The Jewel Keepers by Sara Sheridan review: 'girl-boss fantasy'
Sara Sheridan’s latest novel finds the multi-talented Araminta McKenzie-Moore embarking on a treasure hunt through the streets of 19th century Edinburgh. Review by Stuart Kelly
What kind of a book actually is this? I suppose it might be broadly considered a historical novel – it is a fiction, flagrantly so in places, and is set in the past. But “the historical novel” covers a plenitude of subgenres and variations. This is not a historical novel in the realist, psychological tradition of writers such as Hilary Mantel or Marguerite Yourcenar or Allan Massie. Nor is it in the more self-consciously innovative form, of whom Kirsten Norrie, James Meek and Rebecca Perry would be good contemporary examples. Nor is it in the original version by Walter Scott, memorably described by his son-in-law Lockhart as “beautifully illumining the margins”: it does not rewrite the historical record, but supplements it.
Sara Sheridan’s new novel might best be described as historical romance. In another way, given the rooftop adventures, grand guignol villains, hidden family secrets, derring-do and shenanigans it more accurately seems like children’s literature, especially with its polemical pedagogy. It is kith with Sheridan’s previous non-fiction work, Where Are The Women?, in offering a feminist counter-narrative. (Elaine di Rollo’s The Peachgrower’s Almamac, to my mind, dealt with this novelistically, but with more panache and subtlety).
The novel proper begins in 1837 with Araminta McKenzie-Moore, aged 25, in Richmond, married to a geologist, and learning that a great-aunt she barely knew she had is dying in Edinburgh. She heads off, with her illiterate maid, and soon there is a cryptic note asking her to meet in a crypt on the Cowgate, a bank security box and a series of riddles that promise to lead to treasure. Luckily, Araminta who “solved word puzzles of a Sunday and on weekdays felt the satisfaction of algebraic calculations”, also studied Greek, Latin and Aramaic, as well as being well-versed in Burns, Scott and Tennyson.
There is, however, a significant prologue, set in 1818, narrating Scott’s re-discovery of the “Honours of Scotland”, the Scottish crown, sceptre and sword of state. This really did happen. The McKenzie sisters, noted for only allowing guests desserts if they solve riddles, speak pretty slightingly of Scott: he is “fawning”, his “unquestioning friendship” with the future George IV is “undignified at the least and tantamount to wife-beating on bad days”. Moreover, it was their intelligence that took Scott to the regalia. In fact the presence of the regalia was an open secret and Scott – lawyer as well as writer – organised for the necessary warrant. The interpolation of the McKenzie sisters allows for the McGuffin; the supposedly lost female crown jewels of Mary. As the cover puts it: “Men would kill for this treasure. The McKenzie sisters will guard it with their life”.
The men with dastardly intentions against the sorority transpire to be “the Hermits of St Giles”, a pseudo-Masonic group of Dan Brown levels of malignancy, founded, of course, by John Knox. Again there is a disturbing amount of cliché: “the modern Church does not venerate Knox” we are told – an odd choice of verb, and one he would resist. This is not the place to anatomise all the ambiguities, virtues, failings and errors of Knox, but suffice to say the stereotype here is dismal. Nor do I think Knox was angry at Elizbeth I for not knighting him, given she would have had little jurisdiction to do so. But the agenda is clear. Later there is a glancing reference to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, claiming Scott laughed at it and [Adam] Smith and [David] Hume “would have torn her argument apart”. “Men” – as one nun says - “the word dropping from her lips into the empty room as if it were a curse”.
The prose suffers from a profusion of detail: “Today, Charlotte, chic in a salmon-pink, empire-line frock embroidered with tiny gold stars… Eilidh in a fur-edged cape the colour of good red wine and Saoirse wearing a stylish satin-lined redingote in forest green”. There is the telling detail and then there is simply detail. And would a cape the colour of mediocre red wine be any more enlightening? The same goes for meals: “the crust is buttery and the mushrooms seasoned expertly with shallot, parsley and lemon. Unexpectedly delicious, it melts in her mouth. ‘Mmm,’ she lets out and takes a sip of the tea which is peppery and an excellent pairing… thyme is not a sweet herb but the cake is moist, fragrant and delicious with a distinct flavour of orange peel and almonds”. The repetition of “delicious” is inelegant, the cliché predictable and the phatic murmur of content superfluous.
But there is also a lack of attention to other details. The word vellum is usually misspelled as “velum” (although once both spellings appear on the same page). Mary Somerville, the scientist, appears as “Sommerville”. Peveril of the Peak is set in the Restoration, not the Protectorate. Old Miss McKenzie drinking “an experimental distillation made from coffee beans and coca leaves” is supposed to be a joke, given the anachronism is mentioned in the copious notes, but it falls pretty flat.
Overwrought and overwritten, this is girl-boss fantasy. The questions for reading groups at the end is a masterclass in underestimating the reader: “Which places in the book would you like to visit?”, “How important is it for you as a reader that historical fiction is ‘true’?”
The Jewel Keepers, by Sara Sheridan, Hodder & Stoughton, £22
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