{"id":61956,"date":"2021-10-27T19:26:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T19:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=61956"},"modified":"2021-10-27T19:26:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T19:26:16","slug":"a-new-novel-gives-wings-and-a-megaphone-to-a-complex-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=61956","title":{"rendered":"A New Novel Gives Wings \u2014 and a Megaphone \u2014 to a Complex Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New Novel Gives Wings \u2014 and a Megaphone \u2014 to a Complex Woman<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2021-07-08<\/p>\n

Carole V. Bell<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nSteffi Walthall<\/small><\/a><\/p>\n

ISLAND QUEEN<\/strong><\/a>
\nBy Vanessa Riley<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vanessa Riley<\/a> was intrigued when she encountered the figure of Miss Lambe in Jane Austen\u2019s<\/a> unfinished final novel, \u201cSanditon<\/a>.\u201d Given the dearth of people of color in 18th- and 19th-century British literature, she wanted to know where the wealthy colored debutante had come from. Was she a product of a progressive authorial imagination? Or had real-life Miss Lambes merely been excised from popular culture and public memory?<\/p>\n

The quest to \u201cfind Miss Lambe\u201d turned into a long and meaningful one for the author \u2014 a 10-year journey, which revealed that Austen\u2019s aims may have been progressive but they weren\u2019t born of fantasy. As Riley wrote, \u201cFinding Dorothy Kirwan Thomas<\/a>, the women of the Entertainment Society, and so many other Black women who had agency and access to all levels of power has restored my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riley\u2019s commitment to restoring these unsung women to their rightful place in the popular imagination was a driving force behind her riveting and transformative new novel. Yet her chosen subject bears little resemblance to a pampered heiress like Miss Lambe; the contours of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas\u2019s life have a much harsher bent. Called \u201cDoll\u201d or \u201cDolly\u201d when she was young, Dorothy was born to an Irish planter and an enslaved woman in 1756 on the island of Montserrat<\/a>. In her 90 years, she endured bondage, assault and abuse, secured her own freedom against incredible odds, accumulated great wealth and considerable influence, and became the founding matriarch of a prosperous Caribbean<\/a> clan…<\/p>\n

Read the entire book review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quest to \u201cfind Miss Lambe\u201d turned into a long and meaningful one for the author \u2014 a 10-year journey, which revealed that Austen\u2019s aims may have been progressive but they weren\u2019t born of fantasy. As Riley wrote, \u201cFinding Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, the women of the Entertainment Society, and so many other Black women who had agency and access to all levels of power has restored my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,5,21,459,8,6940,25],"tags":[32192,32166,32164,32165,32163,22477,32168],"class_list":["post-61956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-book-reviews","category-latincarib","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-women","tag-carole-v-bell","tag-doll-thomas","tag-dolly-kirwan","tag-dolly-thomas","tag-dorothy-kirwan-thomas","tag-montserrat","tag-vanessa-riley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61957,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61956\/revisions\/61957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}