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Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein
Molly Dwyer

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ariadne, March 26, 2008

Mendocino Beacon, February 28, 2008 • Mendocino, California

BOOK REVIEW:
REQUIEM FOR THE AUTHOR OF FRANKENSTEIN BY MOLLY DWYER

By Charlotte Gullick
Author of By Way of Water, winner of 2007 Christopher Isherwood Fellowship


A GOOD BOOK ALLOWS US to fall into another world, creating an alternate landscape that compels and engages beyond ordinary life. Molly Dwyer’s Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein offers its fortunate readers many worlds to fall into, and that falling becomes part of the literary ride we embark on. Dwyer has masterfully woven different time periods together, bridging the life of Mary Shelley and our modern-day protagonist, Anna Trevor.

With Anna’s arrival in England, the hunt for essential, though elusive, information about Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron begins. Anna’s quest challenges her notions of conventional reality, requiring an embrace of the unknown. The book educates as it weaves worlds, casting Mary Shelley in a different light, one that transcends narrow definitions and agendas of feminism. Dwyer celebrates the life of the mind and the body as her characters, both modern day and Romantic, grapple with the moral implications of the philosophic life.

Anna learns that all is connected as she repeatedly tumbles into the world and body of Mary Shelley. In one key section, Anna revisits a college lesson:

“The class was coming back now, as if the ideas were all strung together, which made sense, since they’d practiced the technique while discussing it. Thomas Aquinas had taught the technique saying — Anna was amazed by the clarity of her recall — all knowledge has its origins in sensation. She wrote the words in her journal. That was the point: all knowledge has its origins in sensation. That’s why the memories are physical.”

Each page of Requiem circles around this point, moving readers toward the notion that the interconnectedness of things is more truth than idea. Mary Shelley’s father offers this insight through the skillful hand of Dwyer: “ . . Books bring about reflection, and reading can do much a schoolmaster cannot. Learning frees the mind. I agree that our current systems of education accomplish little more than the continuance of the oppressive structures . . . The cycle can, and must, be broken by well-reasoned words.”

Dwyer does so much more than offer us well-reasoned words; she pierces the human drama, bringing the greats of another age alive and close, making them sensuously real. In resurrecting Shelley and her world, Dwyer transcends the constraints of time to offer not just excellent entertainment, but essential perspective on the power of words and story.

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