Merivel

March 4, 2013
Set in 1683, 15 years after the end of Tremain’s Restoration, this sequel finds sometime doctor, sometime court jester Robert Merivel restless despite his comfortable county estate in England. Merivel travels to Versailles looking for joie de vivre, encountering instead a cliquish court, shabby accommodations, and an ill-treated pet bear. Merivel sends the bear back to England before returning himself to attend to his ailing daughter, Margaret. Though she recovers—and the prospect of a new romance, with a gay Swiss Guard’s beautiful, neglected wife, Louise de Flamanville, arises in the meantime— Merivel remains weary, disappointed, and haunted by memories, his malaise mirroring that of King Charles II, whose reign is ending with England beset by poverty and unrest. As before, Tremain contrasts beauty and coarseness, melancholy and slapstick, tenderness and pageantry. Wonderfully rich scenes light up the meandering narrative: the King’s mistress in retreat; the bear on the loose; Merivel walking the royal dogs. If something seems lacking, that may only be in comparison with the first novel’s unflagging inventiveness and its film adaptation’s unrestrained opulence, and from Tremain’s focus on the Restoration’s sadder, waning days, with both Merivel and Charles realizing how short of their former promise their lives have fallen. Agent: Bill Clegg, William Morris Endeavor.

February 15, 2013

Master of a fine estate; father of a beautiful, intelligent daughter; favorite of the king; a rich eventful life behind him, Sir Robert Merivel should be happy, but the rollicking hero of Restoration (the basis for a film starring Robert Downey Jr.) finds himself restless and pining for something more. His daughter suggests he seek wholeness by discovering his Life's Work, a seemingly glorious quest, and what more glorious place to seek it than the newly built Versailles, court of the world's wealthiest, most powerful monarch? Hanging around with other supplicants, Merivel despairs of being noticed until he catches the attention of a beautiful, brilliant botanist who convinces him to pursue his quest at her father's castle in Switzerland. Unfortunately, a summons from King Charles arrives, and Merivel is off again to wait on his adored monarch, only to find his estate neglected, devoted servant dead, daughter engaged, and the king deathly ill--confronting him once again with the philosophical conundrums that sent him off in the first place. VERDICT Tremain's latest will appeal to sophisticated readers of historical fiction who appreciate a richly painted setting enlivened by an intriguingly empathetic portrait of Charles II and an all-too-human hero--passionate, paradoxical, self-destructive, and infinitely sympathetic. [See Prepub Alert, 10/22/12.]--Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA

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