“Reliance, Illinois has it all—mystery, politics, war; love, death, and art. Every page is a pleasure.”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside OurselvesIllinois, 1874: With a birthmark covering half her face, thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch is accustomed to cold and awkward greetings, and expects no less in the struggling town of Reliance. After all, her mother, Rebecca, was … Reliance. After all, her mother, Rebecca, was careful not to mention a daughter in the Matrimonial Times ad that brought them there. When Rebecca weds, Madelyn poses as her mother’s younger sister and earns a grudging berth in her new house. Deeply injured by her mother’s deceptions, Madelyn soon leaves to enter the service of Miss Rose Werner, prodigal daughter of the town’s founder. Miss Rose is a suffragette and purveyor of black market birth control who sees in Madelyn a project and potential acolyte. Madelyn, though, wants to feel beautiful and loved, and she pins her hopes on William Stark, a young photographer and haunted Civil War veteran.
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Mary Volmer’s Reliance, Illinois is a mostly forgettable novel. Thirteen-year-old Madelyn Branch (defining feature: a massive port wine stain covering half of her body), moves to Reliance with her mother, Rebecca, who for reasons of establishing a marriageable reputation, is transformed into Madelyn’s elder sister. (I should add here that the novel is set in 1874.) Madelyn is permitted, just, to reside with the new Mr. and Mrs. Dryfus, but wounded by her mother’s lies, Madelyn soon accepts a position with the mysterious Miss Rose, whose forays into women’s suffrage are fodder for scandal.
I didn’t care much about the characters or most of the plot. I found the storyline baffling at times – I never did fully understand the scandal around the mayoral election – and it felt like the story often flitted between characters and events without much continuity. Samuel Clemens made a guest appearance – the single memorable event in the book, which I’ll get to in a moment – but then disappears as quickly and unexpectedly as he arrived. I’ve rarely disagreed more with the book jacket quote, in this case: “Reliance, Illinois has it all – mystery, politics, war, love, death, and art.” The mystery and the politics both felt contrived, and the war was long over. All-in-all, it was pretty meh.
Except.
Except for the one memorable event, when Samuel Clemens expounded on voting rights, thusly: “Give men of education, merit, and property – give such men five, maybe ten votes to every one of your ignorant Joes. As of now, Joe can be made to vote for any cause by anyone who can persuade him through fear or profit to make his mark on the line, even if that cause does damage to him and his family.”
Amen, brother.
Never have true – or scarier – words been spoken, further proof, if we needed it, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
According to the author’s notes, Clemens views on voting rights came from a variety of sources, including The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Whether he spoke these exact words, or Volmer crafted them, I cannot say, but, Mr. Clemens, I feel your pain.
Facially-disfigured Madelyn, barely into her teens, travels with her mother to the fictional Reconstruction-era town of Reliance, Illinois where her mother will enter into an arranged, lonely-hearts type marriage, passing Maddy off as a sister. It is only the cornerstone deception in what Maddy finds to be a fortress of secrets and ruses constructed by the town’s women, beginning with her mother and encompassing the lowliest servants to the upper crust of society.
The story picks up steam subtly as Maddy, whose deformity it is assumed will limit her options in life, comes to be known for her ability to keep ugly secrets.
When I closed the book I couldn’t help but reflect upon how deception seemed to be almost a requirement for women to survive in society at any level. The men are not immune from lies, omissions, and silences of their own, but it’s the women whose lives hang in precarious balance should their deceptions be revealed. It tautens the theme of suffragism and women’s rights that runs through the book and underlies Maddy’s choices about when to speak out and when to hold her tongue as she navigates a rocky adolescence amid the burden of the secrets she keeps. And like much historical fiction, we’re left to ponder all that still hasn’t changed.