ROUNDTABLE REVIEWS'
John Allen Page
iUniverse
ISBN: 0-595-20523-2
August 2004
Historical Adventure
Reviewed By Tara Rogan
Historical
fiction can often be a tricky genre.
Stories can be either fascinating and well written, or dry and
overdramatic; much of which is dependant on the historical matter the
tale is based upon. In THE
ISLANDER by John Allen, the author brings the account of the virtually
unknown Maximilienne Carpentier to life straight from the pages of her
diary; he weaves into a gripping, remarkable story of a woman’s
extraordinary life and adventures through her chronicled experiences.
THE
ISLANDER starts and ends in the eyes of Maximilienne; a girl raised on
an island with her parents in the heart of the ocean, and learns early
on the ways of nature, how to fend for herself, and how to overcome the
most difficult of challenges life can present.
Their only contact is with Claude Besson, an apparent “friend
of the family” who brings them supplies every few months on his
shipping route. As the
story unfolds, Maximilienne gradually discovers the true history of her
family, and that there are others against her who fully intend to take
everything away from her by any means necessary.
The
author does a beautiful job with his narrator; Allen not only shows
Maximilienne as a fascinating historical figure, but really brings her
to life by giving her a distinct personality, vivid emotions, and a
strong will for survival. The
story engrosses the reader in its pages; painting a magnificent picture
of this woman through her struggles, as well as the both tragic and
touching events that help shape her life.
THE ISLANDER introduces readers to an amazing historical figure
who had once been lost in the pages of history.
Now, thanks to Allen, Maximilienne’s story is brought to life
for all to experience and appreciate.
~~~
John Allen Interview
By Tara Rogan
Q. What got you
interested in writing historical fiction?
A. I like writing fiction in the first person, but have often found
myself getting too autobiographical. I thought that writing something
historical was one way of preventing that from happening, because it
would take me out of my time zone; changing the location to somewhere
unknown also helped, and writing as a woman (by far the most radical
change) completed the cure. Or so I thought.
Q. What major elements did you deem necessary when portraying this
female character?
A. As with all my books, I didn't have any idea where the story was
going when I typed the first paragraph, so I wasn't trying to produce
any major elements to start with. Maximilienne simply 'evolved' as I
wrote: I just let her take me wherever she wanted to, and the way she
developed is what you read in The Islander. All the essential elements
are there, of course - love, hate, betrayal, murder, passion, grief,
hope - but they all 'happened' as Max lived her life in each chapter,
and at times surprised me as much as herself, like when she was deceived
by her lover. I found her coming to grips with that really
painful, although she handled it quite well once she got over the shock.
Defensive killing was perhaps her worst moment, even worse than
miscarrying, but her common sense prevailed, and Emilie, her cousin,
spoke much encouragement into her heart.
Emilie was another pleasant surprise: she arrived on the island so
petulant and apparently spoilt, but as it turned out, her mother was the
really spoiled one. Victor, Emilie's brother, redeemed himself in the
end (another good element), but Maximilienne's last voyage produced a
depth of despair I'd have loved to skip over. Unfortunately, I couldn't.
That storm was waiting for her.
Q. You refer to many historical events throughout your book. How
important were these bits of information to the story's timeline?
A. Historical information in The Islander was important in order to make
Maximilienne's story genuine. In other words, I wanted to get the
reader past wondering whether the story was true or not, because that
would make them ask whether a man could write effectively as a woman.
As it happens, my
wife is French, and we were on the west coast of Denmark in the early
1990s, and did visit a museum or two, so it wasn't difficult to 'find' a
diary that we translated from the original French. Establishing a
definite date helped weave in real events (like the war in Crimea, for
instance, or the French art scene), and this type of thing worked well
in order to establish
Maximilienne's background and point of view. The eruption on Fogo in
1877 was something I found out afterwards, but it also helped.
What I wanted more than anything else was for the reader to believe Max
to be a real person, and the more I wrote, the more real she became to
me. I hope the reader feels the same.
Q. Did you have any major struggles during the writing process of The
Islander? If so, what were they?
A. The Islander was the most intense project I've ever undertaken: once
Max appeared on the page, she came alive to such a degree that I
felt she was living inside me (or perhaps me inside her). I was with her
when she swam through the tunnel, enjoyed wonderful times at the
waterfall; the way she loved her island; the way, in a sense, that she
was the island, the two were inseparable; all this was part of me as
well. I went to the island every time I began a new chapter, and left
it, and her, when I finished. I knew every pathway she walked along, the
turtle she rode and the sea that surrounded her. It's the sort of thing
you have to experience to believe.
The problem with this intensity of identification is that it can be very
tiring, especially when things go wrong, but it also makes the story
very easy to write. It was like an autobiography (the very thing I
started out wanting to avoid), just in a different time and place, and
as a woman. I usually write a chapter a day, so every morning I'd read
what happened to Max the day before, and pick up from there. She led me
along, making me happy, sad, and everything in between. It was the trip
of a lifetime, the ultimate high.
Q. What are your favorite literary works?
A. I love the Narnia series, plus anything else C.S.Lewis has written;
Lord of the Rings (the book); I feast on Robert Pirsig (Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; Lila), enjoy Arthur Conan Doyle, and then
there are all the usual favorites like John Grisham, Nelson de
Mille, Patricia Cornwell, etc, to keep me occupied in between. The Piano
Tuner (Daniel Mason), is a beautifully written first novel, and The
Bridges of Madison County, which I read before seeing the movie, made a
lasting impression. I also enjoy autobiographies (surprise).
Other than that,
research takes up a lot of reading time.
Q. Are you currently working on any new projects? What genres are you
focusing on?
A. After I finished The Islander, I thought I was finished with the
island as well, but the island wasn't finished with me. Emilie didn't
die in the shipwreck, you see, and she eventually became every bit as
volatile as Maximilienne. She finally re-appeared in Coming of Age, a
sequel to The Islander. Then I really believed I was done, but no, I
still wasn't finished, and so A Woman of Experience was born, revealing
greater depths of character than I felt ready for. That was quite a
challenge.
Since then I've been working on a revision of an earlier book, Growing
up White in Apartheid South Africa. It's quite popular, and it needed
updating, but that turned into a major rewrite. After that, I'll
probably have another look at something I wrote in between all the
others, but it's totally different to anything else I've done. We'll
see.
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