Southern novel akin to soap opera
Poor Diana Cooke. Born and bred to her purpose as surely as her majestic black steed Phaeton, she is barely out of Miss Porter’s when called back to her family estate, Saratoga, on Virginia’s Rappahannock River.
Her father lost a leg in the Great War, and her mother can scarcely leave the house, so it is up to their only child to marry into money and save their home.
In “The Dying of the Light,” the new novel from Robert Goolrick, breeding is overshadowed only by a family stronghold.
Although Diana and her mother scrounge enough cash to buy 12 different gowns and 12 pairs of dancing shoes “from Montaldo’s, in Richmond” so she can attend 12 different debuts, it is at her first cotillion, in • “The Dying of the Light” (Harper, 288 pages, $26.99) by Robert Goolrick
Baltimore, where she meets the copper-haired Captain Copperton.
These two have such an animalistic attraction it is a wonder they manage to wait until the week before the wedding to slake their ardor: “He made love expertly, passionately, and he made allowances for her virginity, and was sweet and gentle with her, and the new world of womanhood opened like a lotus blossom ... “
Too bad within a few weeks he will be tying her up, beating her and leaving her bruised and bloody for the maid to find.
In this novel, there will be domestic violence, death on horseback, homosexuality, dreadful poverty, adultery, theft, envy and, above all, enough details about interior decoration to make an Architectural Digest editor scream in ecstasy.
After an indeterminate number of years, during which the impoverished Diana has only loyal African-American husband-and-wife retainers Clarence and Priscilla to help her survive on the odd bit of country ham and the dregs of the liquor cabinet, fortunes turn.
The same night a storm nearly destroys Diana’s beloved library, Diana’s only son with Copperton, Ash, is sent down from Yale for unspecified languor in his studies and brings along his tall, deliciously athletic former roommate. He also brings along access to his father’s bank accounts.
Before you can say “Save Saratoga!” Ash’s strange turban-wearing acquaintance named Rose de Lisle materializes from Manhattan to redecorate, followed by an even stranger man named Lucius Walter, who will restore the very important library to its former glory. No expense is to be spared, although suddenly Diana seems more concerned with her own architecture — “her full breasts, her tiny waist” — than with her all-important family home.
Everyone loves a good soap opera, but watching Gooolrick’s real talent and compassion peep through the floor-length drapes of overwriting feels like seeing the Wizard of Oz behind his curtain.