Hunger's Brides: A Novel of the Baroque

By W. Paul Anderson

Book Overview

On a frigid winter's night, a man escapes from an apartment in which a young woman lies bleeding. In his hands he clutches a box he has found there. He is Donald Gregory, a once-respected college professor and serial adulterer, whose last affair has left his career in ruins. She is Beulah Limosneros, one of his students and for a brief time his lover. She had disappeared into Mexico two years earlier, following her obsession with Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, who was born in 1648, entered a convent at age nineteen, and became the greatest poet of her time, only to die of plague in 1695. As a police investigation closes in around Gregory, he examines the box's contents, fearful of incriminating evidence Beulah may have against himtranslated poems of Sor Juana, a travel journal, research notes on the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the Inquisition, diary entries concerning him, and a strange manuscript about Sor Juana. Based on the life of one of literature's most compelling figures, Paul Anderson's astonishing debut unveils a great poet's withdrawal from the world who at the height of her creative powers signs a vow of contrition in her own blood."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786715413
• ISBN13: 9780786715411
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 1376 Pages
• Weight: 4.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 2.5" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Beautiful writing, brilliant heroine

Perhaps Anderson should have followed Proust's example and published this many-layered novel filled with history and poetry in several volumes. Paul Scott's Ray Quartet is another example. Actually, it's somewhat reminiscent of A.S. Byatt's Possession; I think if you loved that book you will like Hunger's Brides. Anyway, the writing in this book will take your breath away, and the heroine is wonderful and her voices true. A book to curl up with - maybe throught the winter!

A Book For A Long Winter's Read (at 1,376 pages)

Paul Anderson has created an encyclopedia of an epic read about a Mexican nun/poetess of the late 1600's and her obsessive contemporary researcher. Weighing in at nearly 5 pounds, this novel is more reminiscent of the old social conscience potboilers of the 1800's by Victor Hugo (like "Les Miserables") and Leo Tolstoy (like "War and Peace") who would add informative lengthy observations on topics which did not advance the plot. "Hunger's Bride" is a debut novel for Mr. Anderson who shows off his considerable writing skills with various points of view and literary devices. The cultural times and history of the female characters are drawn extensively. Though the book could have been edited downward to 1,000 pages easily, his publishers evidently are making a virtue of its length for marketing purposes. Still, the revolving stories between the cultural oppression facing Sor Juana de la Cruz in her frontier society and that facing Beulah Limosneros in our society keeps the story moving. The reader should be aware that this is not a beach book but a tale that demands the full attention of the reader. Having said that, this novel is one to be savored over several weeks -- think of it as a literary mini-series.