Book Review (without spoilers): Blindspot

I first heard about Blindspot while reading a review in the literary review magazine Bookmarks. The back story of how the novel came to be intrigued me: longtime friends and noted historians Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore began the book as a joke for a dear friend’s birthday. They intended to write a few sketches, passing them back and forth in between teaching gigs (at Harvard and Brandeis, no less) and other facets of daily life. The sketches turned into chapters, which turned into not just any novel, but a brilliant send-up of an 18th century novel. Their friend, also a noted historian, demanded these ladies finish the story and then publish it.

How could anyone resist? I supposed the subject matter could play a role in such a decision, so let me tell you: Blindspot is a historical novel set in Boston during the years just prior to the American Revolution. Now do you see why I loved it before I even read it? Boston! History! Revolutionaries! Viva la Revolution!

It got even better. The story followed portrait painter, Stuart Jamison, as he fled Scotland (and considerable debts) to forge a new life in colonial Boston, and Fannie Easton, a disgraced young woman who hides behind the identity of a young male apprenticed to Mr. Jamison. I defy you not to fall for these two characters, or to keep such colloquial language from entering your everyday speech while you’re reading the novel. I addressed my guy as “sir” for three days straight. It drove him nuts trying to figure out what I was up to; I am not the subservient type.

While the Reader is busy being ensorcelled by Jamie and his apprentice, the so-called young master Weston, the novel busies itself with other important topics, such as the growing unrest of the revolutionaries, the irony of said revolutionaries protesting their limited freedom under British rule whilst turning a blind eye towards the rights of their slaves and servants, the custom (and limitations) of social rank, the key mystery upon which the entire plot turns, and – much to my amusement – sex, smut, and pleasures of all sorts. I had expected the high brow moral debates and unfailing attention to historical detail, but I was not prepared for the graphic nature of some of the scenes. At one point I put the book down, fanned myself, and declared to my guy, “It’s smut! This book is smut! Historical, colonial, glorious smut!” So, dear Reader, beware – this is not a book you might want to read if you’re returning directly to the office…or if you blush easily.

Rest easy, it’s more than that. Blindspot is history, fiction, mystery, love story, 18th century sentimentalism, riotous spoof, and ribald humor all in one. At 500 pages – and with such a lot to live up to – I will admit the novel took a while to get going. It was delicious, but I would always complain at how little progress I was able to make during my lunch hour. But soon – by young Master Weston’s first painting lesson, I assure you – I was gobbling the novel almost faster than my eyes could allow. It was delightful. As the authors note:

As the plot thickened, we came to see more clearly that Blindspot’s love story is, above all, about learning when to lean on someone, and when to stand on your own two feet. About when to be a colony, and when to rebel.

In short, Blindspot was exactly what I needed to read right now.

Tags: book review, literature, reading