cover image Hester: 2a Novel about the Early Hester Prynne

Hester: 2a Novel about the Early Hester Prynne

Christopher Bigsby, C. W. E. Bigsby. Viking Books, $21.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-670-85588-9

Bigsby is forthright about why he chose for his first novel to write a prequel to The Scarlet Letter; years ago, he explains in an afterword, he fell in love with Hester Prynne. Set largely during the two years preceding the opening of the Hawthorne novel, Bigsby's tale reveals details of Hester's unconsummated marriage to Roger Chillingworth and follows her as she flees him across the Atlantic. During the voyage, Hester meets the young minister Arthur Dimmesdale, and their liaison is portrayed as a victory of passion over convention, something that stands apart from the normal course of existence. Bigsby (David Mamet), a British professor of American Studies, tries to recreate Hawthorne's prose, but he's not entirely convincing. The narrative voice seems not quite of Hawthorne's time, nor of Hester's earlier century, nor of our own, leaving it curiously unanchored. Though somewhat successful in illuminating Dimmesdale's inner life, Bigsby seems almost timid about exploring Hester's motivations. Regrettably , none of his reconstituted characters have the force to impel events toward a climax that seems inevitable; the ending is especially weak. Nonetheless, if not up to its inspiration, Bigsby's labor of love offers a valiant and sometimes pleasurable attempt to complement an enduring classic. (Oct.)