DEAR PRUDENCE

DEAR PRUDENCE BROOKLAND BY EMILY BARTON NEW YORK: FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX. 496 PAGES. $25.

To Brooklynites, new and old, who can often be heard remarking on how much their neighborhoods have changed in recent years, Brookland offers this jarring bulletin: Cortelyou, Schermerhorn, and Joralemon were once the names of families, not streets. This thoroughly researched novel follows the life of Prudence Winship, Emily Barton's fictional heroine, from 1778, when British troops still occupied the land, until October 1803, when New York City was beginning to emerge as a world business capital. Such historic events as General Cornwallis's surrender and Thomas Jefferson's inauguration serve as the backdrop for domestic drama, which alternates between third-person narrative and reminiscence in the form of a letter that Prudence writes to her daughter, Recompense.

Prudence's life is driven by two principal ambitions: First, she wants to learn the craft of distilling from her father and eventually to oversee the gin business that he began. As a distiller, she develops a talent for the subtleties and science required to ensure that the liquor comes out right. Despite Prudence's impressive accomplishments in a field normally reserved for men, and the flourishing of the business after her father's death, she then becomes consumed with a second, grander ambition: to construct a bridge that will span the East River. This project's ostensible purpose is to facilitate delivery of her product, but it also has a more personal meaning for Prudence, whose father died in the river, as well as a symbolic meaning of the sort that accrues to any impossible dream. (Before the mass production of steel became possible in 1855, no material was strong enough to arc over such a great distance.) The protagonist is never more likable than when hunched over volumes of natural philosophy, studying how the principles of the lever might be ingeniously applied to salvaging the wood left after the destruction wrought by the British upon the forest. "Its twin spandrels had, from the start, sloped gently to convey any weight at the structure's center safely back to the ground," Barton writes, "but as she figured and drew, Prue at last uncovered the method for planking them that would both best repel water and please the eye."

Barton's first novel, The Testament of Yves Gundron, played fast and loose with the historical novel's conventions, introducing blues music into a purportedly medieval setting. Her second colors within the lines. Nevertheless, it is telling that marriage plays such a minor role in the plot of Prudence's life, as well as those of her sisters. One marries, one becomes engaged, and another rejects a number of proposals. But Barton offers the reader none of the love letters, flirtatious glances, or similar courtship business that occupy most novels concerned with heroines of this era. These women are almost all business. They even wear pants, as skirts would be less than ideal around the menacing machinery of the distillery. The hardheaded Prudence rejects the church and spares little emotion for romance, and though she samples every batch of gin she never overindulges.

Prudence's ambitions tend to overshadow the family and romantic troubles suffered by her parents and her two sisters, beautiful Temperance and mute, diminutive Pearl. Not that the domestic events are trivial, but none are probed deeply enough to count for as much as seems to be intended. Early in the novel, Johanna, the family's household slave, dies from a brain tumor, and Prudence's mother, already shown to be susceptible to depression, plunges into a fatal slough. But without a loving scene between master and servant, the reader cannot fathom how this loss brings such grief. Just how much are we supposed to read into the paternal rebuke, "That's enough from you.... Your mother loves Johanna"? Describing Prudence's first sexual experience, Barton musters only an awkward reference to "the smell and taste of him, made sweeter by proximity" (as opposed to how he tasted from across the room?). The author's hesitation makes Prudence seem like a prude and, as a result, less sympathetic.

Barton's detailed descriptions of the process of draining the wort from the mash and distilling it into fragrant liquor left me hankering for a martini: "She came to understand how a gifted rectifier introduced these sundry essences in novel and harmonious proportion to the final distillation of spirit, such that their individual properties would be less evident than the balance of the whole." Also, Barton convincingly employs the cadence and vocabulary of colonial America without falling into the Masterpiece Theatre trap that snares so many writers of historical fiction. And her love of obscure language is obvious without being ostentatious, with a few exceptions. Pearl's hair is described as a "blazing mandorla" (two interlocking circles, to save you the trouble of looking it up; it is not in my Webster's). To ease hangover pain, Temperance holds a cool rag to her occiput (back of the head). At other times, Barton shows herself to be quite deft with simple, memorable phrases. Contemplating his wife's death, Prudence's father "seemed as if a gun had gone off near his ear." And here is a striking way to describe remorse: "She wished she could tear her own personality out by the roots."

The anguish that Barton describes stems from a childhood superstition that festers over time throughout the novel until it explodes at the end: At the age of six, Prudence cast a prenatal hex on Pearl, and ever since, she has harbored feelings of guilt for her sister's handicapped condition. This irrational belief is most likely meant to humanize the seemingly logical protagonist, but the contradiction puts almost too much strain on the overall structure. It would be nice if novels were as sturdy as bridges, supporting historical traffic in one direction as well as emotional traffic in the other. Then again, perhaps the fascination is in how they splinter into tragic, twisted pieces.

[Author Affiliation]

Mark Swartz is the author of the novels Instant Karma (City Lights, 2002) and H2O (forthcoming from Soft Skull Press).