Richmond Times Dispatch
The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann
By Virginia Pye
Regal House Publishing | 2023
In Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, the first Women’s Rights Convention began the slow process that led to profound but still unfinished progress.
The title character, a brave young woman, lends her voice to the struggle in The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann, Virginia Pye’s third novel.
Set in Boston at the cusp of the 19th century to the 20th, it chronicles the early success of a novelist who produces romance and adventure tales but who struggles after transitioning to realism.
As the story opens, Victoria tells her editor, elderly Frederick Gaustad, that she wishes to shift her work from formulaic mediocrities to stories that reflect substance and authenticity. Frederick objects and directs her to a new sub-editor, Harvard graduate Jonathan Cartwright, who figures in a touching subplot.
Meanwhile, the publishing house is purchased by former dockworker Louis Russell, who has little interest in books but covets money and runs a disreputable side establishment.
Raised on a remote farm, orphaned Victoria fell in love and wed Raymond Byrne, but the marriage succumbs to her ne’er-do-well husband’s drinking and gambling.
And when Louis demands that she stick with the profits her former genre earns so that she can pay Raymond’s gambling debts, she refuses and goes her own way.
Sympathetic Jonathan supports her decision to adopt a new brand.
“From now on, I intend to write about real people with real and regular lives,” she tells him. To which he replies, “We all have regular lives, Victoria, but when we see them reflected back to us in stories, they become more than that.”
What follows exacts multiple costs as she stands her ground.
Pye, a former Richmonder who now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is also the author of two previous historical novels, 2013’s “River of Dust” and 2015’s “Dreams of the Red Phoenix,” and a short-story collection, 2018’s “Shelf Life of Happiness.
Known for her affecting storylines and depth of characterization, she fills this novel with those winning attributes as she simultaneously adopts Boston-centric sensibilities of the era, with a plot that’s formal but never stuffy, characters who are appealing but never exaggerated and prose that’s elegant but never pretentious.
A rewarding exploration of transformation that despite tribulations leads to triumphs, Pye’s latest validates the life-affirming blessings of courage.
—Jay Strafford
SMALL Press PICKS
The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann
By Virginia Pye
Regal House Publishing | 2023
Although it’s set in the Gilded Age, this witty and engaging novel explores issues that continue to be deeply relevant, while offering an entertaining and inspiring read. (The novel can be preordered now, and its launch is planned for October 3.)
As the novel opens, its protagonist, Victoria Swann, is an established writer of more than a dozen romance and adventure novels set in exotic locations. Bearing titles such as Damsel of the Deep Sea and Fair Lady of Forgotten Shores, the books are highly popular with young women and, consequently, a success for Victoria’s genteel Boston publisher, Thames, Royall, & Quincy.
By all appearances, Victoria seems successful as well. She’s wealthy and always stylishly dressed, and she and her husband share a comfortable home on fashionable Brattle Street in Cambridge.
But when Thames, Royall is acquired, things take a troubling turn for Victoria. The new management intends to sign even more lurid fare, starting with a book by a prominent dancehall singer. Victoria, though the financial powerhouse of the firm, is treated as slightly better than a nuisance. Also, the timing of the change in management is unfortunate for her because she is hoping to publish a novel, The Boston Harbor Girl, that is quite a departure from her previous ones. With it, Victoria is taking a new, more realistic direction, one that reflects the struggles of women who share none of the privileges that she’s come to know.
(The Boston Harbor Girl might be seen as coming from the literary movement known as naturalism, which originated in the late nineteenth century. Naturalism is characterized by a kind of objective and detached viewpoint, and often features lower-class characters subject to forces beyond their control. One notable work from this movement is Stephen Crane’s 1893 novella Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, a story of poverty and despair.)
The shift in Victoria’s subject matter comes from far more than a desire to chart a fresh literary course. Not wanting to give away too much, I’ll just say that The Boston Harbor Girl is far more meaningful to her, personally, than her previous novels, making the stakes of getting it out into the world that much higher.
Unfortunately, the new direction of Victoria’s work does not go over well with her editor, or with her husband, an alcoholic spendthrift. Both of them have a financial interest in her continuing to turn out sensational–and highly profitable–novels. (Eventually, her husband’s greed turns out to be financially devastating for Victoria.)
In another disturbing turn, Victoria realizes that she is underpaid compared to male authors at Thames, Royall; she receives a much lower royalty rate than they do. Even more pressing, with the changes in the ownership of the publisher, she no longer receives any royalty payments at all.
Victoria realizes that this injustice cannot go unchallenged, and one of the great pleasures of the novel is seeing her push back against it while holding onto her dream of publishing fiction that, although far less remunerative, could make a lasting impression on readers. (In writing about Victoria’s confrontation with her publisher, Pye took as inspiration the case of a Boston writer, Mary Abigail Dodge, who in 1867 sued her publisher, Ticknor and Fields, for royalty payments that were deliberately less than those of male authors.)
Unfortunately, the story of the inequities Victoria faces remains more than relevant today. To give just one example, the gender pay gap in the United States has changed little over the past 20 years. On a happier note, what also remains relevant is the power of writers engaging with issues that are deeply meaningful to them–and telling stories they believe must be told, even if there is little to gain and, perhaps, much to lose. As a culture, where would we be without such stories, and storytellers?
In perhaps a nod to the 1885 William Dean Howells novel The Rise of Silas Lapham, whose eponymous protagonist endures a financial decline in tandem with his moral growth, Victoria’s “literary undoing” seems to refer not to a negative development, but rather to her gain of artistic freedom and literary merit. It was a pleasure to follow Victoria on this inspiring journey. I was rooting for her at every turn.