FALLEN BEAUTY by Erika Robuck

Each time I open a book, my wish is for the author’s words to spin my imagination into a kaleidoscope of color so my heart will dance. When I find an author who is capable of such magic early in their careers each novel deepens my admiration, and my desire to hear from them again is wrapped in the hope and promise of greater stories to come. Stephen King may have been the first author to have such an impact on me. My reaction to his hiatus and subsequent return to writing The Dark Tower Series was akin to agony and ecstasy. Have I moved into melodrama? Oh, well, there it is. For the hope, promise and joy I feel for Erika Robuck’s novels is nothing less than a romantic attachment.

The writing in Fallen Beauty is an undertow of words that reel you in, while emotions rise with such force it’s impossible to put down. And yet I had to in order to take notes on character and story, and capture quotes for future reference—even though I know this is a book I will read again and again like The Hours, A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Old Man and the Sea.

I came down a hill, back from raping the earth of her treasures, to see a nymph waiting for me, breathless, angry, uncertain, and I felt the sorrow of seeing the wounded pierce my heart more than she could know. 

These words belong to Edna St. Vincent Millay, one of two point-of-view characters in Fallen Beauty. The second is Laura Kelley, a seamstress whose choice to follow her heart in 1928 leads her to a life of limitations and hardship as she tries to provide for her child who was born out-of-wedlock. The voices of these women and the way they behave place them at opposite ends of a spectrum. The brilliance of Robuck lies in her understanding that for Vincent and Laura to be at opposite ends of a spectrum they must share a through-line, and they do. Both possess a passion and a desperate need to express the beauty they see in the world.

Vincent, the artist in full-peacock bloom, knows her ability to weave beauty and love into words for everyone to experience is a gift—a gift that must be used and fueled or it will be lost.

If I don’t use my words for truth, I will never get new words. I will not be able to write. 

She often nurtures her poetic gift with behavior not accepted by society. But she doesn’t care about their judgment. Her purpose is not to please the masses, but to live as fully as she can in order to enlighten those who will listen to the power and glory of love and beauty. She wishes to open people’s hearts to a range of emotions so they too may bring themselves fully into the world.

Laura covets Vincent’s free spirit and her gift. She longs to spin fabric into costumes that bring the essence of the characters, or the person wearing them to life. But to do so is a betrayal to her sister and the way she was raised. She doesn’t realize that to stifle her spirit only brings more pain into her life.

I know she turns the pain of the town’s judgment on me, because we all need something lower than ourselves to hate. Otherwise we would be left to absorb all the bad energy and it would destroy us. 

This too is Vincent. Her compassion for Laura is why we are so willing to forgive and look past her actions that we would not ordinarily tolerate. This is another of Robuck’s strengths: her deftness in maneuvering characters into situations where they have no choice other than to see themselves in another character. These moments of realization often ricochet the character forward to do things they never believed possible; other times the character steps back. Here’s Laura.

I shoved my hands deep in my pockets, and tried to concentrate on the shafts of moonlight slipping through the trees. I hated that I couldn’t find a single word to say to him. I was sabotaging something real, and possibly good […] I hated that I was a prisoner of my past. 

The way Robuck’s characters pierce and paw at each other keep the conflicts high, and the passion running deep. Fallen Beauty has given Robuck a chance to take off her writing gloves. She allows her characters to street fight with words, pushing each other in and out of corners, round after round until the final bell rings. She may never have trained as a boxer, but she’s one of the champion writers on my shelves.

Ignite your passion with Fallen Beauty.