review
“Roses” is the title of a bulky novel by the American writer Leila Meacham. Roses is a family history of dreams, power and forbidden love. A compelling novel that is compared to Gone with the Wind. In the novel Roses, the heroine Mary Toliver can be compared to Scarlett O’Hara from Gone by the Wind.
Leila Meacham
The American Leila Meacham retired early. After that she and her husband made the necessary trips. But there came a time when the then 65-year-old Leila Meacham wondered what she would do with the rest of her life. Partly at the insistence of her husband, Leila took out the box with notes that belonged to the cradle of the novel. Roses was standing. She threw herself into writing her first novel, which became a success in America and was published in Dutch translation by De Kern in 2010. She worked on this book for five years. I read on BookPage that she has now started the next epic work, albeit in a somewhat more modern setting.
Gone with the wind
“Gone with the wind” for the 21st century reads as a recommendation on the cover of the novel “Roses”. Gone with the wind is the title of a world-famous film, based on Margaret Mitchell’s book of the same name, which was published in 1936. Gone with the wind is a family history, set during the American Civil War, which began in 1861. The cotton plantation Tara in the state of Georgia is central.
Roses
The novel Roses by Leila Meacham is also a family epic that spans three generations against the backdrop of the sweltering South of the United States. The story is broadly set between 1916 and 1985. This family history revolves around the Somerset cotton plantation in Texas and the entanglements between the members of the three most powerful families in the town of Howbutker: the Tolivers, the Warwicks and the Dumonts. The figures in the book are the descendants of the families who settled in Howbutker in the first half of the 19th century. The title Roses refers to the family practice of asking for forgiveness with a red rose and giving forgiveness with a white rose.
The protagonist is Mary Toliver, who – after the death of her father and to the dismay of her brother and mother – inherits the cotton plantation. Mary is a Toliver through and through and she is committed to continuing the family business. Percy Warwick is her great love, but she does not want to give up the cotton plantation for him. This leads to a lot of trouble. Just when both realize that their love is more important after all, a twist of fate drives them apart forever. Mary marries Ollie Dumont and Percy marries a friend of Mary’s. Tragic things happen in the lives of both couples.
At the end of her life, Mary changes her will. Her great-niece Rachel is no longer the heiress of the family business. The reason for this is her fear that history will repeat itself: the curse of the Tolivers should not strike Rachel. That way, she hopes that the love between Rachel and Percy’s grandson, Matt, can materialize.
In a nutshell, that is the story that is spun out in over 600 pages. The book consists of three parts, in which successively the story of Mary, the story of Percy and the story of Rachel are discussed.
Refined chicklit?
A family history is, of course, always a rewarding topic to write about. You can put as much romance and tragedy into it as you want. You do research to give local color to place and time. You can deepen the characters of the people on the scene. You can increase the tension. And that’s in the book Roses all worked out fine. The thick book has become a nice reading bone. Nevertheless, the form and style of this novel nowhere give cause to rise above the predicate “Reading” and to go down in history as a literary work. The language sometimes makes me wonder if I am dealing with a kind of glorified chicklit here. But despite this – or perhaps because of it – the book was in the Top 10 of the New York Times Best Seller List in the US for weeks. More than 100,000 copies have been sold in the US.