The Last Brontë
No lover of English literature needs an introduction to the Brontë Parsonage and its remarkable inhabitants, which can be both a blessing and a hazard to the writer who makes them a subject of historical fiction. Here, Stephen Whitehead, a former employee of the parsonage museum who has published nonfiction about the Brontës, takes a fresh approach to his subject by choosing Arthur Bell Nicholls, the curate who eventually became Charlotte Brontë’s husband, as his narrator. There is a twist, however, that is revealed to us at the beginning of the novel: in this telling, Anne, not Charlotte, is Arthur’s first love.
While my first instinct upon reading this revelation was to clutch my imaginary pearls, my worries were for naught, as Whitehead keeps within the bounds of plausibility. All of the parsonage inmates, human and otherwise, are well rendered, and the dialogue is sharp. Arthur himself is sympathetically drawn. As this is his story as well, we are not confined to the parsonage and its familiar faces, but get to meet his own relatives and friends. I finished the novel wanting to have more of his story—and to read more of Whitehead’s work.
