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The Maze at Windermere

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A beautifully brilliantly written novel with wonderfully crafted characters, several intersecting and diverging stories. I highly suggest reading this book. I feel that T
readers will be mesmerized trying to keep up!

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Thank you so much for approving me for a copy of this book! Please see “note to publisher” section for my thoughts.

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An incredibly intricate nesting box of a book. Geoffrey Blake Smith is a master of form and nuance and where this book excels most is in how easily he switches between the writing style and tone of each of the five time periods that alternate throughout the books. The town of Newport, Rhode Island links the narratives as we travel from today's easy wealth to the Gilded Age, the civil war era, the town's role as a Revolutionary War outpost, and its beginnings as a simple village. Although the times are different, themes of desire, honor, and a struggle for survival in society all feature prominently. The disappointment in this book is that like a maze, it never really resolves.

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There are times you want to be lost in a novel. This is it. Spanning hundreds of years with multiple storylines this absorbing story takes you in. Certain sections require patience but the investment of time is well worth the read.

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A brilliant and beautifully written novel with several instersecting and diverging stories. The reader will be mesmerized trying to keep up!

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When parchment was rare and expensive, it would often be reused, scraping or washing away the old text before writing the new. This is called a palimpsest. In The Maze at Windermere, Gregory Blake Smith creates a literary palimpsest of Newport, Rhode Island. Smith weaves together five narratives from 1692 to 2011. The thing with a palimpsest is sometimes you get glimpses of the older document and in these narratives, you get glimpses of connections across the years, names, libraries, and streets repeat, but so do the emotional themes of love, courtship, and desire.

The opening narrative gives us Randy, a nice guy whose professional tennis career was good, but never great, and now, in 2011, he is no longer top tier who is beguiled by a young heiress he meets while sleeping with her best friend and sister-in-law. In 1896, a gay man whose family pays him just enough to stay away from them is courting a widow with two children and a very suspicious father. In 1863, Henry James befriends a young woman who inspires his famed Daisy Miller. In 1778, a British second son is an officer in the British Army occupying Newport becomes obsessed with a young Jewish woman and seeks her ruin. The fifth narrative is the story of a young orphaned Quaker girl in 1692 whose faced with several existential questions that will determine her life and that of Ashes, her slave, and the freedman who lovers her.

Each story is intriguing and compelling on its own but brought together with such mastery of the voices and mores of different times, they form a marvel of a novel. At first, there is a bit of adjustment as narrative voices shift from time period to time period though we are informed by chapter headings noting the year. By the end, the shifts happen at a faster pace and there are no more headings, but it does not matter because we know instantly whose story we are reading, so distinct are their voices. Within a sentence, we know where we are.



The Maze at Windermere is fascinating for several reasons. No one hands out bows to tie up loose ends, yet we can anticipate some sad and some happy endings. I appreciate how well Smith avoids putting 21st-century mores into the characters from the previous four centuries. I love how different each character’s voice is, not just in what they talk about, but in how they speak, the words and syntax, from the informality of contemporary Sandy to the formal precision of Henry James to the ritualized piety of Prudie.

I love how our characters’ struggle “to understand who we are, why we are here, to love and be loved” is so different for each character. Yes, they are all seeking similar objects, but through far different means and to different ends. It’s beautifully done because you don’t realize it is happening until you suddenly see through the text of one narrative into another, to the palimpsest, and just sit back in awe of the subtle genius at work.

I received an e-galley of The Maze at Windermere from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Maze at Windermere at Penguin Random House | Viking
Gregory Blake Smith faculty page at Carleton

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It takes a while for the realization to hit in #TheMazeatWindermere by Gregory Blake Smith. It is not about the characters or the times. This book's main feature is its location of Newport, Rhode Island. From chapter to chapter, the books moves between different time periods and characters with no visible connection. However, name and places recur, creating a sense of connection. It is this very construct that is the strength and weakness of the book.

Read my compete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/02/the-maze-at-windermere.html

Reviewed for #NetGalley

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I received this book from Netgalley for free. This did not influence my review.

The Maze at Windermere by Gregory Blake Smith is a richly layered historical novel set in Newport, Rhode Island, with interwoven tales taking place during multiple time periods. Each individual story is unique with a well-developed protagonist and compelling narrative. They come together only because of the setting and occasional references to earlier-living characters by the later-living ones. And yet, each of them has in common a yearning for love (or something) and social advancement (or at least security).

Colonial period: A young Quaker girl at the brink of womanhood has to find a way to support herself, her young sibling, and a slave after the death of her mother and loss of her father at sea. Caring members of her community believe she should marry. An older widower is more than willing to step up and wed her. But she balks at a loveless marriage. She has to come up with a bold plan of her own.

Revolutionary War period: A British solder/spy becomes obsessed with the beautiful daughter of a Jewish merchant. In order to have her (not to marry), he is willing to behave dishonorably despite his position as an officer, to lie, even to murder. Clearly dealing with a sociopath, this narrative grows increasingly unpleasant, a counterpoint to the poignant, sometimes disturbing, but generally gentle progress of the other stories. I always cringed during these sections and was glad to get back to the others.

Civil War period: A young Henry James embarks on a mission to train himself to be an observant recorder of the beau monde in Newport as a prelude to a writing career. However, he starts by observing a beautiful, free-spirited girl and, before he knows what’s happening, he is drawn into an unexpected friendship. As the friendship turns toward romance, he wants nothing more than to flee, to the consternation of all involved.

Gilded Age: A social climbing charmer of less than modest means recognizes that he will soon age out of his pretty-boy, jester persona and be dropped by the society that now finds him amusing. He must marry up. Fortunately, he has been adopted as a project by Mrs. Belmont, the former Mrs. Vanderbilt, who rules supreme in Newport society. He is paired with a wealthy widow and is surprised to discover he can respect and even like her. But, he is gay–a fact that must, at all costs, be hidden.

And modern day: An aging professional tennis player, an almost-was, is making a living as a tennis pro at a Newport resort, but is dissatisfied with just about everything. He’s a nice guy, but that has been identified as his weakness. He’s taken up by a wealthy married woman, then has a fling with an artist who lives in the same mansion. He learns that their world revolves around a young woman who is the sister-in-law to his mistress and the employer/friend of the artist he thinks he would prefer to be with. The sister-in-law has cerebral palsy and depression and calls herself the crazy heiress. He’d rather avoid her at first, but slowly his world begins to revolve around her as well.

The author does a fine job turning the spotlight on love, lust, and money–and the interplay among all three. He also does a fine job of defining each character and making them distinct. Almost too fine. This is one of those multi-charactered books that jumps abruptly from story to story. At the beginning, it’s annoying. Just as I’m being drawn into someone’s world, I’m yanked out and have to start over again. Along about the third narrative, I was irritated enough to consider giving up. By the time I got back to the first storyline again, I was wondering if I cared enough to read such a disjointed book. But I found I did care enough. And the writing made me keep going. Eventually, I became more pleased to return to each character than I was annoyed to be jolted from a storyline.

This is one of those ultimately very satisfying novels that rewards a little bit of patience.

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The Maze at Windermere Gregory Blake Smith is brilliant! Seamlessly and perfecting weaving and melding storylines and eras into a complete beautiful story. I was sorry for it to end, but it ended exactly as it should

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This complex novel is as challenging and thought-provoking as anything I've read in a long time.
The author weaves five separate narratives together around a common place and theme.

Each story is unique to its own period of history, but similar in its exposure of society and its norms. Each story is unsettling in some way and the emotional temperature increases as the reader winds their way through the maze of the intertwining narratives.

I was never relaxed reading this book.

I was never optimistic reading this book.

I was always engaged, but in a somewhat tentative and nervous way. That attests to the skill of the writer because my tenor mirrored that of the characters I encountered in this novel. The majority of them were not sympathetic characters, nor was the world they inhabited.

The Maze at Windemere is not a story with resolution, but one leading to reflection. That is the beauty of this book; it has prodded me to go beyond the narrative and think about the characters, the paths they chose, the world they inhabited, and to compare the present with the past while asking if anything really changes.

NETGALLEY provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

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I usually dislike dual time period books because one is always a lot more interesting than the other. However, in this book the author juggled 5 time periods in a very ambitious and writerly exercise that kept me engaged throughout. The story is told in alternating chapters from the points of view of 4 male and 1 female protagonists, each set in Newport, Rhode Island. Each protagonist has a very distinctive voice which is fortunate because towards the end of the book the pov begins to change more rapidly, from paragraph to paragraph, and that could have been a confusing disaster.

In 2011, Sandy Alison is a retired tennis player with a bad knee. He never managed to shake his reputation for lacking a killer instinct on the court. His complicated relationships with 3 women at the elegant old Windermere estate get the better of him. In 1896, Franklin Drexel is a handsome, snarky, witty and secretly gay lapdog to wealthy women, including the current owner of Windermere. At 33, Drexel is aging out of his current position and needs to find a rich wife. In 1863, 20 year old budding author Henry James Jr. is keeping a notebook of his observances to use in his future writing (which crops up in both the 2011 and 1896 stories). He meets a young woman who wants more from him than he can give and also confronts the devastation faced by the first negro regiment in the Civil War. In 1778, English soldiers are occupying Newport and plundering its library and synagogue. Major Ballard becomes obsessed with 16 year old Judith Da Silva, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant. Ballard really has no redeeming virtues. Finally, in 1692 15 year old Prudence is a recently-orphaned Quaker who has had to leave school in order to take care of her toddler sister and keep her father's business going with the help of her slave Ashes. Prudence knows exactly how to get what she wants.

Love, or something akin to love, plays a role in each of these stories, but this certainly isn't a romance novel. Although 4 of the main protagonists are male, the female characters are definitely not shrinking violets. There are lots of tricky little touches in the book, such as the use by 2 of the characters of "Daisy Miller" quotes to communicate to each other in 2011, or the similar naming of characters in different time periods (Aisha/Ashes). The book may have been a little gimmicky, but it was very enjoyable and it was certainly different.

I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher, however I wound up listening to the excellent audio book version borrowed from the library.

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This was an unusual book, 5 different stories, 5 different times but all centered around the same place. All the stories have some degree of love, betrayal, compulsion, and passion. Some stories are more captivating than others, ranging from the Revolutionary War to the present.

The unique quality of the book is the voice for each story line; the author really immersed himself in the colloquial and cultural tones of each era. That aspect of the stories seem to me to be really authentic.
The imagination to put this together is amazing and this is quite a read. It can't be rushed.
The only issue I had was with the rather abrupt endings to the stories; since so much had gone into setting each one up, they seemed to be a little like 'the end'.
Incredible effort.

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Divided and undecided, so I’m rating it up. Which is to say giving it a rating it initially merited, before the narrative spiraled out of control, quite literally. This book is indeed a maze of mirrors, placed cleverly so that the reflections spins smaller and differently into the past, while echoing the same themes. Original and quite ingenious concept of five threads crafted into a cohesive total, a Fibonacci sequence of a novel. And yet…such a structure requires a certain kind of patience and appreciation and maybe five is just too many. The kids rule…five kids is too many, two or three is a perfectly reasonable number, same with alternating timelines. Mind you the author did a great job of it all, the narratives are distinct in style, but the juggling act got tiresome after a while and it was difficult to impossible to care equally(ish) about each one. So I chose to read it as the first and main one was the soul of the story and the rest were just accoutrements, variations on the same theme. Theme being the impossible romances, complicated across the board by divisive financial circumstances, but also sexualities, social standings, etc. In the main plotline a washed up former tennis pro, whose good looks and amicable nature make him popular in social circles of the old money Newport class, finds himself courting a complicated bipolar DuPont (awesome to read just days after experiencing the genuine grandiose DuPont splendor of Longwood Gardens) Dollar Princess among the fabulous Wildmere estate. Next plotline (to compare) features a gay man of significant charm and insignificant financial means trying to secure for himself a lucrative sham marriage. So see…parallels. At one instance it’s actually quite cleverly tied in, sort of dream within a dream or, really, fiction within a fiction sort of thing, but in general it’s a lot, too much. Too many juggling balls. No small feat, admirable, but easier to appreciate than love. The writing itself was a thing of beauty, lovely command of language and complexity of emotions, so it made for a very nice introduction to the author. Thanks Netgalley.

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The loosely intertwined stories, set in Newport, RI — A has-been louche tennis pro in 2011, a “gay gadabout" in 1896, a writer in 1863, a soldier in 1778, and a Quaker of 1692--remind us that we are merely temporary inhabitants of this world, which has gone on, and will go on without us. In fact, “we are but the temporary inhabitants of our bodies.” I loved the pace of this novel, with shorter and more closely linked turns as we reach the center of the maze.

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This novel is quite a twisty, time-wimey spiral of a tale. The narratives (yes, plural, there are five all told) are both modern and historical. One time line belongs to a young Henry James, for heaven’s sake! To be perfectly honest, the stories ran together for me in the beginning and I, confused two of the timelines for quite a long time in reading. Just as I had things sorted, the brief glances across time came in shorter and shorter intervals. Ultimately, I didn’t feel that they were all particularly resolved in the end. And, frankly, after juggling the narratives, didn’t feel all that invested anyway. The characters themselves felt less well-developed than I wanted and I didn’t empathize with any of them.

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I'm sorry but I just couldn't get into this book. I tried, but I didn't care for the writing or the characters.

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Shakespeare said it first: “The course of true love never did run smooth.” This is certainly true in Gregory Blake Smith’s The Maze at Windermere. In fact, the course of love (or something sinister masquerading as love) runs in such crooked paths that at first it’s hard to tell if the characters are even on the same one. This novel is more like a series of linked stories that share a setting (Newport, Rhode Island) and themes of unrequited love, deceit, dependence, dissociation, and observation. As the narratives draw to their finales, coincidences and motifs pile up to highlight the similarities and differences in the choices the characters make in their attempts to get love or something like it.

The first chapters of The Maze at Windermere almost made me give up. The first character we meet is a tennis pro in the resort town of Newport who finds himself somewhat dependent on the indulgence of a very wealthy family. (I don’t know why I’m so turned off by tennis pros, but I’m going to just chalk it up as a personal eccentricity.) When Henry James showed up, I was very tempted to give up on the book altogether. I loathe Henry James because the one time I tried to read one of his books, The Turn of the Screw, I found the prose impenetrably dense and I hate it when someone makes me feel like an idiot.

I think it was the lure of the puzzle that kept me going. I wasn’t going to let the ghost of Henry James hold me back. So I kept reading. I met characters who didn’t quite know what they wanted until it was snatched away from them or who thought they knew what they wanted until something sent them haring down left turns. Over and over, I saw characters wrestle with what it was they wanted from life, whether it was love, security, or knowledge of others. Only one of the narratives, the one set in 1692, is fairly straightforward and the other narrative circle around it as if to show us all the ways things can go wrong when one refuses to be honest.

There’s a lot to unpack, as we English majors say, in The Maze at Windermere. I’m sure I didn’t understand everything lurking under the surface of these connected stories—mostly because everything I know about Henry James and his work comes from Wikipedia. In particular, the moments in which several of the characters have mystical experiences (a nod to the work of James’ brother, William) require a lot more thought, since I was too busy trying to spot all the links between characters and plots.

The Maze at Windermere is definitely not a light read, so I would only recommend it to readers looking for a challenge. It’s very clever, requires patience, and ready access to the internet if, like me, you feel the temptation to run down hunches and look up names. I’ve never read anything like this book. It tackles topics—unrequited love and dissociation in particular—that I can’t recall ever seeing explored in depth in fiction. Those who take up the challenge will be amply rewarded. I feel quite a lot smarter now because I’m pretty sure I understood part of what the book contained.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 9 January 2018.

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