Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein [Paperback]

Molly Dwyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 29, 2008

REQUIEM FOR THE AUTHOR OF FRANKENSTEIN plunges readers into the life of Mary Shelley and her riveting encounters with Coleridge, Byron, Percy Shelley, Blake, and other luminaries of the Romantic Era. This large cast of colorful characters come fully to life in a their 19th century landscape Dwyer as given us Shelley's world, from the dirty, scary streets of downtown London to the scenic countryside of Pisa and Lerici, the Italian fishing village where Percy Shelley lived before his fateful drowning. REQUIEM FOR THE AUTHOR OF FRANKENSTEIN sheds light on the revolutionary life and achievements of Mary Shelley, a gifted writer and independent woman far ahead of her time. But its more than a historical novel; the narrative swims back and forth across time as the reader follows modern day protagonist, Anna Trevor into a labyrinth of haunted dream corridors and, like Anna, must grapple with genuine questions about the relationship between dream and reality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Haven't enjoyed a book so much since Possession. In its complexity, its rich character development, its smashing description, it just doesn't have rival out there today. When Shelley and Byron, Godwin and Coleridge converse, Dwyer's great gift is evident. Brilliant, just brilliant. -- Suzanne Hartman Byerley. Writer, editor, teacher. Founding director of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference

Molly Dwyer's commitment to nineteenth century period detail, character development, and her loyalty to the story's distinctive spirit of a place, exquisitely transport the soul of a feminist politic she shares with Mary Shelley as a revolutionary woman rising above desperate times. Ms. Dwyer's thorough historical research gives depth and substance to the almost feral theatricality of her characters, especially Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, setting the stage for an endless stream of epiphanies. That she manages to do so without sentimentality is no small feat for such an epic saga of romantic realism. I was especially impressed by the consistency of attention to detail that was maintained throughout. It's a muscular book and I mean that in the best way. Requiem is awesome: I found myself riding a torrent through its pages. -- Antero Alli, filmmaker and author

Reading Molly Dwyer's ambitious and excellent first novel is like taking an extended and enjoyable vacation in Great Britain with a really smart best friend. -- John Lescroart, best-selling author

Reading Molly Dwyer's ambitious and excellent first novel is like taking an extended and enjoyable vacation in Great Britain with a really smart best friend. --John Lescroart, NY Times best-selling author

Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein is a marvel. Gothic romance, feminist history, philosophical mystery-it's perfect for those of us who love to think as much as we love a good story. Molly Dwyer brings Mary Shelley and her circle so alive it makes me wonder if they ever died. -- Jean Hegland, author of Into the Forest and Windfalls

Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein is a marvel. Gothic romance, feminist history, philosophical mystery-it's perfect for those of us who love to think as much as we love a good story. Molly Dwyer brings Mary Shelley and her circle so alive it makes me wonder if they ever died. --Jean Hegland, author of Into the Forest and Windfalls

What a beautifully crafted narrative Molly Dwyer has given us in Requiem. It is all the more absorbing for the perfect ease with which it swims back and forth across time and between its two-or are they two?-protagonists. A brilliant fictive exploration of the power and possibilities of the mother-line. -- Carol Lee Flinders, PhD. Author of At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst and Enduring Lives: Portraits of Women and Faith in Action

What a beautifully crafted narrative Molly Dwyer has given us in Requiem. It is all the more absorbing for the perfect ease with which it swims back and forth across time and between its two-or are they two?-protagonists. A brilliant fictive exploration of the power and possibilities of the mother-line. --Carol Lee Flinders, PhD. Author of At the Root of This Longing

Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein is a marvel. Gothic romance, feminist history, philosophical mystery-it's perfect for those of us who love to think as much as we love a good story. Molly Dwyer brings Mary Shelley and her circle so alive it makes me wonder if they ever died. --Jean Hegland, author of Into the Forest and Windfalls

What a beautifully crafted narrative Molly Dwyer has given us in Requiem. It is all the more absorbing for the perfect ease with which it swims back and forth across time and between its two-or are they two?-protagonists. A brilliant fictive exploration of the power and possibilities of the mother-line. --Carol Lee Flinders, PhD. Author of At the Root of This Longing

Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: Lost Coast Press; 1st edition (February 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882897935
• ISBN-13: 978-1882897933
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #673,217 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MOLLY DWYER's debut novel, Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, was nominated for the 2009 Northern California Book of Year in fiction. In 2010, the National Women's Political Caucus honored Molly for "Writing Women Back into History." Molly has been an educator for twenty years, facilitating workshops and critique groups. Molly coaches writers and edits manuscripts of all stripes. She is the founding president of Writers of the Mendocino Coast and an English instructor at Mendocino College. Watch for Molly's second (soon to be published) novel, The Appassionata, set in Victor Hugo's Paris.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From Mendocino Beacon, Mendocino, CA--February 28, 2008, March 21, 2008

By 

ariadne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein (Paperback)

Book Review: Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein

By Charlotte Gullick, Author of By Way of Water, winner of 2007 Christopher Isherwood Fellowship

A good book allows us to fall into another world, creating an alternate landscape that compels and engages beyond ordinary life. Molly Dwyer's Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein offers its fortunate readers many worlds to fall into, and that falling becomes part of the literary ride we embark on. Dwyer has masterfully woven different time periods together, bridging the life of Mary Shelley and our modern-day protagonist, Anna Trevor.

With Anna's arrival in England, the hunt for essential, though elusive, information about Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron begins.
Anna's quest challenges her notions of conventional reality, requiring an embrace of the unknown. The book educates as it weaves worlds, casting Mary Shelley in a different light, one that transcends narrow definitions and agendas of feminism. Dwyer celebrates the life of the mind and the body as her characters, both modern day and Romantic, grapple with the moral implications of the philosophic life.

Anna learns that all is connected as she repeatedly tumbles into the world and body of Mary Shelley. In one key section, Anna revisits a college lesson:

"The class was coming back now, as if the ideas were all strung together, which made sense, since they'd practiced the technique while discussing it. Thomas Aquinas had taught the technique saying -- Anna was amazed by the clarity of her recall -- all knowledge has its origins in sensation. She wrote the words in her journal. That was the point: all knowledge has its origins in sensation. That's why the memories are physical."

Each page of Requiem circles around this point, moving readers toward the notion that the interconnectedness of things is more truth than idea. Mary Shelley's father offers this insight through the skillful hand of Dwyer: " . . Books bring about reflection, and reading can do much a schoolmaster cannot. Learning frees the mind. I agree that our current systems of education accomplish little more than the continuance of the oppressive structures . . . The cycle can, and must, be broken by well-reasoned words."

Dwyer does so much more than offer us well-reasoned words; she pierces the human drama, bringing the greats of another age alive and close, making them sensuously real. In resurrecting Shelley and her world, Dwyer transcends the constraints of time to offer not just excellent entertainment, but essential perspective on the power of words and story.

www,mollydwyer.com

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put it Down, July 6, 2008

By 

Kathryn (Vancouver, WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein (Paperback)

I was captivated by Requiem. It totally immersed me in the lives of both Mary Shelley and her contemporary, Anna Trevor. I stayed up all night and through the next day. Really, I could barely stop to eat. I kept thinking just one more chapter, but couldn't put it down until the end. I loved this book!! Molly Dwyer is such a skillful storyteller.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best novel I've read this year!, October 8, 2008

By 

M. Jacobsen "I am not young enough to know ev... (Through the Looking Glass) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein (Paperback)

Requiem, and you'll forgive me for shortening the title, manages to defy any one genre: part historical fiction, part Gothic romance with a healthy dose of magical realism. It is the story of author Mary Shelley and her extraordinary, unconventional (and that is putting it mildly) life as experienced by Anna, a modern day American scholar on a research trip to England. It is Anna who finds herself, via a rich tapestry of dreams within other dreams, actually becoming Shelley. Are dreams reality? Where is the line drawn? Is there a line?

The early 19th century was a time of literary upheaval: rebellion against the Enlightenment period, which emphasized reason above all else, arose in the form of Romanticism and placed great importance on emotional interpretation and creation of literature and art. The great authors and poets of the time were not singular entities. They were close friends and confidants; contemporaries who fed off of each other, sharing ideas, beliefs, and even (so it's been claimed) their spouses.

Ms. Dwyer cleverly immerses us in Mary Shelley's life and that of all of her contemporaries: her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and essayist Charles Lamb, to name a few. Their lives were filled with passion, betrayal and heart wrenching loss. They threw societal mores and values out the window and paid the ultimate price. The superb narrative in Requiem is so compelling that the reader receives a first-rate education in Romanticism without realizing it.

Ms. Dwyer demonstrates a command of the time period with accurate historic details and realistic dialogue, neither of which bogs down the narrative. The story immerses you an exciting period of literary history when boundaries were pushed and broken.

Highly recommended for your own personal reading enjoyment, I would also recommend Requiem as an extraordinary book club selection - there's enough fascinating material here to keep a book club occupied for months! If you are familiar with Mary Shelley and her intimate circle of Romantic Poets, this book will delight you. If you aren't, I'd venture to say that Requiem surpasses most college courses on the Romantics available today. Either way, this book is a treat.