Shadowbrook: A Novel of Love, War, and the Birth of America
512
Shadowbrook: A Novel of Love, War, and the Birth of America
512Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
1754. In a low-lying glen in Ohio Country, where both the French and English claim dominion, the first musket ball fired signals the start of a savage seven-year conflict destined to dismantle France's overreaching empire and pave the way for the American Revolution. In a world on the brink of astonishing change are Quentin Hale, the fearless gentleman-turned-scout, fighting to preserve his beloved family plantation, Shadowbrook; Cormac Shea, the part-Irish, part-Indian woodsman with a foot in both worlds; and the beautiful Nicole Crane, who, struggling to reconcile her love for Hale and her calling to the convent, becomes a pawn in the British quest for territory. Moving between the longhouses of the Iroquois and Shadowbrook's elegant rooms, the frontier's virgin forests and the cobbled streets of Québec, Swerling weaves a tale of passion and intrigue, faith and devotion, courage and betrayal. Peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters and historical figures, including a young George Washington, this richly textured novel vividly captures the conflict that opened the eighteenth century and ignited our nation's quest for independence. A classic in the making, Shadowbrook is a page-turning tale of ambition, war, and the transforming power of both love and duty.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780743228138 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 03/07/2005 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 512 |
| Sales rank: | 375,344 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Wednesday, May 27, 1754
Québec, New France
Miserere mei, Deus...Have mercy on me, Lord, according to the greatness of Your mercy.
The five women had no mercy on themselves.
They beat their backs with knotted cords. Each wore a black veil, pulled forward so it shadowed her face, and a thin gray robe called a night habit.
The blows rose and fell, hitting first one shoulder then the other, and every third stroke, the most sensitive skin on the back of the neck. Occasionally a small gasp escaped one of the women, barely audible above the singsong Latin chant. De profundis clamavi ad te, Dominum...Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord. Domine, exaudi vocem meam. Lord, hear my voice.
The narrow rectangular space was lit by twelve tall white candles. The whitewashed stone walls reflected the elongated shadows of the women, who knelt one behind the other on the bare stone floor. Occasionally, when the woman in front of her managed to find a new burst of strength, a spurt of blood would spatter the one behind.
The knotted cords were carefully crafted, fashioned to a centuries-old design. The length must be from shoulder to thumb of the woman who would use it, the rope sturdy and two fingers thick. The seven knots were spaced evenly from end to end. It was called the discipline and was given to each nun on the day she made her vows as a follower of St. Francis, a Poor Clare of the Strict Observance of St. Colette.
Quoniam non est in morte qui memor sit tui...It is not in death that You are remembered, Lord. In inferno autem quis confitebitur tibi...In the eternal fire who will recall You?
An iron grille in the front of the cloister chapel enclosed the holy of holies, the small ornate tabernacle containing the wafers that had been consecrated in Holy Mass and were now the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The grille was covered by heavy curtains so those on the other side in the visitors' chapel could not see the strictly enclosed daughters of St. Clare.
In the middle of that Wednesday night only one person was present in the public section of the chapel, a man who knelt upright with his arms outstretched in the position of his crucified Lord. He could hear the soft, sighing sounds of the knotted ropes punishing soft female flesh. His shoulders twitched occasionally in response.
Antoine Pierre de Rubin Montaigne of the Friars Minor was also a follower of St. Francis, a priest of what the Church called the Seraphic Order, men who had originally vowed to own nothing and beg for their daily bread. The rule had been modified over the five centuries since Blessed Francis preached the glories of Lady Poverty, but its priests retained the humble title "Father." Rubin Montaigne was Père Antoine to all, most especially the women on the other side of the altar screen.
In the nuns' chapel the pace of the scourging had become more urgent by the time of the great cry of the Miserere: Have pity on me, Lord, for I perish. The cords flicked through the air too quickly to be seen, white blurs in the candlelit gloom.
Père Antoine, Delegate of the Franciscan Minister General in Rome, the ultimate authority for members of the order in New France, had decreed that in addition to the traditional scourging that took place every Friday before dawn, the Poor Clares of Québec would take the discipline every Monday and Wednesday after the midnight office of Matins. They would offer this special penance until the territory the British called the Ohio Country, but which had long been claimed in the name of Louis XV, was made secure, truly part of New France. When Holy Mother Church moved south to convert the native tribes, these nuns and their scars would be the jewels in her crown.
Turn Your face from my sins and all my iniquities shall be forgotten...
None wielded the discipline with greater vigor than Mère Marie Rose, Abbess. The shoulders of her night habit were stiff with the caked blood of past scourgings. When they buried her the garment would serve as her shroud, and she had already issued instructions that it should not be laundered. She would go to her grave with the evidence of her fervor.
Iniquitatem meum ergo cognosco...My sins are known to You.
For my sins, for the sins of my daughters, for the glory of God. The words filled the abbess's mind, blended with the pain, the chant uniting the two, pulsing in her blood. Miserere...Have mercy, Lord. On the king. On this New France. On our brave soldiers.
The shoulder muscles of Père Antoine were on fire. His arms felt like lead weights, but he did not allow them to drop. The pain was a kind of ecstasy and he exulted in it. For the Church. For the Order. For the conquest of the land below the pays d'en haut and the defeat of the heretic English.
Copyright © 2004 by MichaelA, Ltd.
Table of Contents
Contents
Important Characters in the Story
Map
Book 1: Shadowbrook · 1754
Book 2: The World That Came from the Belly of the Fish · 1754-1756
Book 3: The New World and the Old · 1757
Book 4: Québec · 1758-1759
Book 5: The Covenant · 1759-1760
Epilogue: The World of Tears · 1763-1769
Acknowledgments
Reading Group Guide
Reading guide for Beverly Swerling's SHADOWBROOK
1. SHADOWBROOK is a sweeping epic of the French and Indian War and the way it changed the lives of the American and Canadian colonists, as well as marking the beginning of the end of the traditional life of the Native Americans known as the Eastern Woodland Tribes. How were you brought into the story? Were you surprised that the book began with the Poor Clare nuns and their physical penance? Did you find the practice shocking? Did you see that as in any way connected to the unfolding story of the brutality of war, and the different cultures of the colonials and the Indians?
2. Look at the book's narrative style and the use of interior monologue as narration. What affect does this have on the reader? On the story? Why does a writer employ these devices? How does a love story figure into a book of historical fiction? What affect does Nicole and Quent's relationship have on the story - is it a catalyst or backstory or what? 2. Were you surprised to learn about slavery in the North, and the existence of the patents, in other words, the northern plantations? After the Huron renegades attacked, did you think Quent should have stayed and helped them save Shadowbrook and all that it meant to his family? Was he right to choose instead to go after Solomon the Barrel Maker? Would you have done that?
3. Did you understand the feeling of the Indians about what they called "Bridge People." Do you think the history of Native Americans in our country would have been different if a divide such as the one Quent and Cormac tried to establish had come into being? Would it have worked? Was it fair?
4. The book's main characters are Quent, Cormac and Nicole, all of one generation. In what ways are they like the generation that preceded them, represented by the characters of Ephraim and Lorene? Are John Hale and Hamish Campbell more alike than they are different? What about Père Antoine, the Franciscan, and Louis Roget, the Jesuit?
5. SHADOWBROOK is rich in minor characters and their stories. Did you enjoy Swerling's wide canvas, or find it confusing? Besides a name, how does the author assist the reader with character recognition? Could you "hear" the voices of the different characters and did that make the story more alive for you?
6. Dreams move the story forward because they make the characters do certain things. What are the similarities between Cormac's dream and that of the Mohawk chief, Thoyanoquin? Do you think that Quent really believes in either? If not, why does he do what the dreamers ask of him?
7. Consider the different roles of women in the story. What kinds of lives are available to poor women with or without husbands? What about rich women? Do you see similarities between Lorene Hale's choices and those made by Annie Crotchett? What about Nicole's choices, or those of the abbess, Mère Marie Rose, or Marni's choices? What would you have done if you were any one of them? In the end, who do you think had the most power?
8. History says that it is because Britain won the French and Indian war that the American colonists began thinking about independence. Did this book help you understand that? Try to imagine that you are living in that time, would you have been attracted to the notion of independence?
9. What differences do you see in the way modern Canada developed vs. the United States? Do you think the history related in this story had any role in that?