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Loading... Misfortuneby Wesley Stace
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.   camtb | Aug 31, 2009 |  #12: Misfortune by Wesley Stace. Shaney lent me this book about a thousand years ago. I thought the writing in this book was beautiful. It reads like historical fantasy, even though nothing fantastical actually happens in it. It's set in England around the 19th century, I believe, and follows the life of the main character, Rose. Rose was abandoned as a baby but rescued by Lord Loveall, who was still mentally scarred by the death of his younger sister when they were children. So he brought up Rose as some sort of replacement for her (their names are even anagrams), even though she is biologically male. And of course, the titular misfortune eventually ensues. Like The Savage Garden, the ending does seem a little contrived, but I forgive it for the great story. (  ) tronella | May 12, 2009 | Wonderful! Truly a delightful journey. Very avante-garde...I've never read anything quite like it. Bravo Mr. Stace on a brilliant first novel!!! (  ) MoiraStirling | Jan 18, 2009 | This is such an awesome book! How to describe it? Set in England in the early 1800s, it's basically the story of Rose, who was abandoned in the trash as a baby and found by Geoffroy Loveall, a rich young lord who decides to raise the baby as his daughter and heir. The only problem is, Rose is a boy. Geoffroy refuses to believe this when various people try to tell him, so eventually everyone just decides to go along with it. Rose is raised as a girl and doesn't know he's really a boy until he's in his mid-teens. He's very unhappy to find he's not a girl, and though he forces himself to dress as a man, in the end he decides to just be who he is, which involves wearing dresses and a moustache. I was kind of rooting for Stephen/Rose/Sarah to be a happy threesome, but it turned out to be just Rose/Sarah, alas. It feels almost like a fairytale at times (especially the mystery of his parentage), but it's really good. ( ) kyuuketsukirui | Nov 9, 2008 | This book is easily one of my most treasured contemporary books. It's intriguing, speaks to me very deeply about my own life, and has an expansive, epic feel to it that's engrossing. I have to admit right away - I own three copies of this! Of course, one because I bought it. One because it was only $5 and I wanted the hardback. And one that I'm going to give to a friend next time I see her! Although it has its faults, it's brilliantly and intricately crafted. There is no dearth of subplots and threads and facets to the story, which are all entwined and meaningful to the main substance of the story. Unlike some novels, I never felt like any of the threads was useless, boring, or just "didn't work." That said, it is a long book, and really not for everybody. The characters are mostly solid. But there is a specificity to the themes, plot, and style. I can see many people finding the book boring, slow, and uninvolving, but if it interests you and you "buy into it," it's an incredible read that won't let you down any more than you'll be able to let it down! ( ) bunnyfly | Aug 19, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0316830348, Hardcover)One of the most auspicious debuts of recent years, Wesley Stace's Misfortune follows the rise, fall, and triumphant return of Rose Old, a foundling rescued from a London garbage heap in 1820 by the richest man in Britain. Lord Geoffroy Loveall, whose character has been shaped by perpetual mourning for a sister who died in childhood, seizes on the infant as a replacement for his beloved sister. With the help of trusted servants, he arranges for the child to be lovingly brought up at his ancestral mansion, Loveall Hall--to all appearances, his biological daughter and unhoped-for heir. No matter that the baby is not a girl.The story thus far is so engaging, and the details of Rose's childhood so playfully rendered (when she was first brought to Loveall Hall, the staff of 250 included a servant whose sole responsibility was to iron newspapers before their second reading), that it is with reluctance that the reader meets the inevitable rude, scheming relatives whose plotting will lead to the "misfortune" of the title. Luckily, Stace (the given name of the musician John Wesley Harding) takes too much delight in Rose to dump her back on the garbage heap, or at least not for long. The cross-dressing love child of Great Expectations and A. S. Byatt's Possession, Misfortune will find you breathlessly tracking the movements of its principal players, and applauding the most ridiculous twists of fate. --Regina Marler
Amazon.com Bonus Content Songs aren't anything if they aren't sung, so I decided to match melodies and words and record some of them. I picked these because they were the first two. There will be a full record of the songs of Misfortune, performed by The Love Hall Tryst (myself, Kelly Hogan, Nora O'Connor, and Brian Lohmann) which will be released by Appleseed Recordings later this year. --Wesley Stace Listen to "Lambkin"
Listen to "The Ballad of Miss Fortune"
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
Songs weave their way throughout Misfortune--some are ballads, crucial to the plot and written by one of the characters, others are traditional songs sung at various points of the narrative, others are folk songs from a collection in the Octagonal Library of Love Hall, the home of the central family. 
This gender-bending romp about a boy raised as a girl in 19th-century England--penned by musician John Wesley Harding, writing here under his real name--more than lives up to the hype it will surely, ahem, engender. On a night in 1820, effeminate and ineffective (at least according to his mother) Lord Geoffroy Loveall, happens upon a baby abandoned in a trash heap. He brings it home to Love Hall, the grand estate that he is set to inherit, and pronounces the baby his daughter and heir. There's just one problem: the baby is a boy. Geoffroy refuses to accept this fact, but the happy news causes his ailing mother to die on the spot. The baby--named Rose--is raised as a cosseted and doted-on proper young lady, and the legitimate heir, a ruse that works beautifully until Rose begins to wonder about the facts of life: why, for example, does she suddenly feel the urge to pee standing up, like her friend Stephen, rather than squatting like his lovely sister, Sarah? Adolescence (and a few whiskers) only causes further confusion--as does the word "BOY," which begins to ominously appear around the estate. Eventually, Rose's cover is blown, and the scandal prompts several sets of greedy relatives to descend, claiming the Loveall inheritance as their own. There's a huge cast of characters, plot twists aplenty, loads of historical detail (including original Victorian ballads) and a satisfying, tied-together ending that also, in two epilogues, manages to offer up a poignant take on historical interpretation. Yet this lengthy and involved tale makes for speedy reading. Best of all, Rose's original narrative voice is engaging from the get-go: smart, funny, observant, and even hip. (