The
protagonist of Tracy Chivalier’s 2012 novel, The Last Runaway, is a
twenty year old Quaker woman named Honor Bright.
The name of
the protagonist and her Quaker background are clues as to the course of the
heroine’s life in the novel. Whether Honor Bright is bright can be a matter of
opinion; what cannot be doubted are her honourable intentions. The woman is more upright than Gandhi and more honourable Mother Teresa.
Jilted by
her Quaker fiancé in England who decides to abandon not just Honor but his
faith in order to marry a non-Quaker woman he has fallen in love with, Honor
decides to leave the bad memories and the Quaker community of Bridport, Dorest behind,
and travels with her more enterprising sister, Grace, who is set to go to Ohio,
America to join her Quaker betrothed, an ex-neighbour of the Bright family.
Upon reaching America Grace swiftly (and conveniently) pops her clogs and Adam
Cox, the man who is set to marry Grace (and does not know of Grace’s
death) ,is faced with Grace’s younger sister, who, he doesn’t know, has
travelled with Grace to America. After spending a few awkward weeks in the Cox household—Abigail, Grace’s would be sister-in-law, recently widowed herself,
and, as subsequent developments show, having marked Adam as a possible replacement
for his dead brother, does not take kindly to the uninvited guest, possibly
marking her as a rival—Honor, not keen at all on returning to England, although
in her letters to her friend back in Bridport she moans endlessly about the
brash Americans who lack subtlety, because of her horror of sea-sickness (!),
marries into another Quaker family in the community, after making love with her
would be husband, Jack Haymaker, in a cornfield (a very un-Quakerish behaviour,
if you ask me, although I am no expert on the mores of the nineteenth century
Quakers). Honor starts her new life with the Haymakers, with her husband, Jack; mother-in-law, Judith; and Jack's unmarried sister, Dorcas. At this stage Honor
is faced with a moral dilemma that threatens to break her marriage (and which
gives the novel its title). Soon after she reaches Ohio Honor becomes aware of
the so called Underground Railroad, a network of liberal minded Americans who
provide shelter and food to slaves who are escaping from South, towards freedom in
Canada. Indeed soon after her arrival in America, while awaiting Adam Cox to fetch her, Honor spends a few days with a feisty alcoholic (no cause and effect relationship, here) named Belle Mills,
who is heavily involved in the Underground Railroad. Her half-brother, Donavon,
on the other hand, is an egg that is bad (and not even trying to be good). Donovan is a
slave-catcher, and has the law on his side. Herein lies Honor’s
moral dilemma. As a Quaker she is vehemently against slavery and wants to
do what she can to help the escaping slaves who are passing through Ohio; at
the same time, as a Quaker, she is also expected to obey the law. Her in-laws are
in no doubt as to what course of action the family should follow: obey the law
and steer clear of the runaway slaves. The slaves have obviously enough wits about
them that brought them all the way from the South to Ohio; and the same wits
would see them make their way to freedom in Canada. And if they get caught,
well, it’s too bad, but what can anyone do about it? Honor Bright begs to differ. She wants to hide the slaves
from Donavon, and give them water and such comestible as can be gathered. (Donavon
seems to be the only slave-catcher in the area who, for reasons best known to him, has taken into his head that stalking the Quaker community, in particular the Haymakers, would greatly enhance his chances of catching slaves.) The
situation in the Haymaker family is fast reaching what the hostage negotiators
describe as impasse. Honor Bright refuses to back down, and, even though Jack has
managed to put her bun in the oven, decides to leave the marital home to stay with
Belle Mills. Belle is not best pleased with this development, not because she does not wish to share her alcoholic beverage (although that could be a reason; the recidivist alcoholics have been known to be notoriously selfish in these matters), but because she is worried that Honor's presence in her house might put her secret activities linked to Underground Railroad in jeopardy. And she is right. Donovan the rapscallion begins visiting his half-sister's house with worrying
frequency, giving signals that are hard to miss (and ignore) that while he suspects
Honor of harbouring sympathy for the runaway slaves he also finds the pregnant
Quaker woman a trouser-stirrer. The end, when it finally comes, is as
predictable as it is formulaic. It all ends well for Honor, you will be pleased to know. Donovan meets his comeuppance; and the person who sends him packing to his meeting with his Maker is Belle, who can't be prosecuted for murder as she herself is dying having drunk her way to liver cirrhosis.
Tracy
Chivalier, an American novelist who lives in England (and probably has a Quaker
background), has built for herself a formidable reputation as a novelist of
historical fiction. In The Last Runaway she attempts to combine historical
narrative with romance. The result is a strangely unconvincing and anaemic novel.
Chivalier, as the afterwards of the novel informs, has undertaken a lot of
historical research for this novel. (The Underground Railroad system, for
example, was an actual system run by the whites that helped slaves on the run
from their masters.) To Chivalier’s credit, for the most part, she does not
allow the painstaking research to sit heavily on the novel, and avoids the
temptation of showing off. The first half of the novel is full of what can be
described period details aimed at conveying the minutiae of the daily life of the nineteenth
century Quakers. The readers can be excused for feeling a tad weary after being
subjected to a detailed account, that runs into pages, of how quilts are sown, accompanied by a scholarly discourse on the relative merits of the American and English
styles (the English type is more intricate and requires more skills, in case you
want to know).
The problem
with the novel is that the plot does not really go anywhere. There is no drama.
It is almost as if Chivalier is too much in awe of the central character. Honor
Bright has the conviction of her beliefs that one can expect in the self-righteous.
The moral uppitines, combined with the fact that Honor, in reality, is doing
not a great deal to ease the afflictions of the runaway slaves (leaving water
and dried meat outside of the house must have been of help, but it would
stretch the limits of credulity to think that the slaves, who have managed to
travel several hundred kilometres, would have been unable to survive without the
meagre food rations; and did they really need the Haymakers when the there
seems to be only a solitary slave-catcher in the region, Donavon, whose
attentions and energies are divided between getting drunk and casting lustful
glances at Honor’s loins?) makes Honor Bright, for the most part, more irritating than a kidney stone. The latent sexual attraction between Honor and
Donavon remains just that; this strand of the novel remains frustratingly underdeveloped. The main the characters are either two-dimensional or cartoonishly implausible or both.
