Novelists often get their ideas for books by wondering “what if . . .” Stephanie Barron’s “what ifs” are doozies.
In her last book, “A Flaw in the Blood,” Barron posed the question: What if Prince Albert didn’t die of a disease as history claims but instead was murdered?
Now, in “The White Garden,” the author asks: What if Virginia Woolf didn’t drown herself in the Ouse River on March 17, 1941, as everyone supposes, but instead, ran off to Sissinghurst Castle, home of her friend Vita Sackville-West?
After all, Woolf’s body wasn’t found for weeks, and it was cremated only a couple of days after it was plucked out of the water. Is it possible that she didn’t drown herself on the day she wrote the suicide note? She did plan to throw herself into the river, of course, but maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she committed suicide a week later. Or perhaps she didn’t commit suicide at all but instead, was murdered. (And to boot, what if in those hidden days at Sissinghurst, Woolf, not Vita, came up with the idea for the castle’s famous white garden?)
It all sounds a bit farfetched until you read “The White Garden.”
Jo Bellamy, an American landscape designer, arrives at Sissinghurst to study Vita’s special garden for a wealthy client. She has an ulterior motive. As a boy, her grandfather, Jock, was a gardener at Sissinghurst, and the day after Jo told him of her commission, he hanged himself. So Jo wonders if there are clues at the castle that will explain his death.
Soon after arriving, Jo discovers a hand-written notebook in a toolshed, labeled “Jock’s Book.” After reading the book, she suspects it was written by Woolf and convinces the head gardener to let her borrow it. The notebook is an extraordinary find that could change everything the literary world knows about Woolf’s last days. And about Woolf’s famous chums, too.
Instead of returning the book, Jo skips off to London to have it authenticated, and there she runs into a cast of characters interested in acquiring the book for their own ends — Peter, a Sotheby’s rare book expert; his ex-wife Margaux, a student of Woolf; and Marcus, an unctuous Sotheby’s official. And then there’s Graydon Westlake, the wealthy American who has commissioned Jo to design a white garden for him. He would like to bed her, as they said in Woolf’s time.
Barron’s use of the English language (that is, the language used in England) is delicious. The Denver author is almost schizophrenic in her use of language for her American and English characters, (which is not surprising, since Barron is really two people. In addition to her popular Jane Austen mysteries and English novels published under Stephanie Barron, she writes thrillers under her real name, Francine Matthews.)
“The White Garden” tends to the arcane in places, and it probably would help if you already knew something about Woolf and the Bloomsbury crowd. The sexual tension between Jo and her patron, Graydon, is, well, annoying. You wish she’d tell the guy to leave her alone, or however they put it in England.
But Barron is such a skilled writer that these are minor flaws. After reading “The White Garden” you are likely to have some serious doubts about Woolf’s death. And it wouldn’t be surprising if the book inspires a hoard of American readers to descend on Sissinghurst’s magical garden in search of the toolshed.
Barron has an uncanny way of replicating Woolf’s writing style and a wonderful ability to immerse you in the times and places and people she writes about. By the end of “The White Garden,” you’ll be talking like a Brit. It’s a fine book, first rate it is.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist, whose latest book is titled “Prayers for Sale.”
The White Garden, by Stephanie Barron, $15
