Book Review: In the Garden of Monsters by Crystal King
A review of a fun little historical romance novel set in Italy's gardens of Bomarzo with major mythological overtones
A few years back, I reviewed Crystal King’s Feast of Sorrow while looking to expand my horizons in the world of historical fiction. Back then, I was still feeling out the way I wanted to approach the genre. To be frank, I had expected the book review segments to be far more critical of what I’d been reading than what I ended up experiencing. Year Four of this newsletter has been about approaching recent and upcoming releases in the genre, and so I was delighted to find out that King had written another book, In the Garden of Monsters, dealing with topics of the ancient world. There are admittedly a few qualities that push this to the further bounds of my typical fare, but the mythological aspects of the story certainly keep it on my side of the proverbial fence. I reached out to Mrs. King and her editor, and was given an advance reading copy.
The first notable quality of this novel is Dali’s characterization. I happened to pick up Vasari’s Lives at about the same time as this book, and though one may attribute some of his eccentricities to the nature of his work in surrealism, they were just as weird 5 centuries ago. In ways that will soon become apparent, he toes a line between social abnormality and full-on derangement that reflects a plastered-over truth about the historical Dali. Other hobbyists in the world of art history may initially be skeptical of any novel that wants to deal with him on any level deeper than his aesthetics, but the issue of his support for fascism is handled with due attention.
A common argument throughout my book reviews on this blog comes up whenever I cover novels that retell the stories of mythology. Some other reviewers see the glut of manuscripts in that genre as an inherent negative, mostly because of their perceived “saminess.” Regardless of where one falls on that issue, I can recommend this book wholeheartedly. King skirts the issues that most detractors have with recent releases in the genre by melding folklore, mythology, art, and real world history, all wrapped up in a captivating time travel plot. The problem tends to arise when the author clearly wants to stretch an element or theme further than the premise allows. Structuring the setup to the plot in the way that King did allowed her more creative freedom to reasonably approach all the points that she wanted to tackle.
As with her last novel, one of these themes is food. Dali’s recognition in the public eye mostly comes from his surrealist paintings, but he also published a cookbook in 1973 called Les dîners de Gala featuring much of the same eccentricity that’s tied to his reputation. In Feast of Sorrow, the level of opulence in each dinner represents the decadence of the host. Here, most of the meals are hosted by the same person, but some individual courses are personalized to each guest, which carries its own symbolistic value. For example, the first meal that Ignazio serves to Julia is a parsnip soup—a common aphrodisiac in Roman times.
Occasionally they will all sit down to a course closer to a buffet style that carries fewer significant connotations, but still appropriately set the mood of the scenes to come. One dinner consists of all sorts of dishes made to look entirely black, only for Julia to be plunged into inky darkness in the dungeon a few pages later. Another later on is a five course meal centered around the classical elements of the universe, themed around Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and finally retiring into the Quintessence salon for drinks and a modern “symposium.” In the opening third of the novel, Dali serves every course that Julia eats with a single pomegranate aril as a garnish, as she has been hired to model as Proserpina (or Persephone to the Greeks). She has a natural distaste for pomegranates, but Dali insists that she must eat it. Weird things begin to happen when she does, and we as the audience are left to guess whether it’s just another of Dali’s eccentricities, or he has drugged her, or something legitimately supernatural has occurred.
The ambiguity between these scenarios sets up the progression of the plot well. Most of the strange occurrences in the first half of the novel can be explained through one natural phenomenon or another, especially considering the company she’s keeping with Dali, and that’s not even mentioning the weird vibes that Ignazio gives off. Broadly speaking I tend to denounce the use of food as metaphor in fiction, because it’s so overdone in causal ways across fiction (especially in songwriting), but when the author focuses on the trope so intensely and the language is as well-executed as this, it’s difficult to not heap praise on it.
The last major notable quality of this novel is that it does end up being a romance novel. Because of Julia’s initial attitude towards the other characters in the book, on top of the way that stories based around mythology tend to play out, it almost feels like a spoiler to point this out. I debated whether or not to mention this in my review, but a) enough of my audience may not enjoy books in that genre that this would be a sticking point for them, and b) at the end of the day, it’s advertised as such. To be fair, until the narrative explicitly began to connect one particular character to the god he was based on, I’d believed him to represent Vulcan and not Hades/Pluto. It doesn’t ruin the plot to have these things in mind while reading, but it does slightly detract from the mystical mood that the author has otherwise done a good job to maintain. The romance genre tends to get a bad rap; I covered this briefly in my article on Anne Rice’s The Mummy but I read for prose and plot, and even if a book has qualities that I tend to stay away from, I’ll still read it if it’s well-written. Though my praise for that book was quite high, I’d probably recommend this novel over that one to anyone looking to get into Romance without the stigma. Naturally, fans of the genre will enjoy it without all those caveats. 1 / 3 stars.