Signed, Mata Hari - Yannick Murphy
Paris Jail Sets the Stage for Richly Woven Historical Novel
Margaretha Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, waits to hear her fate as she sits in a Paris prison accused of espionage.
Mata Hari sits and waits in her cold prison cell, staring at the bare concrete walls. She has been accused of espionage and is sitting in a Paris prison, waiting to hear her fate.
A Troubled Life
Born Margaretha Zelle, Mata Hari lived a hard life.This novel by Yannick Murphy tells of Mata Hari's upbringing in the late 19th-century Netherlands. She leaves her home and marries a military officer, bearing two children for him. Her maid attempts to kill them after finding out she slept with her husband, and poisons the children. The children become violently ill and her son soon dies, but her infant daughter manages to survive. Soon thereafter, her brutally abusive husband turns her against Mata Hari, leaving her to grieve alone.
They eventually leave for her husband's sister's house in the Hague, with Mata Hari believing it's a temporary stop on their way to Paris to live. However, her husband has other plans and one day takes off with their daughter, leaving her alone with his evil sister who soon kicks her out, leaving her to fend for herself in a foreign city.
Glamor and Gloom
Signed, Mata Hari explores her life from her darkest times to those more glamorous days she spent as a seductive dancer, dressed in elaborate costumes and veils, in Europe. The glamor is a stark contrast to the gloomy life she faces in prison, visited regularly by a kind nun who gives her comfort and tries to get her to allow herself peace.
A Seamlessly Woven Tapestry
The novel weaves together her past and present seamlessly. Each chapter is a vignette that sheds more light on Mata Hari's life inside the prison walls and before she was taken into custody. The descriptions are breathtaking, and the novel as a whole is beautifully written and poetic, even when the subject matter is less than pleasant.
It is not easy to determine where the fiction ends and the truth begins, and readers will finish this book wanting to learn more about the legendary woman. Was she truly a spy, or was she just a victim of circumstance? One thing that is certain is that Mata Hari's ultimate end is not fiction in the novel -- she is determined to be guilty and killed by a firing squad.
About the Author
Yannick Murphy is the author of Stories in Another Language, The Sea of Trees, and Here They Come. She lives in Reading, Vermont, with her husband and three children.
Murphy, Yannick
Signed, Mata Hari
Little, Brown and Company, November 14, 2007
