But really it’s just the start, for when Kitty discovers and then actively joins the Suffragists, her health and life are both transformed-though Richard grows only the more angry and disapproving at the folly and impropriety of it all.

When Kitty withdraws from him sexually, the germ of plot-trouble is sown-and would seem to be reaped when Kitty’s single fling brings her the need of a secret abortion that’s followed by long, deep depression and dire health. But under the surface is what matters-fulfillment, self-expression, dynamism, sex-and that’s where Richard Coleman, though charming as fiancé, reveals himself to be old-fashioned, “ordinary,” even authoritarian as husband. Things aren’t going so well in Kitty and Richard Coleman’s marriage, though by appearances all’s fine: they’re a respectable couple in London’s middle-high society, live in a fine house, keep maid and cook, and remind readers of the upstairs family in, well, Upstairs, Downstairs. Chevalier’s enormous hit with Vermeer and the 17th century ( Girl With a Pearl Earring, 2000) is followed by a novel so familiar-the forces of change at 19th- century’s end put cracks in domestic life-that the hyperverisimilitude of its period-color seems almost done by number.

Falling angels by tracy chevalier