As lengthy as piracy has existed, it has been shrouded in fable, legend and rumor, which compromises the reliability of main texts describing its main figures. Author Katherine Howe tackles this historic pitfall in her latest novel, A True Account.
Hannah Masury, nicknamed “Hannah Misery” by the clientele on the waterfront inn the place she works in colonial Boston, has a small life. As an orphan and a lady, she doesn’t possess a lot in the best way of prospects. When, on a balmy June morning in 1726, Hannah witnesses the hanging of a pirate named William Fly, one thing breaks open in her. In a matter of hours, a mixture of coincidence and horrible timing results in Hannah working for her life. With nowhere to show, she seeks refuge aboard the ship of notorious pirate Edward Low, in disguise as a cabin boy.
Meanwhile, in Nineteen Thirties Cambridge, a bright-eyed freshman named Kay brings Dr. Marian Beresford a tattered manuscript that claims to be a real account of the adventures of one Hannah Masury. Marian virtually instantly dismisses it, however her preliminary skepticism offers solution to a guarded curiosity. Could the manuscript be real? If it’s, did Hannah deliberately alter particulars to cover one thing? And if she did . . . what precisely is ready to be unearthed?
Using twin narratives and timelines to create a piece of metafiction, Howe examines the contradictory tales of the true Edward Low via the lenses of Hannah and Marian. Conceptually, the thought is fascinating, although Hannah’s narrative of transformation is the extra attention-grabbing and higher constructed of the 2. Too typically, Marian teeters on the sting between character and machine, and her sections can veer right into a juvenile tone. In distinction, the use of a diaristic narrative to inform Hannah’s story invitations readers to really feel the push of clandestine discovery alongside Marian and Kay.
While the novel may need been stronger with Hannah’s voice alone, her half of the story is simply too compelling to be overshadowed. Readers who discovered their childhood love of pirates rekindled by the HBO superhit “Our Flag Means Death” (which includes different real-life pirates comparable to Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet and Calico Jack) shall be enamored with Howe’s piratical retelling during which the heroes are as unlikely as buried treasure itself.
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