A Word on Anne Perry
Anne Perry is best known for her Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels and a colorful past . Perry was convicted for the murder of her friend’s mother when she was fifteen. I’m not sure if there are other authors with similar eventful lives, but Perry’s dark past certainly took me aback. A Christmas Homecoming is the first ever Anne Perry book I’ve read and it made me feel that she is best enjoyed through a longer read.
What’s it About
A Christmas Homecoming, like her other novels, takes place in a Victorian setting and the characters are brought together at the mansion of Mr Netheridge who lives with his wife and daughter Alice and a group of servants. Other characters include Caroline (who can be called the heroine of the novel), Joshua, Caroline’s husband, Vincent, Lydia, James and Mary, all of who are actors called upon to practice and perform a play written by Alice.
Since the story is set during the harsh winter of Christmas when it is snowing heavily for days on end, the characters are inevitably confined in the mansion where they have no choice but to get along together and bring the play alive on stage.
The arrival of a stranded stranger to this hardly happy group throws them emotionally off balance and escalates the tension further. The uneasiness hits a crescendo when the stranger, who is called Anton Ballin is found murdered one night. The plot takes a turn in the direction of a whodunit as Caroline tries to unravel the mystery behind the murder.
The Dracula Fear Factor
The play in discussion is an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and it contributes a great deal in centering the discussion between the characters on good and evil and the darker sides of the human psyche.
And naturally since it is Dracula that is being discussed, the characters (and readers too) cannot help but be on edge as we anxiously expect the real Dracula to appear on stage. Surprisingly, we are informed that one does not need to be a vampire to feed on humans, since humans knowingly or unknowingly do it all the time to ensure their survival. The climax of the story gives evidence to this thought.
“We will have lied”. Ballin smiled. “Do we not feed upon each other at times, in some fashion?’ (41)
Breaking Traditions
The dialogues between the characters also explore how salvation and evil can act in the human mind only if they are invited and how the will of a human is given the choice. In the midst of these already hefty themes, Perry does not forget to add that women too possess ambitions and talents given the context.
The patriarchal norms of marriage and family and how they pin down women possessing visions are artfully depicted. The fact that I felt a marked distaste towards the character of Alice’s fiancé proves that Perry had done a good job in getting the point across.
The Unconventional Heroine
Caroline is presented as an unconventional heroine since she gave up on her privileged position of Victorian widowhood to marry a man who is fifteen years her junior thereby losing most of her friends and fortune in the process.
To top it all, she is a woman who has and uses her brains! (More so than her male counterparts). Quite a rare thing in the Victorian times.
To give a final verdict, A Christmas Homecoming is one of those feel not good novels you can read during Christmas to shake off some extra good cheer (: )).
