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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2006, 352 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2007, 368 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Sweeping and sultry literary fiction, featuring a memorable young heroine and engaging characters whose intimate dramas interconnect with hers.
Here at last is the
eagerly awaited new novel from New York Times bestselling author Gail Godwin.
Queen of the Underworld is sweeping and sultry literary fiction, featuring a
memorable young heroine and engaging characters whose intimate dramas
interconnect with hers.
In the summer of 1959, as Castro clamps down on Cuba and its first wave of
exiles flees to the States to wait out what they hope to be his short-lived
reign, Emma Gant, fresh out of college, begins her career as a reporter. Her
fierce ambition and belief in herself are set against the stories swirling
around her, both at the newspaper office and in her downtown Miami hotel, which
is filling up with refugees.
Emma's avid curiosity about life thrives amid the tropical charms and intrigues
of Miami. While toiling at the news desk, she plans the fictional stories she
will write in her spare time. She spends her nights getting to know the Cuban
families in her hotel–and rendezvousing with her married lover, Paul
Nightingale, owner of a private Miami Beach club.
As Emma experiences the historical events enveloping the city, she trains her
perceptive eye on the people surrounding her: a newfound Cuban friend who joins
the covert anti-Castro training brigade, a gambling racketeer who poses a grave
threat to Paul, and a former madam, still in her twenties, who becomes both
Emma's obsession and her alter ego. Emma's life, like a complicated dance that
keeps sweeping her off her balance, is suddenly filled with divided loyalties,
shady dealings, romantic and professional setbacks, and, throughout, her adamant
determination to avoid "usurpation" by others and remain the protagonist of her
own quest.
1
Now I had graduated on this bright June Saturday in 1959 and few were
the obstacles left between me and my getaway train to Miami—obstacles
that nevertheless must be cunningly surmounted.
"Emma, you ride in front with Earl," said Mother, as expected. "I'll sit
in back and reminisce a little more about my time here in Paradise."
"Oh?" challenged Earl. "What does that make the rest of your life, then,
a comedown?"
"The rest of my life is still in progress," Mother lightly countered,
making room for herself among my college leftovers that were going back
to the mountains with them. "Ask me again in thirty or forty years."
We began the winding descent out of Chapel Hill as, seven years earlier,
the three of us, with my mother's new husband at the wheel, had begun ...
This is a novel to approach with caution. If you have enjoyed other works by Godwin you might well enjoy this ... however, if you are reading her for the first time you will likely be better served starting with one of her earlier novels which include A Mother and Two Daughters, Violet Clay and Father Melancholy's Daughter...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Elizabeth Strout
Here is a wonderfully engaging story that explores the growth of a young woman beginning her career as a journalist. The inner workings of Emma's life are gracefully presented and marvelously mingled with the workings of the outer world; the combination provides a universe in which the reader is glad to reside. Joyce Carol Oates
Queen of the Underworld will be a delight to [Godwin's] many admirers for whom
The Odd Woman and A Mother and Two Daughters remain luminous in memory, like
old, dear friends. Here is the irresistibly readable Godwin voice, tender and
sardonic, warmly romantic and unflinchingly funny. Godwin's new heroine Emma
Gant is as alive on the page as any 'fictitious' character has a right to be and
when Emma takes leave of us, as she does in the startling ending of Queen of the
Underworld, we miss her, and can't help but hope that her adventures in Florida
at the time of the Cuban Revolution will be continued. Kurt Vonnegut
Gail Godwin's excellent new novel seems to me to be a muted tragedy about a
soul inside the body of a modern woman navigating through the terra incognita of
modern times.Gail Godwin published her first novel, The Perfectionists, in about 1970;
since then she's produced 12 novels and a number of short stories, plus her
first volume of memoirs. Her second, and I believe final, volume of
memoirs will be published next year and will cover the years 1963-1970.
She is also working on a novel, The Red Nun.
In an interview, Godwin reveals some of the experiences that inspired Queen of the Underworld, and also
explains why she didn't feel compelled to do any field research while writing
it:
"During the two years I was writing Queen of the Underworld, I could
hardly wait to get to my computer. I loved being 22 and hungry again, with a
22-inch waistline, so desperate to succeed and equally ...
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To make a library it takes two volumes and a fire. Two volumes and a fire, and interest. The interest alone will ...
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