Welcome friend! I love picking up stories where the main character practises a craft. The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice by Lisa DeSelm was a fantasy favorite of mine and today I am happy to share about a historical fiction with puppeteers taking the centre stage. I learned about butch feminism as well as the society of the late 1800s in Italy.
Eight Strings
Margaret DeRosia | Goodreads
An enthralling coming-of-age debut novel about a young woman in late 19th-century Venice who becomes a man to join the male-dominated world of the theater as a puppeteer—in the vein of Sarah Waters.
Ever since her grandfather introduced her to eight-string marionettes, Francesca has dreamed of performing from the rafters of Venice’s popular Minerva Theater. There’s just one problem: the profession is only open to men.
When her father arranges to sell her into marriage to pay off his gambling debts, Francesca flees her home. Masquerading as a male orphan named Franco, she secures an apprenticeship with the Minerva’s eccentric ensemble of puppeteers. Amid the elaborate set-pieces, the glittering limes, and the wooden marionettes, she finds a place where she belongs—and grows into the person she was always meant to be: Franco.
The past threatens to catch up with Franco when his childhood friend Annella reappears and recognizes him at the theater. Now a paid companion to an influential woman, Annella understands the lengths one must go to survive, and she promises to keep Franco’s secret. Desire sparks between them, and they find themselves playing a dangerous game against the most powerful figures of Venice’s underworld. With their lives—and the fate of the Minerva—hanging in the balance, Franco must discover who is pulling the strings before it’s too late.
Rich in historic detail and imbued with sharp social commentary, Eight Strings is a gorgeous, spellbinding debut that celebrates love, life, and art in all its forms.
Eight Strings – Review
I found Eight Strings to be an easy read. I love the world of theatre and the craft of puppeteering sounds like hard work with great rewards.
Butch feminism
Though Franco was born and raised a woman, circumstances led him to run away from his family home and realize his dream to be a puppeteer at the famous Minerva theatre. The skills he learned as a girl, sewing in particular came in handy and made him shine in the restoration department. I suspect women have a natural care for artifacts that may be harder to cultivate in men. What did you think of puppeteering being a profession for men only? From Franco’s discussion with Radillo, it sounded that women caused distractions for men and their place was preferred to be at home.
Franco feels more comfortable as a man than he ever did as Francesca. I loved the support he received from his grandfather in learning the craft and escaping his bad situation. He wouldn’t have been able to get into Minerva as an apprentice if he had shown up as a woman. I have never met a character like Franco before in fiction and this is another spot where reading the author’s note brought clarity to this representation. Butch feminism is a lesbian subculture that I did not know about and I appreciated learning about it through Franco.
Towards the end of the book, Franco’s capacity to do violence really surprised me. At the same time, at that point in the story, the people he loves are in danger. Eight Strings really tugged on heart’s strings at that point.
The World Building
Eight Strings is set in 1895. The world is done so well with equipment in theatres, use of lime for focusing on characters and the spareness of electricity. On top of that, society is divided into aristocrats and the general population. The presence of the pit in the theatres alludes to this segregation, posh comfortable seating for the rich while standing room for the rest. What do you think of world building? How does the status of women in society contribute to your understanding of the times?
Another part of the world building was the situation of orphans and foundlings. Kids abandoned by their parents and taken advantage of by the rich. Annella’s situation is a precarious one where she is hired to please Signora Constanza and is forced to do things against her values and comfort to continue to be in Constanza’s good books. What do you make of Annella’s character and storyline so far?
Annella’s sapphonic inclination was mentioned a few times in the book and I loved the chemistry between her and Franco. Towards the end of the book, Constanza says to Franco, “I read Annella’s nature when I first saw her. Yet she fell in love with you, a man? Hard to imagine, after the hell men put her through.” She herself has used Annella and yet she seems to put all the blame on men. She was very much the one-dimensional villain in this story with her minions to do the dirty work.
The Craftsmanship
One of the things I am really enjoying in this book is the characters’ love for their crafts. Radillo and Carmine are good teachers and want to see Franco succeed and realize his potential. Annella’s expertise in sewing and Franco’s skill in mending the puppets is not going unnoticed. I like the atmosphere and camaraderie of the theatre. Seeing people around Franco growing to love and accept him was one of my favorite parts of this book.
Critique
What started off as a focused story about Franco ended up being a much grander plan than I sometimes found hard to follow. Franco and his past had seeped into his present, Tristano in particular. On top of that, everything came together very well and that seems unrealistic to me, especially how Franco could have been related to Radillo. It’s possible but I would have preferred it not to be the case haha.
On the Author’s Note in Eight Strings
History has many silences, in part because there is no uniform answer to the question of who makes history, both who makes the cut to be documented and who makes (up) the account. What really happened? we ask of the past, but the answers are often contradictory, plural, and uncertain. History can hold people to account, or it can make them disappear.
Margaret DeRosia
In Eight Strings, Margaret DeRosia brings alive Italy from its early years of being a country. I hadn’t read about this time before and the author’s note was particularly helpful. After reading all the research she did, the insights she brought to these fictional characters based on the real world, the feel she wanted to portray through this story, I am blown away.
There was something poignant to me about returning to the cusp of the twentieth century in Eight Strings, and to the relatively small, intimate stage of the Minerva, a single theater that had navigated its own historical moments of change several centuries over, but did not survive long into the 1900s. For better and worse, much of the world depicted in Eight Strings has disappeared. The edifices of buildings may remain, but most of the city’s people have migrated away, and, by their absences, transformed what was left behind. Eight Strings is my way of capturing Venice and its voices—onstage and off—in this particular moment before they vanished.
Margaret DeRosia
I loved how educational this book ended up being for me and the author’s reflections on the community.
Eight Strings is very much Franco and Annella’s shared and complementary tale, a butch-femme friendship that blossoms into lust and deepens into love. Despite living in a world intent on their self-negation, this queer couple lives happily ever after and on their own terms, something my communities do time and again, with a defiant sense of delight.
Margaret DeRosia
I will definitely be reading more of Margaret DeRosia’s books. Another great debut find by Simon and Schuster. I highly recommend this one if you are curious about butch feminism. Add Eight Strings to your Goodreads shelf. If you have read it, let me know your thoughts!
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