This is a historian’s historical novel, in every sense of the word. Not surprisingly, is is written by a former academic; Kathleen Jones began her writing career as a political scientist and professor, before turning to literary fiction. Cities of Women is a seamless blend of these two domains of their experience, reflecting a deep respect for the scholarly pursuit of history while offering readers a deeply textured and emotional perspective of the past.
The novel toggles between the modern present and the medieval past, beginning with a tenure track historian’s search for her place in the academia. Verity Frazier then encounters, by chance, that rare glimpse of an undiscovered history. This is the sort of thing historians dream of when they enter archives; Jones portrayal Verity’s hope and desire is palpable — or perhaps that is just my historian’s heart set aflutter. Buried, like so many women of his age, is the presence of a female illuminator, Anastasia.
The unfolding of Verity’s archival adventure draws the reader into a world that is both exotic and familiar. Verity and Anastasia (like us all) live in a patriarchal world, one which fails to take women seriously, which gaslights us, and forces us to make undesirable choices. This is a feminist novel, bringing to the fore these age-old prejudices and the battles women must fight to be heard, seen, remembered.
Then novel also contains more than one beautiful and flawed sapphic romance, highlighting the containment and self-sustaining world of womanhood. This is the beauty of Cities of Women; it is an illumination of women, an honest portrait of women’s struggles and successes, a tale of oppression and empowerment as the two sides of our collective experience. Readers should know this realist capturing of the female experience may trigger; who among us cannot point to some evidence of trauma in our lives?
Indeed, Jones’ characters are as made of flesh as ourselves, so well does her characterization reflect the depth of her historical research and her skill as an author. We can feel Verity’s pain, the elasticity of Anastasia’s tenacity, Christine’s boldness and pride. We can also recognize the women around them, the friends who succumbed to the status quo, the colleagues who share in the frustration of being a woman in a man’s world, the lovers who boost us and tear us down.
The novel revolves around these women and their lives, and as such, being character-driven, moves at a languid pace, stretching the length of lives for some characters and capturing mere months of others. Time, in fact, is fluid in this novel, a kind of ephemeral backdrop; the lives Jones tells us about cut across time, flatten it. Women have then, as now, experienced much the same things.
Dialogue between the characters is seamless, perhaps too much so sometimes; I was left wondering if people really talk like this? But then, the world is wide and there are many in it, so perhaps they do. Or perhaps Jones is referencing the physic unity between women, so One-Of-Mind are we that our words may zipper so flawlessly together. Overall, however, Jones’ prose is splendid, mature, and expressive; it is smooth, flowing, and sensuous in many parts. Readers will find themselves cradled in gorgeous text throughout.
Dr JoAnn LoSavio 