Women’s Prize longlisted author of Intuition, Allegra Goodman, returns with her deeply moving novel of love, faith and survival, Isola. Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola tells the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival. To celebrate publication, we caught up with Allegra to learn her favourite five historical novels that captivated her from the first page.
“She sees the abbey as though with a stranger’s eyes: the stones scrubbed now, more white than gray, the fences neat, the fields rich.”
Based on the life of Marie of France, Matrix transports the reader to 12th century England. High-born but illegitimate, seventeen-year-old Marie is shunted off, sent from court to convent. Sickness and poverty plague her abbey, but from bleak beginnings, Marie builds a strong community of women. The language in this book is spellbinding as Groff describes Marie’s material and mystical world.
“My house stood apart from the rest, and hadn’t been lived in for many years. It was built around a rainbow gum tree, which came up through the floor and went out through the roof.”
Set in 1930s New Guinea, this novel is partly inspired by the career of anthropologist Margaret Mead. An adventure story, a love story, and a novel about a woman in science, Euphoria is a page-turner about professional jealousy, the joy of discovery, and what it means to be human.
“History has failed us, but no matter.”
Pachinko is an epic novel about four generations of a Korean family living in Japan. It’s a book about inheritance and loss, immigration and discrimination. The book starts in the 19th century and traces the journey of parents, children, and grandchildren into the 20th. Lee’s book vast in scope but intimate as well, filled with richly textured detail.
“She has bread to bake, cattle to milk, berries to bottle, dishes to wash, beds to air, passages to sweep, steps to scrub.”
From a few known facts, O’Farrell spins a magical novel about a healer named Agnes and her sweetheart, a young tutor. The young couple, better known as Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare, marry and raise three children, Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet, who falls ill with a terrifying fever. Set in 16th century England during the plague, this is a tale of love, ambition, grief, and creativity.
“If the scrapes were on the front of our knees, she would put our dirty feet in the middle of her chest to clean the wounds, and we could feel her heart beating, strong as the thud of the ground when we walked, through our soles.”
This searing novel is set in America’s Gulf Coast in 2005. A pregnant teenager and her family get by with little in their rural community and then face the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Indelible scenes characterize this story. Dogs fighting, kids searching for food. Ward’s writing is both specific and mythic in this story of a young girl and a cataclysmic event.
