With brilliant literary sleight of hand, the author spools out a tale of mistaken identity that is both imaginative and poignant, skewering early 19th century London mores and the rigor of class. John Polidori, an inept physician whose patients die more often than not, contracts to travel as the personal physician of poet Lord Byron. Over the course of their year together, Byron meets with a group of literary friends to alleviate the boredom of the continent. One evening, the morning almost upon them, the friends agree to write horror stories on a lark; hence, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is born, stimulating the reading public's insatiable appetite for more such gothic tales.
Eventually, Polidori strains even the hedonistic Byron's patience and the two part ways, John retuning to London with little money and no prospects, his rooms barren and hardly livable. With some literary ambitions of his own, the physician writes a manuscript, "The Vampyre", which is published by Henry Colburn under the assumption that it is Byron's work. Arriving at Colburn's establishment to demand recompense and own the manuscript, the desperate Polidori is mistaken for Byron by an impressionable, bookish young woman, Eliza Esmond. Unwilling to forego Eliza's misplaced recognition and starving for attention, Polidori indulges in the charade, at least temporarily. Begun with promise and intention deception, the result of the ill-fated romance is ultimately tragic.
In revelatory prose, Markovits exposes his character's souls, including the young physician's yearning for Byron's attention, perhaps even seduction, Polidori ruminating over the months spent with the poet, waxing equally nostalgic and resentful. John craves only a small bit of adulation, even through the eyes of a woman who believes him someone else. Although a writer of no little potential, Polidori is a flawed individual, given to indulge his weaknesses, "apt to `stick' when nothing good would come of `sticking', and liable to give in just when something might." Unlike the worldly Byron, Polidori is never at ease with his position, "afflicted by absurdity, sorrow's cousin, once removed." For her part, Eliza is essentially an innocent, her face bearing "the screwed up look of concentrated loneliness, its brave front"; but even she is a fraud, claiming to have preciously met Byron and hiding the nature of her employment.
Unbeknown to John or Eliza, neither truly desires to be unmasked, stripped of artifice, both thriving, at least for awhile, on subterfuge. Such heady pretension leading to ultimate confrontation, Polidori and Eliza are victims of their time and place in history, each yearning for a richer, more fulfilling life, but restricted by class and circumstance. Such unlikely lovers are utterly believable in this author's skillful hands, particularly Polidori, who comes so close to realizing his potential, only to be reduced by glaring deficiencies of character. Poignant and compelling, this small, intense novel mines the beauty of language and the tragedy of circumstance, a fragile romance defeated by a foolish deception. Luan Gaines /2007.
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