REVIEW: The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey by Kathleen Kaufman
As spiritualism reaches its fevered pitch at the dawn of the 20th century, a Scottish girl crosses the veil to unlock a powerful connection within an infamous asylum in this thrillingly atmospheric, exquisitely evocative exploration of feminine rage and agency.
Leaving behind a quiet life of simple comforts, Nairna Liath traverses the Scottish countryside with her charlatan father, Tavish. From remote cottages to rural fairs, the duo scrapes by on paltry coins as Tavish orchestrates “encounters” with the departed, while Nairna interprets tarot cards for those willing to pay for what they wish to hear.
But beyond her father’s trickery, Nairna possesses a genuine gift for communicating with the spirit world, one that could get an impoverished country girl branded a witch. A talent inherited from her grandmother, Lottie Liath, widow of a Welsh coalminer, whose story of imprisonment and exploitation in a notorious asylum is calling out to Nairna from four decades past—a warning to break free from the manipulations, greed, and betrayals of others.
What do the cards hold for Nairna’s future?
Rescued from homelessness by a well-connected stranger, Nairna is whisked into a new life among Edinburgh’s elite Spiritualist circle, including visiting American star Dorothy Kellings. Researchers, doctors, psychics, and thrill-seekers clamor for the rising young medium. But after a séance with blood-chilling results, a shocking scandal ensues, and Nairna flees to a secluded community near Boston, where she assumes a new identity: Nora Grey.
But Nora can’t stay hidden when Dorothy Kellings offers her the chance to face all comers and silence skeptics at a spectacular séance at Boston’s Old South Meeting Hall, where Nora will come face to face at last with her spiritual guide: the courageous Lottie Liath, whose heart-wrenching story and profound messages are indelibly tied to Nora’s destiny.
CW/TW – major character is involuntarily committed to a mental asylum and subjected to mesmerist experiments by ghastly doctors.
Dear Ms. Kaufmann,
I don’t go seeking “feminist rage” “attack the patriarchy” books but if one with those adjectives describing it sounds interesting, I’ll read it. For those readers wanting kick-ass feminist RAGE, this might not pack the punch you’re looking for. For those looking for a young, seemingly powerless, teenager finding her footing in the world and taking charge of the direction of her life, this might fit the bill.
Nairna and her charmer father roam the Scottish countryside, scraping by at best. He has several cons he can try while Nairna actually does have skill reading tarot cards and those seeking information from them. They get swept up by a Spiritualist Society in Edinburgh where Nairna is at first happy with the meals, the clothes, and fine bed linens. Soon however she realizes that it’s a lovely cage in which others want to direct her life. She and her father escape to Boston where another spiritualist helps launch her in New England.
Meanwhile, Nairna’s grandmother, a spirited young widow, fights for the money owed to her after her coal miner husband’s death. But a powerful man who wants to cover up the disaster and who is also a cheap bastard denies her until Lottie lets loose on him which lands her in an asylum where one doctor and two nuns try to help her before another doctor, looking to make his reputation, gets his mitts on her.
The two women will ‘meet’ as one fights to survive and the other fights to take control of her own destiny.
Much of this book is grim. Nairna and her father are often cold and hungry before the Edinburgh set takes them in. Nairna also worries that her talents will land her in gaol or worse. She thinks some of these people actually care about her but knows for a fact that most are weighing her and her talents and deciding how to profit off of what Nairna can do. Poor Lottie has the shit end of the stick. She and her husband loved deeply and had dreams before the coal mine tunnel collapsed, leaving Lottie and her unborn child in desperate circumstances. Lottie fights for her due with scrappy tenacity and refuses to kowtow but ends up in harsh and then terrible circumstances, subject to the will of male doctors.
At first we see Nairna and her father pulling spiritualist tricks for a handful of coins but I was genuinely surprised that Nairna not only has actual skills, she can move heavy furniture, blow out windows, and ruin the shelving of a ton of library books. This only increases once she gets to Boston and her ‘spirit guide’ shows up. It’s at this point that things get even weirder. All hell doesn’t break loose but it’s certainly intense and readers need to be ready to just go with it. Another surprising aspect of the story is how helpful certain people at the asylum are and the ultimate thing they do to avenge Lottie and prevent what happened to her from being done to anyone else.
So maybe there’s not a lot of feminist rage but there are a lot of women looking out for themselves and each other. In the day and age of the timelines, women didn’t have much agency or power but within the limits of what is there, Nairna, the other spiritualist, a mysterious island of misfits, and two women who see injustice do manage to fix some things, arrange others, and emancipate themselves from there on out. Fair warning, I read another review in which that reviewer says that the author bungled a lot of the tarot information. B
~Jayne
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