The Thirteenth Tale is
a first novel that received a lot of good press. It became No. 1 on the
New York Times bestseller list
a week after publication.
Margaret Lea, a shy woman who works in her father’s antiquarian
bookshop outside London and has published an obscure literary article,
receives a surprise request from aging, reclusive author Vida Winter to
write her life story. Winter is known around the world; why would she
choose Margaret as her biographer? Margaret is dumbfounded but drawn in
after reading Winter’s books.
Vida Winter has fabricated many versions of her life story over the
years, but she says she tell Margaret the truth in her own time.
Margaret is to ask no questions.
As the story unfolds, we become aware of how being a twin figures in
both Margaret’s and Vida’s stories. Margaret’s twin died when they had
to be separated as infants, and discovery of that fact (her parents
didn’t tell her) has left her emotionally scarred. As Vida tells the
story of the out-of-control children Adeline and Emmeline, readers
guess that she was Adeline, growing up neglected in a crumbling mansion
with mad relatives.
Vida’s story of a strange, tumultuous past is more interesting than
Margaret’s, which is a problem, since she is the narrator and
Setterfield clearly wanted readers to feel for both women as they
confront the ghosts that haunt them. Vida’s final secret isn’t foretold
and feels hard to swallow. Still, Setterfield knows how to write in the
gothic tradition, and The Thirteenth
Tale should satisfy readers who enjoy that genre. It sold well,
and the BBC adapted it for television.
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