The Madwoman Upstairs
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In Catherine Lowell’s "irresistibly clever" (Vogue) debut novel—“[a] piquant paean to the Brontë sisters" (The New York Times Book Review)—the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary treasure hunt to find the family’s long-rumored secret estate, using only the clues her father left behind and the Brontës’ own novels.
Samantha Whipple is used to stirring up speculation wherever she goes. Since her eccentric father’s untimely death, she is the presumed heir to a long-rumored trove of diaries, paintings, letters, and early novel drafts passed down from the Brontë family—a hidden fortune never revealed to anyone outside of the family, but endlessly speculated about by Brontë scholars and fanatics. Samantha, however, has never seen this alleged estate and for all she knows, it’s just as fictional as Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.
But everything changes when Samantha enrolls at Oxford University and long lost objects from the past begin rematerializing in her life, beginning with an old novel annotated in her father’s handwriting. With the help of a handsome but inscrutable professor, Samantha plunges into a vast literary mystery and an untold family legacy, one that can only be solved by decoding the clues hidden within the Brontës’ own works.
A fast-paced adventure from start to finish, The Madwoman Upstairs is a smart and original novel and a moving exploration of what happens when the greatest truth is, in fact, fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
American Samantha Whipple's hopes for an uneventful university career at Oxford are soon dashed when she realizes that everyone already knows her family story: she's the last surviving twig of the Bront family tree. What's more, someone is frightening Samantha by surreptitiously planting her late father's copies of Bront novels in Samantha's dorm room. Samantha had thought these were destroyed in the fire that killed her father several years earlier, but they may be cryptic clues to the mysterious Bront estate Samantha stands to inherit. Samantha's maddeningly demanding (and handsome) tutor, James Orville, is no help he flat-out refuses to discuss the Bront s. Lowell's debut novel offers some intriguing speculation about Bront family dynamics, particularly with regard to the life and work of lesser-known sister Anne; the repeated discussions of authorial intent, however, will likely be glossed over by all but the most dedicated English majors. Even without its attraction for Bront -philes, however, this is an enjoyable academic romp that successfully combines romance and intrigue, one that benefits from never taking itself too seriously.
Customer Reviews
Loved the immersion of the Brontë family
A creative new perspective to imagine the Brontë family and the generations later who were living in an overshadowed existence of the celebrity the unfulfilled curiosity and unanswered questions the public demanded, haunted and overstepped ar times attempting to ply answers that strangers deemed satisfactory. Yet Samantha, her Father, who’s family was direct descendants of Brontë had both lived their with their own profound love and abject hatred for the sisters, their brother and rarely their father. It was the 3 sisters that would leave them haunted and because of her fathers alcoholism, his own demons and introverted withdrawn existence, he would essentially create the very same existence for his daughter regarding isolated, socially Ill equipped and desperately alone. After losing her father and being drowned in her grief, she is accepted to Oxford where she is given a room in the tower, that has no windows, a hideous haunting painting of a woman that’s more than what she’s aware of at the time of moving in. She realizes quickly she’s separated from all other students, assuming it’s to keep her from being exploited by students who were already writing in the school paper of her arrival and photos of herself accompanied the article. The only place she’d found some sort of reverie and a willing participant in her quest to finding the cryptic message her dad left her from beyonf the grave is her tutor/professor for whom she begins to develop immense feelings for that aren’t as unrequited as she’s thought, not in the least. The secrets of her fathers life will be revealed and her ties to this professor seemed like fate to me as I read it. It was a nice twist and a lot of the LITERARY GREATS were given their due and discussed. Enjoyable reading.
Great Read
Loved the witty repartee. Such a fun novel, I couldn’t put it down
The Madwoman Upstairs
I will definitely read the Anne Bronte's works, those so closely entwined with this narrative. I am also compelled to revisit Jane Eyre, a favorite from my adolescence. I felt short changed by the abrupt ending to the novel, but that's truly a compliment to the author.