Misfortune, a Novel by Wesley Stace

Misfortune, a novel by Wesley Stace, is set in late 1700's and early 1800's England.  It is a story about a boy, found on a trash heap -- discarded by a frightened mother abandoned by the death of her husband -- and rescued by Lord Loveall and raised as a girl (until puberty and family ruin and corruption) in vain attempt to reincarnate the spirit of the young lord's deceased sister, killed after falling from a tree at the age of five.

I am not usually one to go in for novels dealing with gender identity and, in truth, references to classic Greek myth and literary tradition go straight over my head.  However, Stace brings to life a novel of incredible clarity; tasteful and daring in his language and the unfolding characters as they all fumble from deceit to revelation to metamorphosis to revenge and death.  He portrays so clearly the frustration of puberty magnified by the gender confusion, the sexuality of an adolescent boy conflicting with the reality of being raised a girl.

Stace's novel is clear and sprawling and he takes his time in letting the novel unfold without becoming self indulgent.  Until the end.  Sometimes the story requires the end a chapter earlier than the author allows and some time epilogues are a tedious waste of space and time.  If the ending does not infer what the author had in mind without further explanation the ending needs to be fixed, not added to.  But to be fair to Misfortune this is nit picking as the novel is well written, wholly engaging, and thought provoking.  The evocative nature of gender confusion aside, Misfortune is well worth the time.