A seamless blending of history and fiction, "Life Mask" is a story of self-discovery. Ann Damer, a widow, sculptress and member of the Beau Monde of England during the late 1800's, has been maligned as a Sapphist for years. Eliza Farren, actress and comedienne, aspires to acceptance in "the World" and a title. As their story unfolds, and with it, the stories of those to whom they were most closely linked, Anne realizes that the assumptions made about her sexuality were true, and that realization brings her, surprisingly, not despair but great joy. Eliza makes her marriage to Derby and achieves her desired worldy success but the book hints at the possibility of other desires unsatisfied.

Donoghue has done a very nice job with the "voice" of this book, capturing the cadence and tone of the period, while incorporating enough of modern idiom to make it effortless to read. Her characters are dimensional, based on historical fact but with the fiction writer's license to create where creation is called for. ( )

I am usually quite an Emma Donoghue fan -- I loved "Slammerkin" -- but something about this book feels so stiff and stilted that I find it difficult to get myself to pick it up and read it. Perhaps it is the language, which feels heavy and forced; or the characters, which seem two-dimensional, lacking enough description to even imagine what they really look like; maybe it is too much information on the mores of the time. ( )

Emma Donoghue has an amazing talent for portraying the lives of women. From lesbians to 18th- century murderers and actresses, Donoghue captures the imagination of her readers with her vivid prose and insightful, intelligent comments about society. The women she puts on paper are enchanting; their lives (fact or fiction) become real when Donoghue puts them to paper. Her sense of history is dead-on accurate, leading the reader to feel as if he or she has been catapulted unexpectedly into the world of 18th- century England.

Life Mask is the story of three famous Londoners in 1787: Anne Damer, the most famous female sculptor of the time; the Earl of Derby; and Eliza Farren, actress. The three, along with friends, meet together often to put on plays at the Earl of Rochester's mansion, Strawberry Hill. The tale follows these three protagonists as they move through London Bon Ton, or High Society.

As in Slammerkin, Donoghue is intensely conscious of the fashion of the time; but here, as well, she becomes more and more involved with the politics of the day. England had just lost its major colony in a crippling, economy-damaging war, and the political situation was rife with unrest. Everyone, it seems, wears a mask, and not just onstage: Eliza Farren and Derby, as they struggle with their six-year love affair are only just a part of this magnificent novel. This is a powerful political and romantic intrigue, fraught with tension and excitement. ( )

Emma Donoghue brings to life three historical figures - sculptress and Sapphist Anne Damer, actress Eliza Farren and her devoted suitor the Earl of Derby, not to mention a list of cameos straight from a Burke's Peerage of the late eighteenth century - but does so with a far from subtle and occasionally clumsy combination of historical biography and fiction. Is this book fiction wrapped around a kernel of fact, or the author's research shoehorned into a story? I enjoy reading about life and lives during the eighteenth century, but I didn't appreciate the interruption in dialogue and characterisation to tell me what I could easily look up for myself. And then when Donoghue either adapts history to suit herself or makes chronological and etymological errors - Thomas Paine was English not American, and words such as 'Terrorism' and 'graffiti' did not exist in the modern sense in the 1790s - the bones of her research really show through the flesh of her imagination. That said, Donoghue is a stylish writer, and Derby, Eliza and Anne are all believable as living, loving beings on the page, especially towards the close of the book when the characters grow and their relationships change (and the author begins to tone down the infodumps). I would recommend this book to those who haven't read much background about the era, but who would like a potted and atmospheric, if not accurate, history of the time - there's very little plot, merely ten years in the lives of three people, and the political and social changes that happen to and around them - but it is still engrossing from beginning to end. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2006/12... ( )