Book Review: Plain Bad Heroines By Emily M. Danforth

Plain Bad Heroines 

By Emily M. Danforth

Finished reading: 24/01/21

My rating: 3/5 stars

Eerie, historical, feminist.

“That version, as with so many of the stories we tell about our history, erased a woman- a plain, bad heroine- in favor of a less messy and more palatable yarn about two feuding brothers from New England.”

Plain Bad Heroines explores the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and rebellious female spirit. The novel follows two storylines. One is set in 1902 at The Brookhants School for Girls where numerous mysterious and troubling deaths take place on the property all linked to a scandalous and controversial memoir by Mary Maclane. The second storyline takes place in present day following three women as Hollywood begin filming “The Haunting of Brookhants” in the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants. The two stories become entangled by the history and curse that surrounds the grounds.

The premise of this book appealed to me on so many levels that I immediately pre-ordered a copy as soon as I discovered it. But I have to say, having read the novel, my feelings about it are extremely mixed. This is making it incredibly difficult to put into words how I truly feel about it! However, I am hoping writing these thoughts will help me to process these mixed feelings and come to some sort of conclusion as to where I stand with it.

Firstly, for me, the elephant in the room has to be the writing style. We are presented with a mysterious omniscient narrator who constantly takes pleasure in addressing the reader directly. It was such an unusual creative choice because, if anything, it seemed to pull away and disrupt the natural motion of the narrative as opposed to enhance it. Not only this, but we are catapulted with literally hundreds of footnotes. Sometimes these were useful and added context, however they really need not be footnotes as these would work perfectly well skilfully weaved into the prose. The other hundred footnotes or so really added nothing to the story other than the narrator’s occasional crude attempt at humour. I found it horribly distracting having to constantly flick up and down the page for no real reason. Additionally, we are randomly dropped with the occasional emoji, crossed out sentences and swear words which all seemed totally irrelevant and were not executed particularly artfully. I disliked the writing style from the very beginning of the novel and expected to settle into it after a hundred pages or so but sadly I did not. I found it very clunky and inconsistent throughout. It seemed to be an attempt at clever storytelling, but it honestly did the opposite for me. It would be hugely improved by just telling the story without all the unnecessary faff.

Secondly, I have very differing opinions about the two storylines. Interestingly, it was initially the present-day Hollywood story that made me want to read the book as the premise reminded me of Marisha Pessl’s Night Film (which I absolutely adored). I am not entirely sure why, but I’ve never been drawn to historical fiction and probably never would have shown interest in this book if it were purely historical. The present-day storyline started off promising, in my opinion. There was such an incredible amount of detail in the first half of this storyline, prior to even getting to Brookhants. This truly led me to believe that something epic was on the horizon. At no point in this early stage did I think the detail was unnecessary as I thought it added so many layers to the characters and the fictional film. However, once the characters got to Brookhants I thought the whole thing became a massive flop and lost all sense of momentum or purpose. I truly despised what it evolved into. It was not at all creepy or eery, it just felt cheap and totally lacked depth. Having finished the book, I cannot say this storyline actually added anything to the overall story. It completely lost focus on the setting, which seemed so crucial to the entire novel. The storyline spent way too much time on shallow details and did not even take time to reflect on Brookhants and its crucial purpose in the story. There were too many loose ends surrounding the mysterious incidents in this storyline that were left unanswered whilst it spent ample time on unlikely events and superstition. If I were rating this storyline alone, this book would be a one-star rating for me.

On the other hand, the historical storyline totally blew me away. It was complex and interesting with many layers of storytelling to it. This was so unexpected for me as I did not imagine that I would enjoy these parts. And yet, they quickly became the only part of the book that kept me turning the pages. I would have liked more time spent telling Clara and Flo’s story because this is mostly glossed over in the first chapter of the book and is not returned to in any greater detail in the remainder of the book. I also would have liked more of Ava’s story explored, perhaps as an epilogue. But having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed following Libbie and Alex’s story and how this was all pieced together by the end of the book. This story was eery and creepy in a way that the present-day storyline never succeeded in. I would not say it is in any way scary or horrifying, but it does edge on the side of disturbing at times. I liked the various motifs scattered throughout the chapters and how they added to the tone of the book. I think most of all though I adored its representation of queer women in the 18^th century. I think this is something that is often ignored in historical literature but also out-right denied by historians over the centuries. It was so nice to read a story set in the 1900s that almost exclusively follows queer women. This was done so thoughtfully and beautifully without over-sexualising or forcing sexuality to be the centre of the story. This historical storyline fully deserves a five-star rating, I just wish it had been the entire book and not half.

Which, thirdly, brings me to the length of the novel. This book adds up to a whopping total of 623 pages, but it really would have benefitted from being half the length. If I were tasked with rewriting this book, I would absolutely remove the present-day storyline. I think it would benefit so much from being entirely a historical plotline but with added detail to the subplots and no weird narration. For me personally, this would make such a greater piece of literature and storytelling with so much more depth. But even with the present-day storyline too, the book would have benefitted from much less unnecessary detail. At the beginning it seemed perhaps these details were relevant to the story and I was thoroughly impressed by the intricacy of the characters’ backstories. However, having now completed the book, these details added nothing to the purpose and successes of the plot. I am not sure if this is a result of poor editing or whether Danforth believed the detail important to the characters’ depth. Either way, I maintain that simplicity would have benefitted the message of this story.

Fourthly, in relation to this, I struggle to pick out a key message or theme amongst the haystack that is this novel. The overall story felt so messy that I think it took away from the essence and purpose that I imagine Danforth began with going into this project. I really like the quote referenced above as I think it holds a lot of meaning that ties elements of the plot together. However, I do not feel this stands out enough to leave a lasting impression. Which really is a shame as the premise had so much promise to be something great. I just think that perhaps the attempts to be clever just dimmed the heartbeat at the centre of the story.

Finally, I just want to quickly address the illustrations. I really liked the addition of the illustrations as they helped to break up what quickly became a tiring amount to prose! I would have liked to have seen a few more of them distributed throughout the text. I also think the illustration style could have matched the eeriness of the text a little more as they seemed slightly cartoonish at times. But I appreciated their addition to the story on the whole.

Overall, this ended up being a three-star book for me. The premise was intriguing, but the writing failed to execute this in my opinion. I still feel extremely conflicted purely because the two storylines gave me such opposite amounts of enjoyment. I think Danforth fully deserves praise for the historical elements, but present-day parts dampened the whole experience for me. I am still glad that I read this book and am interested to read Danforth’s other work in future (hopefully without the horrible narration that this book has!). This novel has also intrigued me to read more historical fiction as it has shown me that I have been a complete fool to overlook how enjoyable a novel set in the past can be!

If someone were to ask me whether they should read this book, I would say yes. However, I would advise skimming through the present-day chapters to maintain the pace of the historical story. Do not go into this book wanting a Hollywood sensation, go into it because you want to read a story about eery folklore and sapphic women.