Signed, Mata Hari: A Novel [Hardcover]

Yannick Murphy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 2007

In the cold October of 1917 Margaretha Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, sits in a prison cell in Paris awaiting trial on charges of espionage. The penalty is death by firing squad. As she waits, burdened by a secret guilt, Mata Hari tells stories, Scheherazade-like, to buy back her life from her interrogators.
From a bleak childhood in the Netherlands, through a loveless marriage to a Dutch naval officer, Margaretha is transported to the forbidden sensual pleasures of Indonesia. In the chill of her prison cell she spins tales of rosewater baths, native lovers, and Javanese jungles, evoking the magical world that sustained her even as her family crumbled. And then, in flight from her husband, Margaretha reinvents herself: she becomes an artist's model, circus rider, and finally the temple dancer Mata Hari, dressed in veils, admired by Diaghilev, performing for the crowned heads of Europe. Through all her transformations, her life's fatal questions---was she a traitor, and if so, why?---burns ever brighter.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In life, at least before the espionage charges, it was Mata Hari's body that made her mesmerizing; in this alluring novel, it is her hypnotic voice. As softly poetic as it is insistent, it entices the reader from the first lines to give Mata Hari what she always craved: not the secrets that are the currency of a spy, but the rapt attention that is oxygen to a performer. Shifting time and perspective, the tale moves among Mata Hari's early childhood in the late 19th-century Netherlands, her years in Java as a caring young mother married to a brutal military man, her glamorous but desperate career as a famed dancer and courtesan and her bleak existence in a Paris prison after her arrest as a spy for Germany during WWI. Murphy (Here They Come) sticks with the true ending to her subject's story, which was death by firing squad, and what makes the novel an unlikely achievement is how Murphy nurtures, before the shots are fired, a potent skepticism about the guilt of a woman whose name even today is synonymous with treachery. In its subdued way, this novel is an eloquent cri de coeur and a belated witness for the defense. (Nov.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Yannick Murphy’s novel certainly seduced reviewers, but such seduction may have derived from the author’s literary dance rather than from readers’ inherent interest in the subject. Critics admired Murphy’s masterful descriptions, shifts in perspectives, and attention to details alternately selected and invented from the real Margaretha Zelle’s life. The result is a poetic novel that will draw in even those who never thought they would enjoy reading about exotic European espionage. (The case documents will be unsealed in 2017, then revealing whether or not Mata Hari was a spy.) The only consistent criticism of the book was that some of the sex scenes seem more mythological than real—but then again, this is Mata Hari.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (November 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031611264X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316112642
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #462,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All Things Girl Reviews: Signed, Mata Hari, November 11, 2007

By 

Debra Smouse "Editor in Chief" (http://allthingsgirl.com) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Signed, Mata Hari: A Novel (Hardcover)

It's only a short time before her execution and we are in her prison cell. We are in Paris and the year is 1917. We are with Margaretha Zelle, aka, Mata Hari.

In this richly woven tale, Yannik Murphy mixes the facts of Mata Hari's life with nuggets of fiction to share a richly woven tale alternating between Mata Hari in prison, telling stories to her captors to buy back her life within the story of her life. Growing up mostly alone and abandoned and then finding herself in a loveless marriage, she shows that she is a survivor. Margaretha finds her comfort during her time in Java, but also suffers her greatest loss. She then reinvents herself and becomes the dancer, Mata Hari, dressing in veils and being admired by the elite of Europe.

Was Mata Hari a spy or was she simply a delusional woman longing for attention?

I devoured Signed, Mata Hari. I was left wanting to know even more...wondering where the facts ended and the fiction began. The writing was authentic and it seemed as if I were reading an autobiography. It's a book that will stay on my bookshelf to share with friends, and for the occasional re-read.

Signed, Mata Hari is available November 14, 2007

Deb Smouse - Editor in Chief - AllThingsGirl.Com

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating novel about a woman who has become an icon, December 21, 2007

By 

Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Signed, Mata Hari: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this imagined life of the famous spy Mata Hari; her life in Java is beautifully realized, and even the bleakness of her imprisonment and execution are well rendered.

EyeWitnesstoHistory has a chilling report of her execution, written by an eyewitness, Henry Wales. A few lines from his dispatch:

"Never once had the iron will of the beautiful woman failed her. Father Arbaux, accompanied by two sisters of charity, Captain Bouchardon, and Maitre Clunet, her lawyer, entered her cell, where she was still sleeping - a calm, untroubled sleep, it was remarked by the turnkeys and trusties.

The sisters gently shook her. She arose and was told that her hour had come.

'May I write two letters?' was all she asked.

Consent was given immediately by Captain Bouchardon, and pen, ink, paper, and envelopes were given to her.

She seated herself at the edge of the bed and wrote the letters with feverish haste. She handed them over to the custody of her lawyer.

Then she drew on her stockings, black, silken, filmy things, grotesque in the circumstances. She placed her high-heeled slippers on her feet and tied the silken ribbons over her insteps.

She arose and took the long black velvet cloak, edged around the bottom with fur and with a huge square fur collar hanging down the back, from a hook over the head of her bed. She placed this cloak over the heavy silk kimono which she had been wearing over her nightdress.

Her wealth of black hair was still coiled about her head in braids. She put on a large, flapping black felt hat with a black silk ribbon and bow. Slowly and indifferently, it seemed, she pulled on a pair of black kid gloves. Then she said calmly:

'I am ready.'"

*****

As Father Arbaux spoke with the condemned woman, a French officer approached, carrying a white cloth.

'The blindfold,' he whispered to the nuns who stood there and handed it to them.

'Must I wear that?' asked Mata Hari, turning to her lawyer, as her eyes glimpsed the blindfold.

Maitre Clunet turned interrogatively to the French officer.

'If Madame prefers not, it makes no difference,' replied the officer, hurriedly turning away.

Mata Hari was not bound and she was not blindfolded. She stood gazing steadfastly at her executioners, when the priest, the nuns, and her lawyer stepped away from her.

***

Robert C. Ross 2007 2008

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVELY AND INFORMATIVE, May 20, 2008

By 

MOVIE WATCHER (Los Angeles, Ca.) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Signed, Mata Hari: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is a beautifully rendered portrait of the life of the woman who called herself Mata Hari, undoubtedly one of the most famous but one of the least known about women in modern history. Her name appears in songs and movie titles. She was even the subject of a failed Broadway musical yet we really know very little about her. In elegant, graceful prose, Ms. Murphy tells us the ambiguous story of this complicated, illusive woman with compassion and radiant intelligence. The approach is kalaidoscopic. The author moves effortlessly from being the first person voice of her cental character to a third person observer, perhaps the author herself. From Mata Hari's tragic marriage right up to the final moment in front of a firing squad, there is never a false note or a misplaced moment. The result is a moving, delicate and ultimately very personal work and one that I very much admired.