Fiction Paperback
ISBN 10: 1-932961-29-1 / ISBN 13: 978-1-932961-29-4
6 x 9 / 304 pages / $14.95 / October 2006
Fiction Hardcover
ISBN: 1-932961-10-0
6 x 9 / 304 pages / $24.95 / October 2005
Summary | Praise | Bio | Events
Excerpt | Reading Guide | Widgets
At the end of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, we know that Pearl, the elf-child daughter of Hester Prynne, is somewhere in Europe, comfortable, well set, a mother herself now. But it could not have been easy for her to arrive at such a place, when she begins life as the bastard child of a woman publicly humiliated, again and again, in an unrelentingly judgmental Puritan world.
With a brilliant and authentic sense of that time and place, Deborah Noyes envisions the path Pearl takes to make herself whole and to carve her place in the New World. Beautifully written with boundless compassion, Angel and Apostle is a heart-rending and imaginative debut in which Noyes masterfully makes Hawthorne’s character her own.
Angel and Apostle is an accomplished novel, stylistically sharp and metaphorically keen. Noyes commands a thorough knowledge of the 17th Century world of Hester and Pearl, both in New England and in England, where mother and daughter flee to escape the social wrath visited upon Hester…. Noyes chooses the language of the mid-17th Century, the same language used by Hawthorne, to craft her multifaceted tale. The verisimilitude of style and tone envelop the reader; Noyes has perfect pitch for the era and a keen sense of the charged atmosphere of isolation, dread and trenchant desire that surrounds both women…. [Noyes’] deft telling provides a thoroughly engaging story with an utterly stunning ending that affords the reader much to ponder.” —The Chicago Tribune
“In language nearly as beautiful and powerful as Hawthorne’s, Noyes tackles passion and Puritanism in a riveting historical tale with timeless overtones.” —Library Journal
“Noyes engages with atmospheric charms of time and place, and…delivers an ending revelation that would surprise Hawthorne himself.” —Publishers Weekly
“Echoes of Hawthorne abound in vivid scenes and authentic language in this masterfully re-imagined tale, not a retelling but an alternative telling that sweeps one along beyond the point Hawthorne chose to stop and embroiders new characters on the fabric of time. A captivating achievement that teases recollection and delights fancy.”— Susan Vreeland, Girl in Hyacinth Blue
“[A] worthy successor to Hawthorne’s classic, breathing life and sympathy into an enigmatic child.” —Curled Up With a Good Book.com
“Noyes’ lyrical debut tells the story of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and beyond from the vantage point of Pearl, Hester Prynne’s wild, elfin child….Noyes does a remarkable job of capturing Puritan New England and the spirit and willfulness of Pearl, who is a compelling, sympathetic character in her own right. —Booklist
“With quietly savage prose, Deborah Noyes takes Pearl to adulthood, marriage, motherhood. We experience her life in America and England, the blossoming of love, and the heartbreak borne of passion and loss. Readers smell the sea, the bite of chill air, and live the very heartbeats of each character. This book is a literary classic and highly recommended.” —Midwest Book Review
“Deborah Noyes has given us a wonderful gift with Angel and Apostle… enjoyed every page of this debut novel. The ending surprised me, but that’s the beauty of good storytelling. Ms. Noyes captures the heart of the time period, and I think Mr. Hawthorne would have liked this story, too.” —Susan Zabolotny, Historical Novels Review
“While Deborah Noyes’s research has imbued this story of a very contemporary-seeming young woman with the speech and the experiences of another era, Pearl resonates with feelings not bound by time or place.” —Magill Book Reviews
“…Written as Deborah Noyes envisions Nathaniel Hawthorne writing it, this small saga reads larger than its 304 pages. While a dark tale, sad and poignant, it is a tale of ultimate enlightenment.” —bookreporter.com
Angel and Apostle is Deborah Noyes’ first novel. Her short fiction and reviews have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Boston Sunday Globe, Seventeen, The Washington Post Book World, The Chicago Sun-Times, Stories, The Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, The Bloomsbury Review, Boston Review, and other publications. She has also written and edited numerous books for children and young adults, including the award-winning teen anthology Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales.
It was the Lord’s Day, and we were idle—me with the sting of stones at my back, they shrieking like brats possessed. Because I knew that no pack of holy pygmies would brave the wood without master or mother, I ran and ran, willing myself be an otter and the shade be water. How cool it was and dark, my Wilderness. How sweetly it repelled them. With their brat-threats dying in my ears I crashed later through a thicket and found in a clearing, as stark as any miracle, a gabled house with a skinny lad in its kitchen plot.
How do I fashion him in your thoughts?
Let us say this boy was still, as still as marble, and riveting for it. What’s more, he was as stately in his solitude as the townsfolk I daily spied on (blasphemers and nose-pickers all) were shrunken in theirs. I would come again and find him on a little three-legged stool, milking his cow with deft hands, and again, whence he would be whittling by the wall in the sun. But on this day he was sitting, just sitting on a house chair in the green-specked mud of the garden, with his strange, pale eyes shifting in their sockets. His hands were beautiful birds chained to his lap.
He must have heard me, but I stood and caught my breath, watching him. When it came my voice was still ragged from the chase. “Why have they planted you there in the shade like a mushroom?”
He looked not before him but straight up as if my words came from beyond.
“Here,” I called. “Past the fence. By the beech tree.”
“I won’t find you there.”
“Why not?”
The boy I would come to know as Simon turned to my voice that Sabbath day, and I considered how much deeper his was than I might have imagined, a man’s voice, though he looked to be no more than a scrawny boy. Were I old enough to know better, I would have blushed. Instead I crept closer and scooped a handful of dry leaves from the ground. Leaning over the fence, I showered his boots with them. He did not look down.
“Have you no sight?”
“Who is it wants to know?” he demanded. “A girl pursued hither like a sow?”
“I do.” I caught my breath. “Pearl.”