Matthew Pearl continues to mine the vein he struck six years ago with THE DANTE CLUB, and then THE POE SHADOW, with his latest literary/historical mystery, THE LAST DICKENS. And, as the title suggests, this go-round he takes on another Big Kahuna of English Literature, Charles Dickens, and his unfinished final novel, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. There is quite a lot to admire about this latest from Pearl, but not without its price.
The story takes place mostly in 1870, when word of the death of Charles Dickens reaches Boston and the offices of his American publisher, Fields & Osgood. Dickens previously completed and published the first six installments of his latest novel, and the world awaits the final chapters that promise to resolve the mystery of the book’s title character. James Osgood, the publishing firm’s young partner, sends trusted clerk Daniel Sands to the shipping docks to receive the pages as they arrive from England. But then Daniel is found dead, and the manuscript is missing.
Knowing that their business is at stake, the elder publishing partner sends Osgood to England to search for any information that might reveal how Dickens intended to complete his final novel. Accompanying Osgood is Rebecca Sands, Daniel’s sister, who has worked loyally as a bookkeeper for the American publishers. For her, any clues to the resolution of Dickens’ book might then explain why it cost her beloved younger brother’s life.
But when James and Rebecca arrive in England, they find Dickens’ estate and surviving family in sad disarray. The contents of the author’s house are being confiscated for sale at auctions to pay off years’ worth of unpaid debt. And, there is lingering bad blood between his various children, who lived in the shadow of their famous father for many years. Still, the executor of the Dickens estate reluctantly agrees to let James and Rebecca search the remaining belongings and papers for whatever information they might find.
Their search is aided by an assortment of quirky characters, all of whom claim to have not only known the novelist personally, but the intended ending of his unfinished book. And their hunt takes them from the English countryside into the dankest section of London, including the fog-shrouded opium dens that Dickens wrote about in DROOD.
Returning to Boston and fearing that they have failed in their quest, James and Rebecca suddenly take up the search again when they discover that a few of their newly acquired British friends have followed them to the American shores.
Pearl’s research into the period of the story is one of the impressive features of this work. Especially amusing are his depictions of the early, cutthroat days of such American publishing giants as Harper, Mifflin and other now well-known names. But Pearl also takes great pains to reproduce the speech patterns of the time, resulting in some often painfully long and slow dialogue passages. At times, it seems to take an entire paragraph to state something as simple as, “I’m well, thank you.”
The structure, too, is a challenge. While following James and Rebecca, Pearl also follows the theft of an opium shipment in Bengal, India, investigated by one of Dickens’ far-flung sons. At first, these chapters appear to have little to do with the main narrative, especially in the disorienting opening chapters. Only much later do we learn how these events influence the rest of the story.
Then there are flashbacks to Dickens’ final American reading tour in 1867. And here, too, the events are highly entertaining, but seem oddly disconnected. Dickens was truly the rock star of his day — complete with his own touring idiosyncrasies and demands, and the fans who line up for hours waiting to purchase tickets. But again, we wait a long time before knowing how all this relates to Osgood and DROOD.
Finally, Pearl indulges in some Dickens channeling of his own with many long-winded and seemingly endless backstory expositions and explanations leading finally to the novel’s climax. It might be a bit hard to follow at nearly 400 pages, but Pearl manages to tie everything together in a mostly believable and satisfying ending.
THE LAST DICKENS is recommended most obviously to fans of historical mysteries, and those who somehow survived their undergraduate literature classes and still read Dickens for fun. —Alan Cranis
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting that this should show up so soon after Dan Simmons’ very similar Drood. How do the books compare?
well…”The Club Dumas” by Arturo Pérez-Reverte preceded any of this guy’s work by almost 10 years, & Pearl’s first work (“Dante Club”) came out 4 years after “The Ninth Gate” based on above novel hit theaters…but hey…if you follow things all the way back, most books or titles or movies or songs are all, at least thematically, ripped off of someone else’s work…Not that this is ripped off…Just a general observation.
I know about, but haven’t read, the Simmons book. But I very much enjoyed the Perez-Reverte novel concerning Dumas. There are probably lots of authors who do or have done the kind of stories Pearl does.
It’s hard, damn near impossible, to be completely original after almost 2000 years of some form or another of printed word…
I read and reviewed both Drood and The Last Dickens and the main difference is that Drood goes into some weird supernatural stuff and it takes Dickens and Wilkie Collins as characters but not in a historically accurate way.
The Last Dickens takes actual historical facts and builds a story into them that is fanciful but in no way impossible. Drood was just ridiculously impossible and strange and I believe libelous.