Captivity - Deborah Noyes

Title: Captivity
Author: Deborah Noyes
Pages: 352
Published: 2010
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: 3/5

This masterful historical novel by Deborah Noyes, the lauded author of Angel & Apostle, The Ghosts of Kerfol, and Encyclopedia of the End (starred PW) is two stories: The first centers upon the strange, true tale of the Fox Sisters, the enigmatic family of young women who, in upstate New York in 1848, proclaimed that they could converse with the dead. Doing so, they unwittingly (but artfully) gave birth to a religious movement that touched two continents: the American Spiritualists. Their followers included the famous and the rich, and their effect on American spirituality lasted a full generation. Still, there are echoes. The Fox Sisters' is a story of ambition and playfulness, of illusion and fear, of indulgence, guilt and finally self-destruction. The second story in Captivity is about loss and grief. It is the evocative tale of the bright promise that the Fox Sisters offer up to the skeptical Clara Gill, a reclusive woman of a certain age who long ago isolated herself with her paintings, following the scandalous loss of her beautiful young lover in London. Lyrical and authentic-and more than a bit shadowy-Captivity is, finally, a tale about physical desire and the hope that even the thinnest faith can offer up to a darkening heart. (via Goodreads)


Thoughts: It took me about half of the book to get into it and it was after a podcast that I heard on the Fox sisters that I actually got into the book.The one thing that bugged me about the book was the constant back and forth between the storyline for the Fox sisters and Clara and it was a huge thing that I couldn't read it for sometime.  I probably missed things that were important to the story, but the last few readings of the book, I just wanted to get it done.

13387 / 15000 pages. 89% done!