of colonial genocide. It wraps itself in hankies and harpsichords and watches its audiences writhe in their self-satisfaction at their own flypaper minds, filled with names and dates of the best music, the best architecture, the best culture and the entirety of its best minds, of course. I don't indulge in it nearly as much as I used to, but the odd Rachmaninoff concert and Wagner opera remains in my bucket list, waiting till I tire briefly of my efforts in other realms and return to the vaunted world of age-old pretension. This work is of that breed but breaks character enough for interest's sake, negatively with its poor prose, positively with many an experimental and sexual shade drawn from the shroud of Vernon Lee. Again, time is the question: how would these disparate threads, threatening on dissolution with too much description and too little soul, draw together with enough weeks and meticulous editing? Those who enjoy raging at contemporary literature, try your hand at dismantling the capitalistic edifice that amputates such efforts, and maybe you'll actually achieve something.
In short, this work's akin to cotton candy vodka: saccharinely adult with seemingly much potential but, in unfortunate truth, very little to show for it.
Books like these set visions of wannabe writers trawling the historical records dancing in my head, seeking that figure/war/place/event/unusual combination not yet incorporated into the public view of the past. Much like many a show I've perused in the vein of Vikings and The Borgias and a few books such as The Book of Human Skin, Palmerino draws its strength neither from a healthy amount of truth nor from ingenious spins of the creator's own design. The worst part is, unlike the previous with their random sensationalizing and increasing commitment to sex scenes (if you're going to devote that much screen time to erotics, for pity's sake at least go beyond heteronormative missionary all the live long day), there's a lot going on in this tiny tome that I feel could've been successfully enlarged and interwoven into something far more dangerously intriguing. It's yet another case of great ideas not being given a good enough foundation of realization, and I wonder just how little time was granted to the composition of this work.
There's this special little world in entertainment filled with classical reference and Euro/Neo-Euro solipsism that feeds on itself now as well as it did in the days of colonial genocide. It wraps itself in hankies and harpsichords and watches its audiences writhe in their self-satisfaction at their own flypaper minds, filled with names and dates of the best music, the best architecture, the best culture and the entirety of its best minds, of course. I don't indulge in it nearly as much as I used to, but the odd Rachmaninoff concert and Wagner opera remains in my bucket list, waiting till I tire briefly of my efforts in other realms and return to the vaunted world of age-old pretension. This work is of that breed but breaks character enough for interest's sake, negatively with its poor prose, positively with many an experimental and sexual shade drawn from the shroud of Vernon Lee. Again, time is the question: how would these disparate threads, threatening on dissolution with too much description and too little soul, draw together with enough weeks and meticulous editing? Those who enjoy raging at contemporary literature, try your hand at dismantling the capitalistic edifice that amputates such efforts, and maybe you'll actually achieve something.
In short, this work's akin to cotton candy vodka: saccharinely adult with seemingly much potential but, in unfortunate truth, very little to show for it.
April 14, 2014
(This review was originally written for and posted at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography's site. I purchased this book for reviewing purposes.)
Of all the successes contained within Palmerino's deceptively slim form, chief among them is its sound example of why Melissa Pritchard should be everyone's factually based but fictionally rendered introduction to coarse, easily misunderstood and half-forgotten writers. WIth a sensitive touch, lush descriptions and a richly evocative narrative triptych, Pritchard's exhaustive research into Violet Paget--perhaps better known as her nome de plume and masculine alter ego, Vernon Lee, the grandiloquent feminist and penner of supernatural tales, aesthetic studies and travel essays--flawlessly blends the late-nineteenth century writer's life with that of her fictional modern-day biographer.
Sylvia Casey, also a writer who has fallen on hard times (namely her marriage's demise as signaled by her husband absconding with another man, not to mention the faltering critical and commercial reception of her two most recent books placing her career in precarious uncertainty), has retreated to Palmerino, an Italian villa not far from Florence where Violet had spent much of her life, to slip away and throw herself into writing a novel inspired by Violet's life. Through research and walking the same grounds Violet once did, Sylvia immerses herself in the life of her spirited muse, mostly unaware that her subject has become her possessor in an unintended bit of method biographing.
The triumvirate of narration is an effective collision of past and present: Sylvia's quest to alternately lose herself in and hide from Italian life as she learns about the tempestuous Violet and writes of her discoveries; snapshots of Violet's life ranging from girlhood to brief mentions of her parents' and beloved Clementina's deaths; and ethereal interjections from Violet herself, as not even death could silence such an indomitable spirit, watching (and becoming gradually besotted with) her biographer, guiding the still-corporeal writer to clarify the truths about a life that has grown tarnished by assumptions: Violet is not a figure to be pigeonholed into easy descriptions, and she is irritated by history's posthumous efforts to reduce her to flat absolutes.
Though Violet is the linchpin holding the trio of perspectives together, the commingling of biographer and subject is present in each section to increasing degrees as Violet breathes her own essence into Sylvia by gradual possession. Sylvia's own writings are the most obvious interplay between the two, with Violet's resurrection flowing from her fingers onto pages both typed and intimately scribbled. Violet herself has been observing her biographer since the latter's arrival, a benign watchfulness yielding to a ghostly seduction that becomes ever more apparent in the chapters that follow Sylvia's pursuits. As the present-day writer encounters relics and writings from Violet's life, Sylvia withdraws more into herself and her work, at first wondering almost wryly if Violet is guiding her and eventually shirking her own rigid writing methods to scrawl pages in a hand nearly as illegible as Violet's, certain that a female presence draws ever closer until "hearing her name, she understands who is calling her" and finally flees to Violet's secret garden in the book's final pages.
It is Pritchard's sympathetic but honest rendering of a woman some found tyrannical, some found charming and almost all found terrifyingly learned that urge her ghostly heroine into genial illumination. By preserving Violet's intellectual intensity as well as capturing the softness of her romantic pursuits, the hard-edged scribe becomes a fully realized figure rather than the wanly uneven caricature such a divisive female figure can so easily be written off as. It is this careful balance that lends so much female empowerment to the novel, as Violet publicly shuns all the social niceties that she believes exist "principally to defang" a woman but extends the compassionate sensitivity stereotypically attributed to the so-called fairer to those she feels most deserving of her affections, selectively embracing her femininity when she finds it necessary. It is easy to reduce a strong woman from a repressed era to the limited and scandalously taboo "lesbian" label but Violet was volumes more than her attraction to other women. She recognized the disadvantages of her gender the moment she was pitted for her ugliness and turned an unfair liability into an asset, which led her to adopt the mannerisms, dress and persona of a man, denying the world a chance to thwart her ascent, both as an intellectual and a human being, by seizing an opportunity to turn biology's lousy hand into something she could take control of and claim as her own.
If Violet's off-putting bravado and ferocity are pleasingly mitigated by inclusion of both her past and her first-person chapters, then her actions are justified by the more submissive Sylvia, who can't catch a break and shrinks from people in direct opposition to the way Violet sought to dominate them. Sylvia has merely inherited the equality for which her female predecessors have won and quietly moves through life, never questioning the path she has chosen until she begins to wonder what would have happened if she ever sought the pleasure of another woman's company, while Violet has struggled to assert herself in a male-dominated world, wrestling her way into commanding respect where she could get it and striking fear where she could not. The opposing trajectories of their writing lives--Sylvia chronicling the rise of Violet's career while her own is in rapid decline--and the sense of novelty with which each regards her near-perfect foil is a subtle affirmation that expression of one's sexuality can be a thing constricted by the absence of that perfect half, lying in wait for its cue to finally rise from dormancy.
The achingly gorgeous prose in which Palmerino is written strikes pitch-perfect harmony with its equally strong expression of humanity, promising that the hidden beauty within is always worth the time it takes to discover it.
Of all the successes contained within Palmerino's deceptively slim form, chief among them is its sound example of why Melissa Pritchard should be everyone's factually based but fictionally rendered introduction to coarse, easily misunderstood and half-forgotten writers. WIth a sensitive touch, lush descriptions and a richly evocative narrative triptych, Pritchard's exhaustive research into Violet Paget--perhaps better known as her nome de plume and masculine alter ego, Vernon Lee, the grandiloquent feminist and penner of supernatural tales, aesthetic studies and travel essays--flawlessly blends the late-nineteenth century writer's life with that of her fictional modern-day biographer.
Sylvia Casey, also a writer who has fallen on hard times (namely her marriage's demise as signaled by her husband absconding with another man, not to mention the faltering critical and commercial reception of her two most recent books placing her career in precarious uncertainty), has retreated to Palmerino, an Italian villa not far from Florence where Violet had spent much of her life, to slip away and throw herself into writing a novel inspired by Violet's life. Through research and walking the same grounds Violet once did, Sylvia immerses herself in the life of her spirited muse, mostly unaware that her subject has become her possessor in an unintended bit of method biographing.
The triumvirate of narration is an effective collision of past and present: Sylvia's quest to alternately lose herself in and hide from Italian life as she learns about the tempestuous Violet and writes of her discoveries; snapshots of Violet's life ranging from girlhood to brief mentions of her parents' and beloved Clementina's deaths; and ethereal interjections from Violet herself, as not even death could silence such an indomitable spirit, watching (and becoming gradually besotted with) her biographer, guiding the still-corporeal writer to clarify the truths about a life that has grown tarnished by assumptions: Violet is not a figure to be pigeonholed into easy descriptions, and she is irritated by history's posthumous efforts to reduce her to flat absolutes.
Though Violet is the linchpin holding the trio of perspectives together, the commingling of biographer and subject is present in each section to increasing degrees as Violet breathes her own essence into Sylvia by gradual possession. Sylvia's own writings are the most obvious interplay between the two, with Violet's resurrection flowing from her fingers onto pages both typed and intimately scribbled. Violet herself has been observing her biographer since the latter's arrival, a benign watchfulness yielding to a ghostly seduction that becomes ever more apparent in the chapters that follow Sylvia's pursuits. As the present-day writer encounters relics and writings from Violet's life, Sylvia withdraws more into herself and her work, at first wondering almost wryly if Violet is guiding her and eventually shirking her own rigid writing methods to scrawl pages in a hand nearly as illegible as Violet's, certain that a female presence draws ever closer until "hearing her name, she understands who is calling her" and finally flees to Violet's secret garden in the book's final pages.
It is Pritchard's sympathetic but honest rendering of a woman some found tyrannical, some found charming and almost all found terrifyingly learned that urge her ghostly heroine into genial illumination. By preserving Violet's intellectual intensity as well as capturing the softness of her romantic pursuits, the hard-edged scribe becomes a fully realized figure rather than the wanly uneven caricature such a divisive female figure can so easily be written off as. It is this careful balance that lends so much female empowerment to the novel, as Violet publicly shuns all the social niceties that she believes exist "principally to defang" a woman but extends the compassionate sensitivity stereotypically attributed to the so-called fairer to those she feels most deserving of her affections, selectively embracing her femininity when she finds it necessary. It is easy to reduce a strong woman from a repressed era to the limited and scandalously taboo "lesbian" label but Violet was volumes more than her attraction to other women. She recognized the disadvantages of her gender the moment she was pitted for her ugliness and turned an unfair liability into an asset, which led her to adopt the mannerisms, dress and persona of a man, denying the world a chance to thwart her ascent, both as an intellectual and a human being, by seizing an opportunity to turn biology's lousy hand into something she could take control of and claim as her own.
If Violet's off-putting bravado and ferocity are pleasingly mitigated by inclusion of both her past and her first-person chapters, then her actions are justified by the more submissive Sylvia, who can't catch a break and shrinks from people in direct opposition to the way Violet sought to dominate them. Sylvia has merely inherited the equality for which her female predecessors have won and quietly moves through life, never questioning the path she has chosen until she begins to wonder what would have happened if she ever sought the pleasure of another woman's company, while Violet has struggled to assert herself in a male-dominated world, wrestling her way into commanding respect where she could get it and striking fear where she could not. The opposing trajectories of their writing lives--Sylvia chronicling the rise of Violet's career while her own is in rapid decline--and the sense of novelty with which each regards her near-perfect foil is a subtle affirmation that expression of one's sexuality can be a thing constricted by the absence of that perfect half, lying in wait for its cue to finally rise from dormancy.
The achingly gorgeous prose in which Palmerino is written strikes pitch-perfect harmony with its equally strong expression of humanity, promising that the hidden beauty within is always worth the time it takes to discover it.
March 3, 2014
In the pantheon of female intellectuals and authors (not to mention lesbians and feminists) of the late 18th and early 19th century, Vernon Lee is a lesser known name. And, although this book has brought her to my attention, it doesn't do as much to elucidate upon an interesting life and an ardent mind. There is a feeling to this book that Pritchard was more concerned with stylizing her excessively ornate writing just so than with fleshing out her characters. Moreover, it is unclear whether she actually even liked her characters, at times there seemed to be something very much akin to strong disdain for Vernon. Of course, this wasn't meant to be a biography per se, it is a story of a middle aged newly single female author who travels to a vacation estate (shared back in the day by Lee herself) to write a book and because obsessed/possessed by the spirit of her subject to tell her story. The thing of it is that both Sylvia and Pritchard rely much too heavily on appearances, speculations, suppositions and descriptions and the story itself gets lost. Vernon Lee's life was far more interesting than this book in general and any aspect of it in particular and a straight forward biography would have probably been a much better read. For example, one of Lee's 3 great loves, Amy Levy, isn't even mentioned in the book. Slender very quick read that reminds us there was a time when one could actually just dedicate themselves to intellectual pursuits, but ultimately a somewhat disappointing experience.
Read
January 9, 2019Possessed writer writing historical lesbian intellectuals. "Subtly erotic" does not count for #bookclub4m erotic romance month. I have been led astray by inaccurate subject headings. Disliked the ending.
July 26, 2018
I'm here for historical lesbians. But as much as I loved the concept of this book, I felt let down by the execution - yes, Pritchard's ornate style is beautiful, the figure of Vernon Lee whimsical and enticing, but there was very little aside from showing snippets of characters' life, and the ending was abrupt and just... odd.
August 9, 2016
Exquisite, dense and riveting. I actually can't think of a book quite like this one!
August 6, 2016
What a tender artifact this book is: so carefully researched, so carefully crafted. I always feel grateful after reading Melissa’s books. They offer such genius and varied gifts. Here we get not only indelibly rich details of setting, but also characters so vivid they follow me throughout the rest of my day even after I put the book down. And language that makes me wish I could channel a quarter of her patience and precision.
Some of my favorite moments:
I speak from the perspective of the dead, though I am as yet unburied. There are twelve types of horizon I have discovered and given name to. . . .
A second bowl of dark blue ceramic is heaped with orchard plums, and the seam of one overripe plum has burst. Snared in its fibrous golden meat, a wasp struggles, perishing by degrees, of sweetness.
That liminal pause between anticipation and occurrence, the pleasurable margin, a wide, open column she can mentally or actually pen over with longings, passions, poetry, and song.
If it rains, I am granted the false heaven of a canvas roof.
We will be interviewing Melissa about the book for Issue 13 of Superstition Review .
Some of my favorite moments:
I speak from the perspective of the dead, though I am as yet unburied. There are twelve types of horizon I have discovered and given name to. . . .
A second bowl of dark blue ceramic is heaped with orchard plums, and the seam of one overripe plum has burst. Snared in its fibrous golden meat, a wasp struggles, perishing by degrees, of sweetness.
That liminal pause between anticipation and occurrence, the pleasurable margin, a wide, open column she can mentally or actually pen over with longings, passions, poetry, and song.
If it rains, I am granted the false heaven of a canvas roof.
We will be interviewing Melissa about the book for Issue 13 of Superstition Review .
June 17, 2014
I am truly astonished that more people have not read this book/rated it on Goodreads. Pritchard weaves together present and past in order to tell the story of Vernon Lee. In a novel peoples with figures, both well and lesser known, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Pritchard depicts Vernon Lee in a way that feels honest. Vernon Lee is our protagonist, she is the motivation of the story, but she is certainly as fallible as anyone else. Two comments: I'm not sure Sylvia's part was at all necessary for the novel, and in fact, her sections were often the least interesting and engaging. These less captivating moments were more than made up for by any section featuring Vernon. Vernon's sections were simply written in a way that seemed so much more alive. My second comment pertains to the ending: it felt like a bit of a cop out to have . That said, Palmerino was an absolutely delightful book, and I'm so glad I happened upon it.
May 21, 2014
I truly enjoyed the layers with which Pritchard tells us her story of Violet Paget/Vernon Lee. The shifts from Sylvia, to Sylvia's book, and to Lee are well paced and well defined. I knew very little of Lee prior to starting the book, and found myself growing quite curious about her, the more I read. A little bit of follow up investigation about her may be necessary for me, just to sate my curiosity.
The imagery in this book is fabulously detailed. My favorite passage is at the bottom of page 81, "A second bowl of dark blue ceramic is heaped with orchard plums, and the seam of one overripe plum has burst. Snared in its fibrous golden meat, a wasp struggles, perishing by degrees, of sweetness." This captured so perfectly the state of Villa il Palmerino, and that of its guests.
Bravo, Melissa Pritchard!
The imagery in this book is fabulously detailed. My favorite passage is at the bottom of page 81, "A second bowl of dark blue ceramic is heaped with orchard plums, and the seam of one overripe plum has burst. Snared in its fibrous golden meat, a wasp struggles, perishing by degrees, of sweetness." This captured so perfectly the state of Villa il Palmerino, and that of its guests.
Bravo, Melissa Pritchard!
November 8, 2015
One sign, I find, of a good book is one that sticks with you. It's been a while now since I finished Palmerino -- five months or so -- and I can still call it to mind. The characters, the intersplicing in time, the mood of it: that might be the element that stays with me most, the book's quiet intensity.
February 16, 2014
Slight, dreamy, lucid, erotic, English people living in Italian villas at the end of the 19th century.
March 20, 2014
Beautiful and haunting. Metafiction upon metafiction. So very intimate without being erotic or lewd-- just a beautiful novel about women who love each other and love the written word.
April 16, 2014
A slim beautiful gem of a book. I read it because it seemed a little like an A.S. Byatt book (which always hooks me!), and it didn't disappoint. Adding other books by this author to my list.
September 16, 2018
Strong writing, but I found the story boring and lacking a concrete purpose.
May 29, 2016
Richly evocative, illustrated throughout with brilliant imagery, I truly believe that Palmerino has wiggled its way into my heart, and onto my list of favorite books. Pritchard’s writing is not exactly straightforward – she’s no Hemingway – but this very trait is what makes the book feel so alive. Although a portion of it is set in the modern day, there is a definite feeling regardless of the current narration of a time gone by—an aspect that fits well with the loneliness and isolation our ‘main’ character, Sylvia, is experiencing. It’s a book within a book, of sorts, but there’s no need to worry about it being overly complex; we are feeling, sensing, and experiencing with Sylvia as she struggles to write a biography on Vernon Lee (a pseudonym for Violet Paget), a (real life) author of supernatural stories and essays on music, art and the likes. Sylvia has recently been abandoned by her husband for his lover, a young man, and although she’s feeling the sting of being left, she clearly feels more at ease by herself, without the hovering presence of anyone else in her life. She has gone to stay at the Villa Il Palmerino in Italy, where Vernon Lee spent a good deal of her later days, for inspiration.
I think the novel could be considered slow in its beginning, and I must confess that initially I was verging on bored. It isn’t too long, however, before things take a turn, and I found myself utterly enraptured—by the narration, the characters, the sense of dreaminess. As Sylvia tries to write her book (spurred on by the failure of a few of her others), we also get to see through the eyes of Vernon—both . The character of Vernon herself was so strong and well-developed that she practically leapt off the page. I felt for her as she fought against her sexuality, as she tried to penetrate that world of insufferable male intellectuals, as she found herself and lost herself and found herself all over again. There isn’t a very large supporting cast, or a large cast in general, but the book was helped rather than hindered by this aspect. The few other side characters are just as finely drawn as Vernon, particularly Vernon’s mother Matilda, prone to extreme old-fashionedness, to the point of using ‘thee’ and ‘thou’; her eccentric half-brother, Eugene Lee-Hamilton, a poet in his own right; Kit Anstruther-Thomson, the strapping Scottish horsewoman that Vernon finds comfort in after the failure of a previous relationship; and Mary, the aforementioned breaker of Vernon’s heart.
Their lives are fascinating, and the narration and its style original. I found myself sympathizing with Vernon, empathizing with her even, regardless of her ill tempers and sometimes frustrating behaviors. I think she’s a beautiful example of a woman who defied conventions in a time when such a thing was simply unimaginable, and her personality is so unique. Her interactions with her mother, brother, Kit, and everyone else is beautifully rendered, and although I’ve never read any of Lee’s works and therefore cannot attest to the accuracy with which her nature is portrayed (and indeed the book itself is no factual biography), I did feel that, by the end, I understood her excellently. Pritchard has a way of weaving beautiful, whimsical words together without losing the thread of emotion, without losing the connection between reader and heroine. I haven’t read any of Pritchard’s other books, but I will most certainly be looking into them now.
She simply has a real way with words. I was drawn to the book mostly because of its partial-period setting and its inclusion of a real-world lesbian author, but every aspect was appealing. The only complaint I have is that Sylvia’s life, in comparison, seems boring and a little dragging. To be fair, I think part of this is intentional—we get a good idea of just how reclusive Sylvia is becoming, just how strange it is to be residing in a country where one can barely even form the simplest of sentences in the people’s language. But still, I found myself a touch disappointed when Vernon’s chapters (or the chapters about her) were over and we were back to Sylvia. One good thing: it drove me to keep reading late into the night, desperate to get the next bits and pieces of Vernon’s story. I also felt that the descriptions of Italy were gorgeous, and it made me feel as if I was seeing it all myself!
Those are really the only errors I can think of that I found with the story. Others, of course, might not find it to their taste; but to me, it was perfectly suited. I would recommend it wholeheartedly, particularly for those who want a quick but completely engrossing read. In the future, I would not hesitate to reread it.
I think the novel could be considered slow in its beginning, and I must confess that initially I was verging on bored. It isn’t too long, however, before things take a turn, and I found myself utterly enraptured—by the narration, the characters, the sense of dreaminess. As Sylvia tries to write her book (spurred on by the failure of a few of her others), we also get to see through the eyes of Vernon—both . The character of Vernon herself was so strong and well-developed that she practically leapt off the page. I felt for her as she fought against her sexuality, as she tried to penetrate that world of insufferable male intellectuals, as she found herself and lost herself and found herself all over again. There isn’t a very large supporting cast, or a large cast in general, but the book was helped rather than hindered by this aspect. The few other side characters are just as finely drawn as Vernon, particularly Vernon’s mother Matilda, prone to extreme old-fashionedness, to the point of using ‘thee’ and ‘thou’; her eccentric half-brother, Eugene Lee-Hamilton, a poet in his own right; Kit Anstruther-Thomson, the strapping Scottish horsewoman that Vernon finds comfort in after the failure of a previous relationship; and Mary, the aforementioned breaker of Vernon’s heart.
Their lives are fascinating, and the narration and its style original. I found myself sympathizing with Vernon, empathizing with her even, regardless of her ill tempers and sometimes frustrating behaviors. I think she’s a beautiful example of a woman who defied conventions in a time when such a thing was simply unimaginable, and her personality is so unique. Her interactions with her mother, brother, Kit, and everyone else is beautifully rendered, and although I’ve never read any of Lee’s works and therefore cannot attest to the accuracy with which her nature is portrayed (and indeed the book itself is no factual biography), I did feel that, by the end, I understood her excellently. Pritchard has a way of weaving beautiful, whimsical words together without losing the thread of emotion, without losing the connection between reader and heroine. I haven’t read any of Pritchard’s other books, but I will most certainly be looking into them now.
She simply has a real way with words. I was drawn to the book mostly because of its partial-period setting and its inclusion of a real-world lesbian author, but every aspect was appealing. The only complaint I have is that Sylvia’s life, in comparison, seems boring and a little dragging. To be fair, I think part of this is intentional—we get a good idea of just how reclusive Sylvia is becoming, just how strange it is to be residing in a country where one can barely even form the simplest of sentences in the people’s language. But still, I found myself a touch disappointed when Vernon’s chapters (or the chapters about her) were over and we were back to Sylvia. One good thing: it drove me to keep reading late into the night, desperate to get the next bits and pieces of Vernon’s story. I also felt that the descriptions of Italy were gorgeous, and it made me feel as if I was seeing it all myself!
Those are really the only errors I can think of that I found with the story. Others, of course, might not find it to their taste; but to me, it was perfectly suited. I would recommend it wholeheartedly, particularly for those who want a quick but completely engrossing read. In the future, I would not hesitate to reread it.
December 18, 2015
Melissa Pritchard’s Palmerino is a fascinating historical novel of the life of Violet Paget, who wrote under the pseudonym, Vernon Lee. It is a mesmerizing love story multilayered by Sylvia, a lonely writer, newly divorced, going through her own angst, writing the novel while living in the Villa il Palmerino, the place where Vernon Lee spent most of her life. Sylvia finds herself almost ghost-writing this story, haunted by the place and the life of Vernon and her family, with three main characters who are masterfully woven into this magnificent novel: Sylvia, Violet/Vernon and Villa il Palmerino.
Violet Paget was born in 1856 to British expatriate parents. Although, she wrote for an English readership, spent the majority of her life just outside Florence in the Palmerino Villa from 1889 until her death in 1935. She was a feminist, a lesbian and wore only men’s clothes most of her life. She wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music and travel and supernatural short fiction.
Pritchard captures the essence of this extraordinary woman during a time when women were expected to be beautiful and quiet. Vernon Lee was certainly not quiet and did not consider herself beautiful by the standards of the time, but radiate she does through the depth of Pritchard’s poetic prose:
“My intelligence was formidable; I used it as both sword and shield.”
“The room feels indifferent to time; no steadying sequence of weeks or years, no roundness or linearity…”
“Forced into a solitude that holds twin bass notes of doubt and isolation…”
“…her mother’s milk spurting Voltaire from one breast, dribbling Rousseau from the other?”
“The breadth and depth of her friend’s intelligence, enfolded, engraved deep within her young brain, can never be fully sounded; it settles around Mary like a cloak or climate, like some infinite and liberating perspective.”
Pritchard’s Palmerino envelops us in two separate eras that collide through a haunted connection between the modern day writer, Sylvia, the Villa, and Vernon Lee.
This is not a biography. It is so much more than that. Pritchard takes us by the hand into the Villa and the intimate interior worlds of these two women and gives us scenes: the unrequited love of Mary Robinson:
“With the solemnity of a priestess, Mary places the ice on her friend’s tongue. But as she steps back, Mary sees it, Vernon’s look, not of simple affection, but of helpless longing–no, worse than longing, a look of rank lust on her face.”
And Kit, who loves Vernon fully, yet without expectation:
“She (Vernon) learned to reject her image, carry on as if flesh were not a visible fact. If her face has no reality to her, she reasoned, it cannot have reality for others. Instead, Vernon’s incumbent mind, her gleaming expanse of brain, her voice expressive of that brain, will prove the instruments of forgetting. The instruments, too, of seduction. Rise above the body, rise far, far above, and others may follow, some even to worship.
But it is Clementina Anstruther-Thomson before whom she must one day stand physically naked. Kit who must lend her the courage to be kissed. Opened. Loved.”
Palmerino is descriptive, detailed, rich and consonant. Pritchard is unafraid to move into new terrain with each unforgettable book that she writes. Don’t miss out on this journey through time and place in Palmerino. How blessed I was to read this while I was in Italy. Get a copy and enjoy!
Palmerino can be ordered through Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Az, Amazon Books, Barnes and Noble – and of course, you can order and find links through Bellevue Literary Press’s website, www.blppress.org and my own website, www.melissapritchard.com
Violet Paget was born in 1856 to British expatriate parents. Although, she wrote for an English readership, spent the majority of her life just outside Florence in the Palmerino Villa from 1889 until her death in 1935. She was a feminist, a lesbian and wore only men’s clothes most of her life. She wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music and travel and supernatural short fiction.
Pritchard captures the essence of this extraordinary woman during a time when women were expected to be beautiful and quiet. Vernon Lee was certainly not quiet and did not consider herself beautiful by the standards of the time, but radiate she does through the depth of Pritchard’s poetic prose:
“My intelligence was formidable; I used it as both sword and shield.”
“The room feels indifferent to time; no steadying sequence of weeks or years, no roundness or linearity…”
“Forced into a solitude that holds twin bass notes of doubt and isolation…”
“…her mother’s milk spurting Voltaire from one breast, dribbling Rousseau from the other?”
“The breadth and depth of her friend’s intelligence, enfolded, engraved deep within her young brain, can never be fully sounded; it settles around Mary like a cloak or climate, like some infinite and liberating perspective.”
Pritchard’s Palmerino envelops us in two separate eras that collide through a haunted connection between the modern day writer, Sylvia, the Villa, and Vernon Lee.
This is not a biography. It is so much more than that. Pritchard takes us by the hand into the Villa and the intimate interior worlds of these two women and gives us scenes: the unrequited love of Mary Robinson:
“With the solemnity of a priestess, Mary places the ice on her friend’s tongue. But as she steps back, Mary sees it, Vernon’s look, not of simple affection, but of helpless longing–no, worse than longing, a look of rank lust on her face.”
And Kit, who loves Vernon fully, yet without expectation:
“She (Vernon) learned to reject her image, carry on as if flesh were not a visible fact. If her face has no reality to her, she reasoned, it cannot have reality for others. Instead, Vernon’s incumbent mind, her gleaming expanse of brain, her voice expressive of that brain, will prove the instruments of forgetting. The instruments, too, of seduction. Rise above the body, rise far, far above, and others may follow, some even to worship.
But it is Clementina Anstruther-Thomson before whom she must one day stand physically naked. Kit who must lend her the courage to be kissed. Opened. Loved.”
Palmerino is descriptive, detailed, rich and consonant. Pritchard is unafraid to move into new terrain with each unforgettable book that she writes. Don’t miss out on this journey through time and place in Palmerino. How blessed I was to read this while I was in Italy. Get a copy and enjoy!
Palmerino can be ordered through Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Az, Amazon Books, Barnes and Noble – and of course, you can order and find links through Bellevue Literary Press’s website, www.blppress.org and my own website, www.melissapritchard.com
July 8, 2015
From the Amazon synopsis: "Welcome to Palmerino, the British enclave in rural Italy where Violet Paget, known to the world by her pen name and male persona, Vernon Lee, held court. In imagining the real life of this brilliant, lesbian polymath known for her chilling supernatural stories, Melissa Pritchard creates a multilayered tale in which the dead writer inhabits the heart and mind of her lonely, modern-day biographer."
I read this primarily because I was on vacation and it helped me with my insomnia. It just rather bumped along, but now I also know about Vernon Lee, of whom I'd never heard. I thought the ending was silly.
I read this primarily because I was on vacation and it helped me with my insomnia. It just rather bumped along, but now I also know about Vernon Lee, of whom I'd never heard. I thought the ending was silly.
February 5, 2016
Beautifully written atmospheric setting, but the novel suffers from style. Writer Sylvia Case returns to Villa il Palmerino after her divorce to write a biography of Violet Paget, late 19th century writer, only to channel Violet's spirit in her former home. The novel has many plot lines that go no where.
March 25, 2016
I was going to give three stars, but then it went downhill about 2/3rds of the way through.
Also, it had been a while since I read the description, and it took a while to figure out what was going on.
Also, it had been a while since I read the description, and it took a while to figure out what was going on.
August 13, 2013
An interesting concept, especially since I am a particular fan of Virginia Woolf, but the execution lacked punch. Read Orlando instead.
Read
April 26, 2014Couldn't really get into this book, but appreciate at least I gave it a shot.
May 21, 2014
lots of description..lots and lots and lots of description..
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