Fiction, World Literature, Fiction Subjects

The Transformation

Name: The Transformation
Author: Catherine Chidgey
ISBN: 9780312426064

by Catherine Chidgey

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Overview

Tampa, Florida, 1898: A hazy frontier where the Old World meets the New, where miracles of transformation are possible and the soil is so fertile that dry sticks take root and flower. Dominating the town is the magisterial new Tampa Bay Hotel and dominating the hotel is an exotic creature by the name of Monsieur Lucien Goulet III, wig maker to the wealthy and glamorous. As winter nears its end, Goulet is entranced by a head of hair belonging to the young widow Marion Unger. But this material, without which he absolutely cannot form his greatest masterpiece, is hard to come by, as it is still attached to its owner.

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

Swampy late 19th-century Tampa Bay is the unlikely romantic setting for this poignant historical novel by New Zealander Chidgey (The Strength of the Sun). Upon the construction of the Tampa Bay Hotel, a Byzantine fairy tale castle that soon attracts fashionable winter travelers, three eccentric American-made personalities descend on the town: a wig maker, a cigar factory worker and a Detroit widow. Marion Unger, a young Detroit wife, had arrived with her bricklayer husband, Jack, who helped build the hotel; he dies soon after its completion. In mourning, Marion finds her way to inimitable Parisian perruquier Lucien Goulet III, recently installed in the Tampa area to make his fortune; he weaves a memorial bracelet for her out of her hair and her late husband's, and becomes obsessed by her white-blonde tresses. Meanwhile, a Cuban immigrant teenager Rafael MEndez, employed as a roller in the local Ybor City cigar factory, is intent on aiding his country in the throes of revolution. When Rafael goes to work at night for the conniving Goulet picking through people's trash to search for hanks of hair he meets the chaste, rather naOve Marion and falls in love with her. A transformation is the sort of stupendous architectural hairpiece designed by M. Goulet, but here it also stands for the changes ushering in a motley new society. Incorporating her research with an organic touch, Chidgey constructs a tale as enchanting as the hotel rising from its Florida swamp. Agent, Kim Witherspoon. (May 6) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Catherine Chidgey

Catherine Chidgey is the author of The Strength of the Sun (A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year) and In a fishbone church, which was nominated for the Orange Prize. She lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.

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Editorials

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"I like to consider myself a maker of charms." So says Monsieur Lucien Goulet III, describing his trade as wigmaker. He begins work on a Goulet "transformation" -- a lovely, woven hairpiece -- ordered by the beautiful widow Marion Unger; while Rafael, a young Cuban cigar worker who moonlights as his assistant, surreptitiously gathers hair combings under the midnight sky of Tampa, Florida.

The city of Tampa in the late 1800s comes alive through Chidgey's vibrant imagery. It is a city of "wild orange trees bright with ripening fruit," where orange juice is "the color of the sun." Here the Tampa Bay Hotel, built on swampland, has become the place "where the days pass as hours, and the hours as minutes," and the wintering guests "whispered of wealth and style and rank." This setting, a nascent city rising along the waters of the bay, is the landscape where the lives of Monsieur Goulet, Rafael, and Marion intersect and are forever altered.

The Transformation entwines the memorable accounts of Goulet's trade secrets, a growing infatuation Rafael struggles to keep in check, and Marion's conflicting emotions concerning her wigmaker and his young companion. Chidgey takes the reader inside the newly emerging wealthy Tampa society as well as the Cuban working class of Ybor City as her story unfolds, arresting and enthralling readers as the pages turn. (Summer 2005 Selection)

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

The title of New Zealander Chidgey's third novel (after The Strength of the Sun) refers both to a hairpiece and to the lives of the primary characters. Louis Goulet III, a French maker of hairpieces and other hair accessories in late 19th-century Tampa, FL, narrates most of the story. Given his role as perruquier, Goulet is a confidant of many but also someone who trades on the information he receives. His ongoing quest for new sources of human hair turns to obsession when he meets the beautiful young widow Marion Unger; their relationship leads to a bizarre entrapment at the novel's conclusion. While Chidgey's writing is evocative, there is sometimes too much symbolism. Furthermore, the pacing is lacking, and voluminous descriptions of wig and cigar making detract from the story. While Goulet is an interesting character, his voice repels rather than compels the reader. This book will interest large and regional collections for its evocations of Florida in its frontier days, but it is not generally recommended.-Caroline Hallsworth, City of Greater Sudbury, Ont. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A sinister French wigmaker plies his trade in late-19th-century Florida: New Zealander Chidgey's third outing (after The Strength of the Sun, 2002, etc.). Foundling Lucien Goulet learned his craft in Paris from a perruqier who took him on as an apprentice. Over time, Goulet's work excelled that of his master, who claimed it as his own-so Goulet murdered him and fled to America. Thus far the tale bears a striking resemblance to Patrick Suskind's Perfume, which also featured a Parisian foundling with an extraordinary gift who progressed to murder; but Chidgey lacks Suskind's ability to integrate the lore of a trade with a killer storyline. In 1895, after lying low for a year, Goulet establishes himself as a wigmaker at the spectacular Tampa Bay Hotel, setting for the climax. Parallel plotlines focus on Marion Unger, a young American widow with gorgeous white-blond hair, and Rafael Mendez, a Cuban teenager and apprentice cigar-maker. It's hair, of course, that brings them together by maddeningly slow degrees. Marion commissions a commemorative hair bracelet from Goulet, who later hires Rafael to scour refuse for hair clippings. When Marion catches him going through her trash, it's not exactly meeting cute, but she's gracious, and Rafael develops a serious crush on her. Unfortunately, readers are constantly drawn away from this welcome romantic interest by Goulet's pronouncements on the hair business and the stupidity of women. When Marion asks for a "transformation," he's ecstatic; she means a few extra curls, but Goulet, exhibiting a carnal joy in hair of such delicacy, produces a massive wig, even kidnapping a little girl to harvest more white-blond hair. Marion rejects the wig. Will thisfire up Goulet's killer instincts? In the event, the close is more farcical than deadly. Weighty with period research, but with little narrative payoff.