Book Review: The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
Debut Novel Captures the Mystery of Past and Present Day Salem
Towner Whitney tells us that she is a crazy liar. So begins Brunonia Barry’s debut novel, The Lace Reader. Towner, known to family members as Sophya, returns home to modern-day Salem from California after learning that her aunt Eva is missing. Towner had left Salem many years earlier, after the death of her twin sister, Lyndley. She has not seen her estranged mother, May, or any other of the quirky cast of characters that make up her lace-reading family for many years. What follows is an enchanting tale of supposed witches, small-town life, and the mystery that surrounds them both. Eva, Towner, and other members of the Whitney family have been lace readers for generations, able to look into a piece of lace and see the future. Eva, in fact, has supplemented her income as a tearoom hostess and etiquette teacher, by performing lace readings for those seeking a peek into what their future lives may hold.
Using the backdrop of bewitching Salem, Barry weaves a story as intricately woven as Ipswich lace itself. Salem, a town that utilizes its dark history to capitalize on tourism, becomes yet another character in the saga of the Whitneys. Barry, who currently lives in Salem, fills her story with references to Salem Willows, the statue of Roger Conant, and the House of the Seven Gables. Dancing against the backdrop of this modern-day town is the Whitney family, assumed because of their lace reading ability to be coven members with abilities in black magic. Hearkening back to Salem’s witch history, the Whitneys are a representation of not only something spectacular and sinister, but something secretive.
Barry fills her story with mystical characters, all the while carrying readers along quickly through Towner’s journey as she struggles to reconnect with the family from which she came and exorcise the demons of her own inner world. The author is talented at switching between Towner’s past and present, tempting readers with a taste of the solution to the Whitney mystery as she introduces Towner’s damaged Auntie Emma, manipulative Uncle Cal, and her mother May, who lives on Yellow Dog Island and hosts a group of reclusive women called the Circle.
With an excellent mastery of language and structure, Barry will delight readers with her allegorical fiction that wraps itself around the conscience and gives a glimpse into the lasting legacy of a mysterious and dark town whose history follows it into the modern day.
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