The
Brothers Boswell
Non-series
Philip
Baruth
Soho
Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-56947-559-8 (1569475598)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-559-1 (9781569475591)
Publication Date: May 2009
List Price: $24.00
Synopsis (from the publisher): The year is 1763.Twenty-two-year-old James Boswell of Edinburgh is eager to advance himself in London society. Today his sights are set on furthering his acquaintance with Dr. Samuel Johnson, famed for his Dictionary; they are going to take a boat across the Thames to Greenwich Palace. Watching them secretly is John Boswell, James’ younger brother. He has stalked his older brother for days. Consumed with envy, John is planning to take revenge on his brother and Johnson for presumed slights. He carries a pair of miniature pistols that fire a single golden bullet each, and there is murder in his heart.
Review:Philip
Bareth crafts an intriguing tale of the relationship between two
brothers, one of whom would go on to fame if not fortune, in The Brothers Boswell.
The elder brother is James Boswell, a real person whose primary
literary achievement was the biography of Samuel Johnson, who is
credited with writing the first comprehensive dictionary of the English
language. The other brother is fictional, John Boswell, several years
James' junior. The story is told, in part, from his perspective, as a
most singular day in the life of the two young men. John
surreptitiously follows James one day as he accompanies Johnson on a
riverine excursion; James and Johnson are discussing current events and
otherwise playing the roles of men of leisure who enjoy each other's
company. Though the son of a Scottish Laird, James feels he needs the
acceptance of the English elite to be complete and plots in detail how
he can, and will, achieve this. John believes James is turning his back
on his family, and on John in particular, to achieve a goal unworthy of
him. It is on this day that John decides to test both his brother and
Johnson; failing the test means a bullet through the heart for one ...
or both.
The Brother's Boswell as
a literary mystery is at its best and strongest when John is narrating.
He leads the reader through the day as he follows and ultimately
confronts James and Johnson, with several backstories to fill in
details. There are also a few chapters that aren't narrated by John,
but these seem at best supplemental, or tangential, to the primary plot.
Some of the more interesting passages have to do with self-examination.
Consider this early statement from John: "Finally, in the very blindest
corners of the closes and wynds of this heart I have been describing to
you, I came to something not unlike hate. It was unfamiliar to me at
first, but eventually I began to excel at it, this something not unlike
hate. And as with any unexpected talent -- like painting landscapes on
the blanched shell of an egg or shooting hummingbirds with a pistol --
I came to cultivate it for its own sake." Though both brothers seem
equal in intelligence and ability, James is clearly the more ambitious
of the two. John realizes this when he says, "I was not yet seventeen,
but already I had begun to suspect the worst, that there was something
profoundly provisional about my time on this earth, that my own life
was a journal whose pages were destined to take no ink." But, somewhat
ironically, his life takes the form of a journal in the book when he
says to the reader, "I detail once again my grudges, and the injuries
these two men -- one my own brother -- have done me. I apologize for
threatening to take a kind of violence, a kind of punishment into my
own hands. And I swear to use these only as a true last resort, should
the two of them persist in what has become their two-man conspiracy to
deny my place in their lives." In many ways John's journey, as it were,
is a riveting one and its conclusion especially satisfying, even
poignant.
Special thanks to Soho Press for providing a copy of The Brothers Boswell for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
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Novels by this author ...
The Brothers Boswell
Soho Press (Hardcover), May 2009
ISBN-10: 1-56947-559-8 (1569475598)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-559-1 (9781569475591)
Omnimystery
keywords for The Brothers Boswell
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Location(s) referenced: London England.
