ccasionally I’ll write about a novel on this blog, especially if it’s fantastic and different, and more likely to go under the radar of most conventional reviewers and booksellers.
The Subtlest Soul, a 2013 historical novel by NYU Professor of Italian Virginia Cox, is one such work. Cox has produced several award-winning studies of Renaissance women poets, but when I learned that she’d written (and self-published) a fictional project set in the time of Machiavelli, I was very curious to take a look.
A few nights later, I was up much, much too late, unable to stop reading but trying to slow myself down – that sweet spot for any reader who’s fallen in love with a book. When I finished The Subtlest Soul, I immediately started telling people about it, and buying them copies, saying: “You’ve got to read this!”
This isn’t overkill on my part, I promise. The Subtlest Soul is a remarkable novel: faithful to the period, swiftly paced, and people by richly imagined characters who feel convincing in a way not often encountered in historical fiction.
The story takes its subject matter from events related in Machiavelli’s The Prince, in particular the attempt by mercenary captain Liverotto Euffreducci to seize control of the kingdom of Fermo in 1502. The bloody events of the coup are humanized by the stories of the people caught up in them, especially that of the novel’s protagonist, Matteo da Fermo. Coming of age as a soldier and spy, Matteo describes the actions of real-life characters such as Liverotto and Cesare Borgia, and even Machiavelli himself, in a first-person narrative that steers clear of modern-day anachronisms.
First-person can be tricky over the long haul, yet it works here. Matteo has a powerful story to tell, which he begins like one of Boccaccio’s narrators, formally. “I should introduce myself first,” he says in the first line, “as a man must if he hopes for a courteous audience.”
His voice is direct and slightly cynical, but never unsympathetic, and becomes increasingly intimate as the story goes on. Matteo has a better moral code than most of the people around him, and while his experiences of death and violence kill his naivety, he manages to keep his soul. In order to survive, he becomes a chameleon, adapting himself to circumstances. His narrative pulls a reader in and never lets go – no small feat for a novel that clocks in at more than 400 pages – because one is never quite sure what Matteo will do next.
For me what makes this particular story appealing is that Matteo is a good man, when all is said and done. After slogging through the first season of Showtime’s The Borgias, I realized I’m getting sick of dramas about horrible people, no matter how clever or beautiful. Young adult storytelling perhaps understands better that what people really long for is to identify with the hero (or even the antihero) who manages to navigate the underworld, outwit the demons, and emerge into the light. This is especially true in a world where we now can hardly separate dark reality from dark fantasy.
Soon after The Subtlest Soul appeared, it caught the attention of The Historical Novel Society, who gave it their first ever Best Indie Novel Award in 2014. It has since begun to attract an audience, mostly through word of mouth. I recently came across an interview with Virginia Cox, where she talks about why she decided to write fiction in the first place.
“I essentially set off to write the kind of historical novel I would personally like to have with me if I were embarking on a long-haul flight (something I do rather a lot),” Cox explains. “I wanted to write a novel crafted to a decent literary standard, but plot-driven and full of incident and colour; sufficiently accurate in historical terms for a reader to learn something about the period, but also true to fiction’s vocation of telling a good yarn. Other than that, I started with no real parameters or guidelines; I just started writing and watched what emerged.”
And yet one wonders if she’s been a born storyteller all along. Cox leaves tantalizing hints at the novel’s close that there could be a sequel in the works. One can only hope: this author and her character deserve a wider audience.