‘The Lost Souls of Angelkov’ by Linda Holeman

Reviewed by Hubert O’Hearn

Being an endlessly curious sort, I wanted to see what Linda Holeman was all about.After all, the Winnipeg-born author has had thirteen books published, for the most part in the historical fiction genre.

Oh dear. I just used the word ‘genre’ didn’t I? That’s a naughty word and I am a naughty, naughty man for using it. For my crime, I should be sent to work in the fields where my sinewy, sun-tanned and sweaty muscles would attract the fervent desires of the young serf girl were she not already enamoured of the Countess and …

You see what happens when you read a Harlequin on steroids? You turn into a Harlequin writer in need of steroids, pain-killers and whatever is lurking in the liquor cabinet. The only difference between The Lost Souls of Angelkov and that $4.99 paperback with Mister Swarthy on the cover is eighteen dollars and three hundred pages. You be the judge as to which is a better value.

I suppose I need to start apologizing for what I can tell will be a merciless shredding that will result in outraged commentary by Holeman fans. In all truth (and I have the reviews archived to back it up) I like historical fiction. Eva Stachiak’s The Winter Palace, also set in Russia as is The Lost Souls on Angelkov, was a beautifully-written account of aristocratic life that actually taught me a fair bit about the period of Catherine the Great. I was about to also note that Roberta Rich’s 2011 novel The Midwife of Venice was another historical novel I vastly enjoyed and have quoted from on various occasions, until I was nearly knocked off my seat when I noticed that Rich extols the virtue of Holeman’s novel on its back cover. Rich says:

As enchanting as a Tchaikovsky ballet, as heady as vodka, The Lost Souls of Angelkov opens with a mesmerizing scene – the only child of a Russian count is kidnapped. Why has the child been seized? Why is the Countess unsteady on her feet? Will the boy be killed before they can rescue him? This novel is as intriguing as a Russian nesting doll…

And about as life-like as a Russian nesting doll. Anyway, my thanks to Roberta Rich for sparing me the task of supplying plot description. It is 1861, the Tsar has emancipated the serfs, the aristocracy is starting to crumble and away we go.

I’ll give Holeman this: she knows her audience and knows how to service their needs. In fact, they are quite directly addressed in this passage, a conversation between the Countess Antonina and the former serf Lilya who loves her:

“As you wish, Tosya,” Lily answered, going back to her sewing. “I would be happy to learn to read if you wish me to, although in my life I have never seen the need for it.”

“You should read, Lilya,” Antonina said matter-of-factly, gesturing at a pile of books on her table.

Lilya glanced up from the baby’s gown again. “My life leaves no time for such things.”

“Then I will give you more time. I’ll have one of the other women take over some of the things you do for me, like that – the sewing – and then you could have time to read. You can find out so many things in the world when you read.”

Oh really? As Jack Paar once said when informed that his predecessor as host of The Tonight Show, Steve Allen, claimed to have written over one thousand songs, ‘Name three.’

I suppose I can find three things one might learn from The Lost Pages – er, Souls of Angelkov, which I shall share for those who dozed off during Grade 11 History. Serfs did not much like being serfs. Medicine was a hit-and-miss proposition in the 19^th century. Oh, and fireworks weren’t much worth watching. What?

In a scene that tells you all you need to know about this novel, on New Year’s Eve the Count Konstantin Mitlovsky shares a drink with his major domo Grisha in the former’s study and they discuss the rumored freeing of the serfs by the Tsar:

Konstantin waved his hands in the air as though Grisha’s words were unimportant, as of he’d heard them too many times to take them seriously. “Don’t talk politics any further. You bore me. The Tsar is appointed by God. He will see sense. He will not carry out this ridiculous threat. Come now, it’s the New Year. We will drink to our health, and to the health of those we love.”

Grisha joined him, and the first boom of the estate’s fireworks sounded as he drank with his master.

Which makes me think – who the heck is watching the fireworks? Who gave the starting order? Granted, this is a niggling detail and I do not pretend otherwise. However, novels are hundreds of pages of niggling details and one had better get them right. One can see what Holeman was after: the ominous man-made thunder portending of the shape of things to come, etcetera and so forth, but in lathering on the atmospheric soap she loses reality in the bubbles.

Speaking of lather and soap, the hot lesbian desire between Antonina and Lilya gave birth to some of the grandest giggles a book has given me in a long time. Sex in general is presented by Holeman in as prurient a manner as one can imagine and a scene where Lilya buries her face in Antonina’s dresses in order to soak in m’lady’s scent makes one wonder what the laundress was up to; clearly not the laundry.

So where do we end this exercise in page-turning? I quote the book’s last line: “‘To hope,’ he repeats, picturing Antonina’s face, and he drinks.” And so say all of us.

Random House Canada | 560 pages |  $22.95 | paper | ISBN #978-0307361592