Book Review: "The Phoenix Crown"
The new book from Kate Quinn and Janie Chang is a triumph of historical fiction, with kickass heroines, a nefarious villain, and even an earthquake.
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Warning: Spoilers for the novel follow.
I’ve been a fan of the historical fiction of Kate Quinn for quite some time now, and I always make a point of buying her new releases almost as soon as they hit shelves. This year is no exception, and I was thrilled to finally sit down and read The Phoenix Crown, which Quinn co-wrote with fellow historical novelist Janie Chang. It’s a fast-paced romp of a novel, filled with badass heroines, more than a dash of mystery, lots of fascinating historical detail, and an earthquake.
At the center of the story are four extraordinary women, two of whom, Gemma and Suling, are viewpoint characters. Gemma is an operatic soprano who comes to San Francisco in the hopes of furthering her career as a singer, while Suling is an embroiderer who yearns to escape an arranged marriage and her dissolute uncle. Completing the quartet are Alice Eastwood, a noted botanist, and Reggie, Gemma’s best friend and (as it is revealed) Suling’s lover. When their paths cross with the wealthy but deadly Henry Thornton, nothing will ever be the same.
There’s so much that I enjoyed about this book that it’s hard to know quite where to start. It’s always refreshing to see queer characters brought into historical fiction, and so I immediately fell in love with Suling and Reggie once it’s revealed (about a third of the way through) that the latter is none other than Gemma’s painter friend from New York City. This is a neat little bit of misdirection, since for quite some time we as readers are led to assume that “Reggie” is a man, and in this way the novel forces us to examine our own assumptions about who gets to be a part of history.
Both Gemma and Suling are both very much products of their own upbringing, and Quinn and Chang do a superb job of showing us how their lives have shaped who they are in the present. Gemma, after starting life on a farm in the Midwest, has had to claw her way to the top of the opera world, and her position is thus always marked by precariousness. It’s thus no wonder that she finds herself falling under the sway of the suave but dangerous Thornton, a man who has an eye for art and music and is willing to help her scale even greater heights. Like so many of the other badass women of historical fiction, she has dreams and ambitions, and she’ll do what it takes to see them brought to fruition.
Suling, likewise, has lived a life marked by uncertainty and precariousness. After the death of her parents she has been under the rough care and manipulations of her uncle, who hopes to shuffle her into an arranged marriage. Like Gemma, however, Suling isn’t the type of person to just sit and let others dictate her life to her. She is clever and resourceful, and she has managed to accrue a significant amount of money that she hopes to use to escape from the life that others have arranged for her. Through her eyes, we come to understand what it would have been like for the daughter of Chinese immigrants to live in a city that sequestered them, in a society that was still virulently xenophobic and racist. The novel doesn’t beat us over the head with it, but neither does it let us forget the way that racism is always lurking beneath the surface, ready to emerge both explicitly and implicitly.
While neither Alice nor Reggie are viewpoint characters for much of the book, they also get their time to shine, if mostly through Gemma’s and Suling’s eyes. Alice is a formidable intellect, and she has the distinction of being the only major character to be a real person rather than a fictional one. Reggie, on the other hand, is a fictional creation, but no less alive for that. Like the others, she has her own demons to contend with, particularly once Thornton has her locked away in an asylum after she witnesses him committing a murder (in one of the novel’s more horrifying events).
As the novel progresses, all four women find their fates drawn to Henry Thornton, who has a dark and violent past that he is willing to do almost anything he can to protect. Quinn and Chang allow us to see and understand just why it is that a man like him would manage to exert such a strong hold over everyone in his orbit. He’s someone who knows how to wield both his money and his innate charm, and it’s precisely the danger lurking beneath the surface that makes him so compelling. You may hate him–and it is very easy to, believe me–but you also can’t deny that we as readers are drawn to him just as intensely as are the characters.
They also don’t shy away from the more terrifying aspects of the story, and I was particularly impressed by their skill in capturing the unfolding horror of the earthquake itself. Roughly the first two-thirds of the book are headed by little reminders of how imminent the earthquake is, but even so, when it finally hits it’s like a bolt of thunder out of the blue. We feel like we are right there bearing witness to the horrors of both the quake itself and the fires that follow, just as we bear witness to these four women emerging from the cataclysm to try to forge their lives anew.
Quinn and Chang are clearly masters of the craft, and they find just the right balance between rich historical detail and narrative momentum. This is the kind of book that lets you really feel as if you are there on the streets of San Francisco, whether it be the posher neighborhood of Nob Hill or the grubbier (but more lively) Chinatown. And, when the novel finally reaches its conclusion and the four women get the chance to confront the man who tried to kill them, you can’t help but want to stand up and cheer them on.
I don’t know if Quinn and Chang have any plans for future collaborations, but even if they don’t, this book is truly a blessing!