The Widow's War: A Novel - Hardcover

Gunning, Sally Cabot

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060791578 ISBN 13: 9780060791575

Publisher: William Morrow, 2006

Synopsis

In a small Cape Cod village in 1761, one woman is about to engage in the struggle of her life, defying her family, friends, and neighbors in a fight for her freedom that resonates even today. . . .

When was it that the sense of trouble grew to fear, the fear to certainty? When she sat down to another solitary supper of bread and beer and pickled cucumber? When she heard the second sounding of the geese? Or had she known that morning when she stepped outside and felt the wind? Might as well say she knew it when Edward took his first whaling trip to the Canada River. . . .

Lyddie has long been the wife of Edward Berry, a well-liked and successful whaler in Satucket Village, Massachusetts. Married for twenty years, Lyddie is used to the trials of being a whaling wife -- her husband's sudden departures, when whales are sighted in the bay; his long absences at sea, when she must run the house herself; the constant fear that one day Edward will simply not come home. But when the unthinkable does happen and Edward is lost at sea, Lyddie finds that she must bear not only the grief of losing her husband but also the insult of losing her autonomy. As a widow, she finds herself cast into society's cellar, her property and rights now at the whim of her nearest male relative, who happens to be her daughter's husband.

With her son-in-law -- who was never Lyddie's first choice for her daughter -- implacable and hostile, Lyddie realizes she cannot live under his roof and under his decrees. Refusing to bow to both her “guardian” and the societal and legal pressures brought to bear upon her, Lyddie finds that defying one rule emboldens her to defy another . . . and another. As she moves back into the house she shared with Edward -- the house she is entitled to use only one-third of now -- and begins to figure out how she'll make a living on her own, she finds that her defiance earns her nothing but the abuse of friends and neighbors and puts her home and her family at risk. Ultimately, Lyddie must decide how much she values her personal freedom and how willing she is to become estranged from those she loves.

While conjuring the hearths and salt air of eighteenth-century colonial America, The Widow's War captures a timeless human longing. With rich, realistic characters, Sally Gunning weaves a tale of a woman's journey to understand herself and her world, and her place in that world. Honest and moving, The Widow's War is a stunning work of literary magic, a spellbinding tale from an assured and gifted writer.

About this title

About the Author

A lifelong resident of New England, Sally Cabot Gunning has immersed herself in its history from a young age. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Satucket Novels—The Widow’s War, Bound, and The Rebellion of Jane Clarke—and, writing as Sally Cabot, the equally acclaimed Benjamin Franklin’s Bastard. She lives in Brewster, Massachusetts, with her husband, Tom.

Reviews

With all the recent talk about the illicit use of fiction in nonfiction, little has been said about the reverse: the occasional necessity or desire to report real events in a novel. History may provide the underpinning upon which a novel is based, or fiction may underscore an important character or event in a given era. Sally Gunning, in The Widow's War, seamlessly does both. Skillfully employing the language, imagination and character that literary fiction demands, she illuminates a fascinating moment in our past: the years just prior to the War of Independence, when ideas of rebellion -- for men and women -- were fomenting. Lyddie Berry becomes a widow on the day her husband responds to a cry of "Blackfish in the bay!" The view from the Berry house in Satucket Village (now Brewster on Cape Cod, Mass.) is all black whales, hundreds of them, being herded to shore. With hardly a backward glance, Lyddie's husband, Edward, runs down to the beach, never to return: His boat capsizes, and though the other four whalers aboard are saved, Berry is drowned. Before the day is over, Lyddie, no stranger to tragedy (she has already lost four of her five children), will be ousted from her house as is required by law and ensconced in the home of her son-in-law, Nathan Clarke, a man more interested in property than in women. Little time or language is wasted on grief. Sam Cowett, an Indian who lives as an Englishman and was the last to see Edward Berry alive, comes to pay his respects to the widow: "About your husband." " ... Yes." "I had him. A good grip. He was alive. I felt him take hold." "Yes. All right." "It tore." "What?" "The coat tore." "All right. Yes." Lyddie lives a life as austere as her speech. When removed from her house to reside with her daughter and husband, she is allowed to take only those precious few possessions she brought with her to the marriage. Clarke, as her nearest male relative, will receive title to all of the Berry property, while Lyddie, "as Edward's relict," is entitled to the "standard 'widow's third'" -- "a third of either the physical property itself or a third the interest resulting from its sale." Nathan, of course, wants to sell the property as soon as possible for the money. But Lyddie elects to return to and occupy her third of the house, setting up her own separate fire in the east corner of the keeping-room hearth, putting a bed in the southeast chamber and taking charge of the pantry. Clarke and the men around him are appalled. When Lyddie wonders why her husband didn't leave her more independent, his lawyer asks sarcastically if she would rather have been left alone. "How many months in the year was I alone?" she replies. "In spring my husband sailed for Carolina and in summer for Canada, in fall he went to Boston for weeks at a time.... Do you think I don't know how to be a woman alone?" Lyddie's act of rebellion may have been encouraged by the news of James Otis, a radical lawyer in Barnstable. Otis had challenged the Trade Acts by speaking out on behalf of the fundamental rights of man (and woman) -- principles, we are told in an afterword, on which future revolutionary activity was grounded. (John Adams later wrote, "Then and there the child Independence was born.") Lyddie's first bid for freedom inevitably leads to others. The widow not only refuses to attend church on the Sabbath, but she also breaks another law by working on that day, trying to sell cheese to make enough money to eat in her third of a house. Drawn to the household next door, Lyddie cares for Sam Cowett's wife, who is dying, and then attends to Cowett himself when he becomes ill. She receives pay in the form of food for these attentions and ignores the scandalized townspeople when she must occasionally spend the night in the Cowett house. Turning to Cowett for human warmth, Lyddie becomes the Indian's lover, further alienating herself from society -- and from her late husband's lawyer, who has proposed to her. Life with a wealthy, respected man is tempting, but she also knows that if she marries him, she will lose all rights to her "widow's third." The cost of her decision is high either way: "You're no mother to me or to my wife," Nathan Clarke shouts at her. "As of this day you're cut loose." A good novelist creates layer upon layer of reality so that when the central character makes an extraordinary leap, the reader is willing to go along. A fine balance, however, between detail and art must be struck. Too much research, and the word "research" might as well be stamped across the page. Too little, and the all-important quality of verisimilitude is lost. Gunning chooses her facts and details with care, allowing the strong-willed Lyddie to command our attention. One is revolted by the stink of the "try pots" (as is Lyddie) and thoroughly chilled by the cold ("First the well froze, then the clock, next the ink, and finally the bay, in great chunks"), but the grief, struggle and courage of this ordinary woman are what finally resonate. Many historical novels die on the page, the characters never having drawn breath. In Gunning's capable hands, a novel of history is allowed to be as vivid as the smell of a man: "Tobacco and sweat, but a different sweat, and something like sassafras but not sassafras." Anita Shreve's most recent novel is "A Wedding in December." Reviewed by Anita Shreve
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Mystery author Gunning (Fire Water) moves to literary historical with this provocative tale of a whaling widow determined to forge a new life in colonial Cape Cod. When Lyddie Berry's husband drowns in 1761, her grief is compounded by the discovery that he's willed her the traditional widow's share—one-third use, but not ownership, of his estate. Lyddie's care, and the bulk of the estate, have been entrusted to their closest male relative, son-in-law Nathan Clarke, husband to their daughter Mehitable and a man used to ordering a household around. Lyddie's struggle to maintain a place in her radically changed home soon brings her into open conflict with an increasingly short-tempered Nathan and his children from two previous marriages. Gunning infuses the story with suspense and intrigue, as Lyddie's plight brings her into the orbit of local Indian Sam Cowett; community censure then brings her an ally in sympathetic lawyer Ebeneezer Freeman. Gunning resists easy generalizations and stereotypes while the story pulls in 18th-century law and Anglo-Indian relations, but the dull period dialogue, of which there is a great deal, reads awkwardly. Yet she makes Lyddie's struggle to remake her life credible and the world she inhabits complex. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In a colonial whaling village, Lyddie Berry is very happy with her husband, Edward, the home they've built together over the years, and the children they've raised. When Edward is lost in a whaling disaster, Lyddie discovers her new status as a widow is not equal to her former status as a wife. All of the property Lyddie and Edward have acquired is now the responsibility of Lyddie's tight-fisted son-in-law. Although destitute and grieving, Lyddie finds righteous anger and strength, and challenges her son-in-law when he violates the terms of her husband's will. This defiance leads her to question other values held by the community about a woman's place, and even as she loses her reputation and home, she gains a deeper sense of self. Historical fiction isn't usually known for quick pacing, but readers will be swiftly turning the pages, eagerly cheering for the strong-willed widow. The crisp prose is flavored with the stinging salty atmosphere of a New England community witnessing one individual's war for independence. A good choice for book groups. Kaite Mediatore
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060791578
• ISBN 13: 9780060791575
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320