Her Bouchardon, like the actual attorney, bites his nails to the quick. (The liberties Murphy has taken in her re-imagining of Margaretha’s inner life are all the more credible for her close study of the details surrounding the historical Mata Hari’s case. Getting a glimpse into the life of Mata Hari makes one realize she is so much more than just a spy The descriptions of Java, and the countries she traveled, gave me a clear visual of the colors, sounds, and feels of those lands. The short James Patterson type chapters made for easy reading. Her audience is her prosecutor/interrogator, Bouchardon, and the nuns charged with caring for her in solitary confinement. Signed Mata Hari I thouroughly enjoyed this book. Thus, in Murphy’s artful hands, the story of Margaretha’s life emerges as a series of anecdotal tales, reveries and reflections, delivered Scheherazade-like, as Margaretha – dolefully imprisoned and awaiting execution – attempts to seduce the authorities into clemency. Above the incriminating circumstances cataloged by her accusers, she is utterly convinced of her innocence not only by the exculpatory force of her own explanations but also by the fact that she had, since girlhood, “cheated death.” The Mata Hari – or Margaretha Zelle MacLeod, as she legally was known – who speaks from the pages of Yannick Murphy’s layered, unself-consciously sensual and achingly beautiful third novel, Signed, Mata Hari, is her own best advocate. 280 pp.Īlthough the great treacheries of the last 100 years almost invariably were worked by men, the archetypal spy who springs most readily to mind is a woman – Mata Hari, the Dutch-born exotic dancer, whom the French executed at Vincennes in 1917 because they believed she was a German double agent. A wife, a mother, a lover, an artist, she is worthy of our admiration and of our hearts.Signed, Mata Hari: A Novel. Rendered with great insight and compassion, Murphy's Mata Hari is revealed, not as a spy, but as a sympathetic and intensely complicated woman. More stunning, even, than this lush, luscious, prose is how Yannick Murphy turns preconceived notions inside out.
Her characters are so richly imagined and believable that when you're finished with one of her books, you ex ( Dave Eggers) Yannick Murphy, while being one of our most daring and original writers, is first and foremost an exquisitely attuned observer of human behavior. Told through small, impressionistic scenes and reveries, this story of an enigmatic woman hangs timeless between the unreality of her present and the clarity and urgency of her past ( Janet Fitch, author of PAINT IT BLACK and WHITE OLEANDER) In SIGNED, MATA HARI, Yannick Murphy once again treats us to her luscious signature lyric style, its whispers and perfumes, in this time- and space-bending tale of the famous dancer and accused spy.
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