There's a long literary tradition - back past Jane Austen through to popular contemporary writers like Alice Hoffman and Anita Shreve - of ending books featuring female protagonists with the marriage of the main character, or perhaps the birth of her first baby. Implied in this paradigm is an equally old assumption: a husband and children are all women need to live happily ever after.
Recently, writers have started challenging this assumption, resulting in an increasing number of novels - including Little Children, by Tom Perrotta; I Don't Know How She Does It, by Allison Pearson; and Jump At The Sun, by Kim McLarin - that begin with their female protagonists already established as wives and mothers, and wondering if the domestic life is really all its cracked up to be. Rachel Pastan's new novel, Lady Of The Snakes, locates itself nicely in this trend. It traces the journey of Jane Levitsky, a Slavics professor struggling to balance her passion for her research with her obligations to her husband, Billy, and their young daughter, Maisie.
Lady Of The Snakes is also a mystery, as Jane searches through the historical record in her quest to discover whether the wife of a famous Russian writer died in childbirth - the official story - or committed suicide, as Jane suspects. And - like A.S. Byatt did so famously in Possession - Pastan convincingly represents the voices of several different 19th century Russians by excerpting their letters and manuscripts, imparting fascinating glimpses into the culture of the period.
The mystery in Lady Of The Snakes - like so many other mysteries - relies on some improbable coincidences to propel it towards what is ultimately a surprising and satisfying finish. Still, Pastan is at her best while lyrically describing Jane's profound ambivalence towards both the family that keeps her away from her work, and the work that keeps her away from her family: as Jane discovers when Maisie is just a newborn, "Nothing was sweeter than holding her daughter, except for all the times she longed to put her down." I don't know one mother, myself included, who hasn't felt the same way. Which is exactly why Lady Of The Snakes would be a provocative book group selection, because it asks the questions we all struggle with every day: what choices do we really have, and more importantly, what sacrifices go along with the choices we make?
