I’m delighted to host today’s stop on the blog tour for The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway. I have an extract from the book to share with you as well as my review.
Plus…I’m thrilled to give two lucky people the chance to have their own copy of The Floating Theatre to read and enjoy. Click on the link below to enter the giveaway (open to UK, ROI and Europe only). The giveaway closes on 24th August 2017.
About the Book
In a nation divided by prejudice, everyone must take a side. When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the shore of the Ohio, she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the river. Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles in to life among the colourful troupe of actors. She finds friends, and possibly the promise of more… But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the ‘free’ North is fraught with danger. For the sake of a debt that must be repaid, May is compelled to transport secret passengers, under cover of darkness, across the river and on, along the underground railroad. But as May’s secrets become harder to keep, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her. And to save the lives of others, she must risk her own…
| Format: | Hardcover | Publisher: | Bonnier Zaffre | Pages: | 352 |
| Publication: | 15th June 2017 | Genre: | Historical Fiction |
Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Barnes & Noble ǀ IndieBound
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme
Find The Floating Theatre on Goodreads
Extract from The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway
After my father died and my mother sold our dairy farm, there were not many occasions for me to go outside at night. Certainly not in New York with Comfort, or in Boston or Baltimore either. Sometimes, though, as a girl, if my father had to see to one of the cows or check on a batch of cheese, I would go with him to the barn in the moonlight. Night time, or I suppose I should say the dark outside, never frightened me. As a child I had the strange fancy that darkness was more honest than daylight, that the shrubs and trees and the creatures that lived among them were more themselves at night, and the ashy shade of the grass was in fact its true colour rather than the bright hue it took on during the day. Even the darkened river bellowing along below our house assumed its rightful character as it hurried past our farm. Perhaps at night I felt more like a spectator, and I suppose that was for me a comfortable role. I remember the smell of nicodemus flowers, which bloom after sunset, following my father and me as we walked to the barn.
Stepping into Leo’s rowboat that night and waiting while it stopped swaying from my movement, I was keenly aware of the deep colour that descends after the sun goes down, and of all the night noises: the cicadas, the soft gulps of wind, the creaking of the trees. I was glad for the noise, since it masked the sound of my oars pushing the boat away from the dock and the soft plash of the water as I rowed. Leo was right, the boat pulled a little to the right. The water around me shimmered like sealskin: a dark smooth expanse that once in a while caught the moonlight and then quickly absorbed it. At midnight I was supposed to be halfway across the river, where I would make my signal and then get a signal in return. That was all the instruction I got from the woman with the pink handkerchief—no letter with points A, B, and C.
I had to row backwards, of course. For a long time I could still see the squat chimneys of the Floating Theatre that ran up every two staterooms—my room shared its chimney with Hugo’s—each like a little neck topped by a Chinaman’s hat but no face. They seemed to be waiting for something. I pulled the oars back and then back again making a neat swoosh in the water like scissors cutting through fabric, and when I guessed that I was just about in the middle of the river I turned the boat around so that I was facing Kentucky and I took out my father’s watch.
The warm air settled palpably on my shoulders like a short felt cape while I waited for the last few minutes to pass. When it was exactly midnight, I got the gasoline lantern I’d brought along out from under the thwart and lit it. Then I counted to sixty and doused it.
My Review
I was drawn to this book by the description and, I have to admit, the gorgeous cover. I thoroughly enjoyed the story of May and the colourful characters of the Floating Theatre as they travel down river stopping at small towns to give performances to the local people. May’s involvement with the ‘underground railway’ forms an interesting subplot which introduces tension and a sense of jeopardy.
In May, the author has created a complicated character: rather naive, uncomfortable in social situations and someone who takes everything very literally. This helps to explain why May responds as she does to certain events in the narrative. Because of her tendency to interpret things literally, May initially struggles to understand the concept of a theatrical performance where the objective is to seem ‘real’ when it is actually artificial. You can’t help giving a little silent cheer when she finally learns to suspend her disbelief and become immersed in what she is seeing on the stage in the way Hugo, the theatre owner, hoped she would.
‘But then, rather quickly if the actors are any good, something happens and somehow you drop into the fiction of the Italian countryside, and there you are. You forget all about the people around you because the only people that exist are the actors on stage, and the only world is the world they are playing out for you. You’ve lost yourself in the fiction.’
I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Bonnier Zaffre, in return for an honest review. [The book is published under the title The Underground River in the US.]
In three words: Enjoyable, dramatic, engaging
Try something similar…The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier
About the Author
Martha Conway is the author of Thieving Forest, Sugarland, and 12 Bliss Street, which was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. She’s received several awards for historical fiction, including the North American Book Award. Her short fiction has been published in the Iowa Review, the Carolina Quarterly, The Quarterly, Folio, and other journals. Martha teaches creative writing for Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program and UC Berkeley Extension. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Martha is one of seven sisters. She currently lives in San Francisco.
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