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Having brought her account of the life and adventures of suffragette Nell Bray to a conclusion with ABSENT FRIENDS, Gillian Linscott has been turning back in time to fill in the gaps and in the process has written several really remarkable historical novels. DEAD MAN RIDING (the title of which I originally mistook for a political reference) takes us back to the beginning for Nell. Following three wandering years in Europe accompanying her grieving widowed mother, she has finally been freed to take a place at Oxford, where, though slightly older than the average undergraduate (she is twenty-two), she has immersed herself in student life and formed close friendships with two young women students, Imogen the beautiful and Midge the clever. All three are unconventional, as we would expect, and, in this first summer of the new century, they form a daring resolve to travel north to join three male undergraduates and a don on a reading party during the long vacation. The plan is to devote time to the serious study of philosophy, to live plainly, study Plato, and think clear and rational thoughts. The young women are taking a decided risk with their reputations, but they believe their gender ought not be a barrier to their intellectual freedom and they are confident that they will rise above "the sex question," as they put it. They travel to the Lake District, to the home of the uncle of one of the young men, and are instantly plunged into a melodrama involving shotguns, accusations of murder, beautiful horses, and passions of all sorts. "The sex question," it appears, cannot lightly be transcended. Over the next several days, Nell loses her innocence in several senses of the word and emerges from the whole experience with the future direction of her life laid out before her. What I most admire about Linscott's approach to the problem of the historical novel is her refusal to generalize about the past. From the prospect of a hundred years on, we tend to collapse whole decades into clichés about the "late Victorians," the "Edwardians," and so on, but Linscott knows that the past cannot be so neatly encapsulated. DEAD MAN RIDING is set at the dawn of the 20th century, in a blazing summer of optimism. The reader knows what will transpire over the next two decades, but the characters do not and our awareness gives a particular poignancy to our involvement with these characters who will, like the century itself, find their hopes dashed and their illusions shattered. The novel is at once an excellent and intriguing mystery and a fine history lesson, in the very best sense of the word. This is history as it ought to be taught in school and seldom is. What I most admire about Linscott's approach to the problem of the historical novel is her refusal to generalize about the past. From the prospect of a hundred years on, we tend to collapse whole decades into clichés about the "late Victorians," the "Edwardians," and so on, but Linscott knows that the past cannot be so neatly encapsuled. DEAD MAN RIDING is set at the dawn of the 20th century, in a blazing summer of optimism. The reader knows what will transpire over the next two decades, but the characters do not and our awareness gives a particular poignancy to our involvement with these characters who will, like the century itself, find their hopes dashed and their illusions shattered. The novel is at once an excellent and intriguing mystery and a fine history lesson, in the very best sense of the word. This is history as it ought to be taught in school and seldom is. This review refers to the UK edition. An American edition from St. Martins appears to exist, but its availability is unclear.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, December 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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