Linda Lappin

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..a compelling plot,...intriguing characters, a vivid sense of place, and strong descriptive writing. But Lappin's principal achievement...may be found in her realization of Count Federigo del Re and the strange power he exerts over the novel's heroine, Harriet Sackett...Lappin's task--or that of any writer who wishes to create a Federigo del Re -- is convincing the reader to share Harriet's complex, almost otherworldly obsession with the man. In The Etruscan she succeeds.  Walter Cummins

The Southern Indiana Review -- a literary magazine published by Southern Indiana University - was an early supporter of my work.  In those days, before email or word processors - getting fiction across the ocean and into print in literary magazines was quite a challenge. The editors and readers of The Southern Indiana Review helped keep me going as they published my fiction, translations, and essays.  Later, they offered this wonderful review by a gifted writer, Pat Aakhus, alas no longer with us, who shared my gothic inclinations.

The Etruscan by Linda Lappin
Reviewed by Pat Aakhus
Winter 2005 The Southern Indiana Review

The Etruscan by Linda Lappin is an intelligent, atmospheric novel with finely drawn characters and beautiful language and style. It is not easy to put down. The feminist protagonist Harriet falls in love with a charismatic count, extraordinary in the tradition of Cornelius Agrippa, Cagliostro or Conte de St. Germaine, who materializes and disappears into the Etruscan landscape. Her well bred friends from Russell Square manage to save her from her fatal obsession by wiping out all evidence of his improbable existence, removing her from the wild landscape (wild at least to an American and her proper English friends), while simultaneously driving Harriet into madness and a long residence in a mental institution.
This engaging story is told from the point of view of the Bloomsbury friends, whose own dark secrets are incidentally revealed (but only to us) as they read her personal journal of the love affair. The long hidden guilty truths remain hidden, and as we learn about them, as Harriet stalks her phantasm-lover, the solution to the mystery which propels the novel retreats. Is the Conte Federigo Del Re faithful; is he a real count, or even a real man; a fantasy or an Etruscan ghost? This shape-shifting Rochester will not be tracked down, unmasked or domesticated.
Like the ephemeral count and the exotic landscape, Harriet is a fascinating, vivid character. To what extent are her civilized friends responsible for her affair, her madness? Certainly they create an opium addiction which makes Harriet "manageable," protecting themselves from incriminating revelations about their own actions. Lappin handles this weaving of related pasts deftly, providing one of the most interesting aspects of the novel. Because the novel is primarily told from the point of view of "disinterested" characters reading Harriet's journal, a strong sense of voyeurism pervades the narrative. Of course we too are culpable, racing through the pages to find the Conte Federigo Del Re, hoping that he will not disappoint us and show up one more time in some surprising incarnation.

Harriet is an American, and therefore an outsider, notwithstanding her predilection for Turkish silk trousers, outspokenness and photographing Etruscan tombs. She might have been lifted from one of Katherine Mansfield's short stories or is perhaps an eccentric portrait of Mansfield herself. For she is neither passive nor paralyzed like many of Mansfield's or Woolf's heroines, nor self victimizing like Chopin's. But Lappin is a twenty-first century novelist and although the first wave of feminism is far behind us, not all has been resolved. While possessed of a fortune and entrée into European society, still Harriet is a victim of abuse and of the machinations of her controlling upper class cousins. It is a working class woman who ultimately saves her, rescuing Harriet's past, and therefore her identity.

Lappin has done an admirable job providing authenticity in every detail of time and setting, while providing provocative questions about the extent to which women are driven to hide abuse, and the effects of that suppression. There is no preaching in this novel; the issues are conveyed subtly and believably. Harriet would have had some things to discuss with Virginia Woolf, a victim of sexual abuse plagued by clinical depression throughout her life, had such things been discussed in Bloomsbury.
Lappin's elegant prose simultaneously creates suspense and evokes a precise setting in which supernatural events are realistically grounded. Her polished style and subtly achieved atmosphere effects recall the works of M. R. James and the Brontes; her special effects are psychological, driven by landscape, deftly drawn interiors and characters, rather than spectacle. In a time when the grotesque and the bizarre comprise plot and character in so much of contemporary literature, Harriet's sexy Count who dresses up as a wild boar, supplies her with mushrooms, porcupines and a carnelian ring is a refreshing change.

"He raised the lantern to a niche, hollowed in the wall, where the remains of a fresco were barely visible, half-eaten by the moss, but I could clearly discern the outline of a ship. I knew what it was: the ship of death. I had seen the small model of one in his study, "La nave della morte," I murmured, pointing to the image. The Count nodded. "Each one of us much prepare his ship," he said, "and load it up with wine and grain and oil, for the long journey home."
Now he shone the light towards the back wall of the tomb where an even larger doorway stood. Approaching it, I saw that it was not a real door at all, but merely an image sculpted in the wall. I asked f the builder had meant to add another chamber.

"No," he said. "That is the door of the soul through which the dead exited our world and sailed beyond time. Sometimes you find such doors carved in the rock, other times only painted."
I reached out to run my hand across the chill stone surface. The tomb wall was beaded with cold drops of moisture, and my hand left a greasy streak upon the stone. "What did they envision on the other side? I asked.

The Count set the lantern down at the base of the carved doorway. The flame flared high and our shadows danced, huge, then merged on the tomb wall. He took a step toward me and intoned in a low voice, "Beyond that door lies an unknown world, where men and women…" here he paused like a skilful actor for dramatic effect. His face glowed orange in the lamplight, "…where even you and I…can become immortal, if we choose." (pg. 98)

With the astonishing success of Da Vinci Code, it is clear that the supernatural in a context of religion, art and history, is of immense interest to many readers. Both novels begin with an art work held in museums (the Louvre and British Museum), but there the similarities end. Lappin's artfully written novel inhabits a supernatural landscape, but alludes subtly to hints of Etruscan culture, rather than appropriating New Age fabricated pseudo-legend. Character rather than spectacle drives this first novel, and Lappin's gift for atmosphere places her amongst the finest writers of gothic art, not genre.