Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Beth Golay, and this is Marginalia. Angela Tomasky's novel, The Infamous Gilberts, opens with a house tour of the fictional Thornwalk Manor, led by Maximus, a neighbor who knows all the ins and outs of the Gilbert family, of which there are five siblings. Through this tour by Maximus, we learn about each of the Gilberts, from childhood through late adulthood.
sometimes through artifacts left behind in the house. I recently spoke with Angela Tomasky about her original use of perspective and some of the dark issues that haunt the characters.
Chapter 2: What is 'The Infamous Gilberts' about?
Here's our conversation. So who are the infamous Gilberts of the title? Could you introduce us to them and to Thorn Walk?
Yes, so the infamous Gilbert, it refers to the five Gilbert siblings who grow up in this crumbling Gothic mansion with their mother. Thorn Walk is a big neo-Gothic mansion. It was based on a beautiful real house, Tinsfield, which is near Bristol in Somerset.
So we meet the Gilberts by way of Maximus, who is giving the reader a tour of Thorn Walk, which is about to be or has been sold to a hotel chain. And I have a couple of questions about this. And the first relates to structure because the chapters have titles like The Bolt on the Blue Room Door and A Button Between the Floorboards and The Library Request Slip.
The story of the Gilberts is revealed through these shorter stories explaining how these things came to be at Thorn Walk. Can you talk to me about this idea, you know, to use relics to tell a complete story by providing context?
Yes. Well, I think that we do often come across stories that way. As we're walking around our own environment, we see things, you know, tangible objects that spark stories. memories. So I'm looking at that, I'm thinking of Maximus as a real person in a real house, coming across these objects, and seemingly inconsequential little things that carry meaning.
I think often it's these little things that are so important to us. I remember as a child having a little box of a thread and a jelly bear, little tiny things that meant something to me, a blade of grass that I'd taken from the school playground and then couldn't put down again. And these were more precious to me than many of the other things around me. They really mattered to me.
In terms of the book, I actually went on a tour of Tinsfield and saw the bed, the sort of deathbed of the last man that had lived there. And of course, that was very quickly removed by the National Trust, who had just bought this house. But I felt that so much...
atmosphere and so many ideas were conjured by this this this this simple very simple bed and it was such a shame that it was lost and it was sort of lost for good so that's where the idea came from so the combination of those two things my experiences as a child in this this view of this bed
So did you have a list of what items in the house we'd be introduced to, or did they come to you as you were writing?
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Chapter 3: Who are the main characters in 'The Infamous Gilberts'?
or the character best, you know, in some way.
So the second question relates to perspective and point of view. Maximus speaks directly to the reader, guiding us on a tour of the property, addressing the reader as you. How did you choose this perspective?
Well, it was a number of different things that I played with. I just felt it would be engaging. It would sort of bring the reader in. Initially, I had the idea of referring to you, but having that as an actual person who was sort of visiting the house, who might actually pick up the manuscript.
So in a way, it's just one step beyond that, because there's no, you know, there is a book that the reader has picked up. So it was that really, yes. And I felt that sort of, you know, Maximus, you know, if he felt he was talking to an actual person sort of directly, that sort of conversational tone would come in and And he could really be himself in that environment, you know.
Well, Max comes across as, you know, an omniscient narrator at times. He does admit that he wasn't present for everything and sometimes relies on what he's been told or what he's read in diaries. Do you consider him reliable?
Yes, I do. I think he tries to tell the truth. I think it's important to him to tell the truth. This is his one opportunity to say everything. And I think because he really loves them, he really loves these siblings and he doesn't judge them. I don't think he's scared to tell everything he knows. I think he's really keen to do that.
And I think he, he wants the reader to love them as he does, but I think he wants them to, he wants the reader to love these siblings as they are and not to hide anything, but still be lovable. And I think they are, I love them. And with all their flaws and all their eccentricities, I think he understands, you know, why they came to be as they were, why they came to behave as they do.
And he loves them anyway.
The stories we learn about this family, they jump around a lot in time, you know, from the 1930s to the 70s. I think I remember the 80s and the 90s perhaps, maybe even beyond that. Some of what happened to these characters I wonder if it was a product of the time, of misunderstanding. Like, was Hugo's perceived madness really PTSD?
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Chapter 4: How does the author use artifacts to tell the story?
So as I mentioned before with Maximus, this fact that they can behave the way they do and there can be great distance, physical distance between the siblings. But, you know, love is there at the end. And that's the strongest thing. That's the thing we remember. Life drives us all to madness. Well, I think it does. I think it does. driven me to madness anyway.
I think if we fully engage with things, if we, you know, if we really look around us at the people we love and the way that they have suffered, I think it's really, really hard to bear. That's all really.
I felt like the idea of being a hero was present throughout the book, or am I imagining that?
With Hugo? Do you mean with Hugo?
It felt like Hugo. It felt like Jeremy. I mean, I just felt like I was highlighting Hero a lot throughout the book.
Well, I think Maximus, you know, particularly loves Hugo. They're obviously very close friends.
spending a lot of time together at the end and it's through Hugo that he is aware mainly of the other siblings I think often and you know Hugo has the weight of the responsibility for the family with the absent father so he wanted to be a hero early on obviously with some things that he does you know with the The cow is in the stream.
Yes, I think he desperately wanted to be here and he desperately wanted to save the family. He wanted to save the house. So Hugo, yes, the idea of him being here, I think that was so important to him. And the idea that he was sort of was struggling to do that. And he was so ill-equipped for this role that had been passed to him.
And I think that hopefully, you know, someone, you know, Maximus, you know, knows that and he understands that. And so he has such compassion for Hugo.
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Chapter 5: What perspective does Maximus provide in the narrative?
One of my favorite story collections in recent years. And again, that's Are You Happy by Laurie Ostlund.
Very nice. What else do you have?
The last one I'll talk about from last year is Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rindo. This was one of my favorite books of last year. And also, full disclosure, the author, Ron Rindo, was my writing mentor when I was an undergraduate student. 30 years ago at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he just retired. The story is about a boy who was born with giantism.
He's an enormous baby and becomes an enormous human being. At the point where he reaches his late teenage years, he's close to eight feet tall. The story is narrated by a group of people in the small town in the Amish community where the child was born.
The book becomes not so much about this boy, Gabriel the Giant, as it is about the community that he impacts just by being born into that group of people. It's funny and odd and beautifully written. It's been... Tagged by some people as magical realism, it really is not. Giantism is a real thing that people really can have. And there's nothing magical about it, but it feels like it.
And the ending is just kind of jaw dropping. And again, that's Life and Death and Giants. The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem, and the author is Ron Rindov.
You know, our book critic, Suzanne Perez, that was one of her favorite books of last year, too.
Yeah, I think I recommended it to you.
Probably so. Okay, what else?
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Chapter 6: Are the Gilberts misunderstood characters?
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