Swallow Bookworms' choice for April is Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks which tells the story of the plague year in the village of Eyam.

Eyam_05_01

Of course this story has been much retold (as the author reminds us in her afterword) in numerous forms both factual and fictionalised. Her central character, Anna, is based on a single sentence in a letter by the rector William Mompesson "My maid continued in health; which was a blessing, for had she quailed, I should have been ill set . . ."

Why couldn't she have left it there with that one fictionalised character fleshed out against a background of known facts? Why did she have to replace the fascinating characters of William Mompesson and his wife Catherine with improbable and melodramatic nonsense about Michael and Elinor Mompellion?

The history of the plague village is dramatic enough without adding layers of witchcraft, child abuse, adultery and - worst of all - a silly tacked on Epilogue when we are told what happened next to Anna.

The sad thing is that this is quite a well written book and a genuine page-turner: if only she had had the courage to explore the real people and not - in her own words - fed on 'short rations' by the factual record.

There was also the possibility that she could have put in all the stories she wanted to and just not called the village Eyam, but allowed that her fictional village was inspired by the history of Eyam, but was a work of complete fiction. It was the unhappy marriage of fiction tagged on to history and thus marred which so annoyed me. I am happy with historical fiction in which real people and places make appearances which are in keeping with the known facts, but all the central characters are fictitious. I am happy with fictionalised history where one fictional or little known character tells the story of real times, places and people. It is the replacing of real - and quite well documented - people which really irritates me and spoils the whole book.