In Search of Mary: The Mother of All Journeys
In Search of Mary is one of the most interesting books I’ve read all year. Journalist Bee Rowlatt follows 18th-century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft’s epic 1796 journey (plus baby daughter) first to Norway; then retraces Mary’s earlier visit to Revolutionary Paris; and lastly travels to America, home of Mary’s faithless lover, Gilbert Imlay – a place Mary never herself went. Bee (with her own baby son) follows in Mary’s footsteps. She wants to find out what drove Mary on, what she thought about the places and people she visited, and to gain a deeper understanding of what Mary has to teach the 21st century about feminism.
From the jaunty cover to the unstuffy and punchy tone, it’s not initially clear whether In Search of Mary is fact or fiction. Mary’s lover and father of her child, the attractive but duplicitous Gilbert Imlay, is running a dodgy business exporting silver once owned by guillotined aristocrats and selling it in Norway in order to buy what? Weapons? Corn? And for who, exactly? Gilbert has packed Mary plus baby off to Norway to track down Peder Ellefsen, the last man known to have handled the silver… You can see why it sounds like fiction. In fact, it is all true.
Bee, however, has her own emotional journey to make; her hippy father left when she was a child – just like that rat Gilbert – and Bee must face up to her own unfinished business. This is about two extraordinary women, living two centuries apart, each struggling to understand her place in the world. It’s about rites of passage; the choices we make; recognizing possibilities and taking action; and, perhaps above all, about changing perceptions.
The book is unputdownable and any thoughtful teenager, thirsty for adventure – with a touch of humour – will love it. Highly recommended.
