Fictional Biographies
UPDATED 5/09
The Sand-Reckoner by Gillian Bradshaw
The moving, human account of the life of Archimedes, a brilliant young man who is blessed by all the Muses and who experiences fame and loss, love and war, wealth and betrayal – none of which affects him nearly as much as the divine beauty of mathematics.
Elvis in the Morning by William F. Buckley
Orson Killere, whose widowed mother works at the military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, in the 1950s, becomes a fan of Elvis Presley. When 15-year-old Orson gets caught stealing Elvis's latest album from the base's PX, Presley (stationed nearby) comes to Orson's home to meet him and his closest friend (and fellow Elvis fanatic), 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, with whom Elvis falls instantly in love. Although their lives inevitably veer off in different directions, Orson remains Elvis's one true fan (and we know what happened to Priscilla).
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Speaking from the grave, out of 19th-century Australia rides a hero of his people – Ned Kelly – a mythic outlaw whose life embodies tragedy, perseverance and freedom. Executed more than a century ago, he resonates still as that country's most potent legend.
Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell
Long before Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber, his musical and personal life was intertwined with her family. Here, Sophie, the youngest of the four Weber sisters, recalls events from 60 years earlier that reveal how the sisters influenced Mozart's music. Cowell vividly brings to life not only the Webers and the Mozarts but also dozens of minor characters and their era. Fans of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring will relish this exploration of family demands and the creative drive.
The Tsarina’s Daughter by Carolly Erikson
Hiding her identity as the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, Daria Gradov looks back on her luxurious childhood in pre-revolutionary Russia, the machinations of an illiterate monk, and the circumstances that forced her to assume another life.
Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland
A tale based on the life of 17th-century horsewoman Louise de la Valliere finds an eccentric young woman's love for a wild white stallion tempting her into using an ancient magic that overshadows her subsequent life and leads to her affair with the charismatic Louis XIV.
Longing by J.D. Landis
The tempestuous marriage of Robert and Clara Schumann has inspired many a biographer, but Landis translates the familiar tale into glorious fiction. In the 1830s and '40s, German Romanticism is at its peak. Brilliant and obsessive, composer Robert Schumann and pianist Clara Wieck Schumann perfectly embody the age's glories and excesses. Expansive and engrossing, this is historical fiction at its best, true to its subjects and steeped in the past.
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
In what is arguably his greatest book, America's most heroically ambitious writer follows the short, blighted career of Gary Gilmore, an intractably violent product of America's prisons who – after robbing two men and killing them in cold blood – insisted on dying for his crime.
Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min
Historical fiction acquires new luster and credibility in Min's brilliant evocation of the woman who married Mao and fought to succeed him. Madame Mao has become a myth, but Min has the background and the insight to imagine her afresh, and to create a complex psychological portrait of a driven, passionate woman and a period of history in which she would suffer, rise and prosper, and then fall victim to her own insatiable thirst for power.
Harriet and Isabella by Patricia O’Brien
A novelization based on a 19th-century sex scandal traces how the downfall of Henry Ward Beecher divided the nation and severed the loving relationship between his sisters, author Harriet Beecher Stowe and suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker.
Drood by Dan Simmons
A tale inspired by the mysterious final years of Charles Dickens finds the 53-year-old literary master irrevocably changed when a train journey with his mistress ends in violence.
The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir
A vivid fictional portrait of the tumultuous early life of Queen Elizabeth I describes her perilous path to the throne of England and the scandal, political intrigues and religious turmoil she confronted along the way, from the deaths of her parents, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, to the fanaticism of her sister, Mary I.