The Secrets of Sainte Madeleine
Covering almost five decades, from 1923 to 1971, this is the story of three generations of Salignacs and their passionate love for the château and vineyard of Sainte Madeleine.
Charming but erratic alcoholic Louis loves Sainte Madeleine but alienates both his sons, soulful Didier and ambitious Alexandre who, rather than watch his family estate go to ruin, creates a new life for himself in California. But it is youngest child Elise who loves Sainte Madeleine the most obsessively, though she has no hope of inheriting it—until war and personal tragedies intervene. Elise sees a chance to get what she has always desired, but at a terrible cost to her family.
This is a rollercoaster of a novel, with numerous swooping ups and downs and twists and turns. It’s a brave choice to create a heroine as flawed as Elise, but Bagshawe succeeds in retaining a measure of sympathy for her, even when her behaviour is at its most obnoxious. Inevitably, since the book covers such a long time period and includes such a large cast—including the Salignacs’ cousins, the Senards, and a younger generation of both families—the novel can’t go too deeply into some of the issues it raises. For instance, we are never shown the trauma Alex and his cousin Laurent must have suffered after their wartime experiences. Court cases are skimmed over, as if the author isn’t too sure about the technical details herself, and there are hints that one minor character is autistic, but he never appears onstage, so it’s impossible to tell how his condition affects him and the people who love him.
But on the whole, this is an enjoyable soap opera of a novel, which evokes its settings vividly (especially in terms of scents and tastes).
