Rachel Urquhart. (2014). The Visionist: A Novel. Little, Brown and Company.

Rachel Urquhart. 2014. The Visionist: A Novel. Little, Brown and Company.

Rachel Urquhart, The Visionist: A Novel. Little, Brown and Company, 2014.

Rachel Urquhart. The Visionist: A Novel. Little, Brown and Company, 2014.

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   • bioText: Rachel Urquhart's work has been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Elle, the New York Times, Vogue, and Spy, among other publications, and she is the author of three Chic Simple lifestyle books. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.
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An enthralling first novel about a teenage girl who finds refuge — but perhaps not — in an 1840s Shaker community.
After 15-year-old Polly Kimball sets fire to the family farm, killing her abusive father, she and her young brother find shelter in a Massachusetts Shaker community called the City of Hope. It is the Era of Manifestations, when young girls in Shaker enclaves all across the Northeast are experiencing extraordinary mystical visions, earning them the honorific of "Visionist" and bringing renown to their settlements.
The City of Hope has not yet been blessed with a Visionist, but that changes when Polly arrives and is unexpectedly exalted. As she struggles to keep her dark secrets concealed in the face of increasing scrutiny, Polly finds herself in a life-changing friendship with a young Shaker sister named Charity, a girl who will stake everything — even her faith — on Polly's honesty and purity.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Brunonia Barry, author of The Lace Reader
   • content: Gripping, profound, and beautifully written, The Visionist takes us to a world where faith and fear exist simultaneously and safety has a price. A remarkable exploration of love in all its forms with complex characters who linger far beyond the final pages.
2. • premium: False
   • source: Cathy Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls
   • content: The Visionist is both a haunting, beautifully imagined tale of lives devastated by cruelty and transformed by love, and a gorgeously evocative portrait of an 1840s Shaker settlement that is as startling as it is convincing.
3. • premium: False
   • source: Katherine Howe, New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
   • content: Rachel Urquhart's transporting debut The Visionist lifts the veil on the intriguing, mystical past world of the Massachusetts Shakers. Equal parts exquisite historical coming-of-age story and harrowing crime procedural, The Visionist breathes life into desperate young orphan Polly Kimball, weaving a complex and compelling drama about one of American history's most elusive religious communities. Lovers of historical fiction and seekers after truth will devour The Visionist just like I did.
4. • premium: False
   • source: Eowyn Ivey, New York Times bestselling author of The Snow Child
   • content: Rachel Urquhart paints a fascinating, complex portrait of Shaker culture in early America. An unexpected coming of age story, a suspenseful mystery. But what makes The Visionist particularly engaging is its thoughtful examination of the nature of good and evil, and our struggle to recognize it in ourselves and in others.
5. • premium: False
   • source: -National Public Radio
   • content: Urquhart captures in exquisite detail the cruel demands of grueling poverty in 1840s New England, and, by contrast, the orderly Shaker community... She layers The Visionist with many startling moments, from the chorus of consoling angels that come to Polly when her father visits her bed at night, to the lengths to which ways her courageous mother goes to protect her...And in the course of her lyrically written tale, she offers a fresh view of this mysterious religious sect.
6. • premium: False
   • source: - Amber Dermont, New York Times
   • content: Urquhart has created a world rich in details and vibrant in its historical dimensions...Urquhart captures how the Shakers live, dance, dine, garden, heal and worship, but she also has a genuine feel for her characters' longings and devotion...The true virtue of this story is the meditative consideration of the value of hardship and the transformative nature of ecstasy. Like Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Edward P. Jones's The Known World, The Visionist aspires to illuminate our understanding of faith, resilience, shame and forgiveness.
7. • premium: False
   • source: - The Wall Street Journal
   • content: The Visionist reads in parts like a Victorian thriller...but [it] is more than a mystery. Ms. Urquhart also takes a close look at the notions of justice, faith and morality that prevailed at the time and the struggles of those trying to live 'pure' lives...In a painstakingly researched novel framed by a suspenseful plot, Ms. Urquhart gives the reader an intriguing glimpse behind these doors.
8. • premium: False
   • source: The Visionist
   • content: Beautifully written in the language and style of the 1840s,
9. • premium: False
   • source: -O, the Oprah Magazine
   • content: A daring novel of secrets, revelations, and redemption...Rachel Urquhart's engrossing first novel...sparks a story of guild, greed, friendship, and fanatical piety in 19th-century Massachusetts.
10. • premium: False
    • source: - Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)
    • content: Rich with history and mystical intrigue, Urquhart's American gothic is capable of sending chills across your skin one moment, then warming your heart the next...The story is as eerie as it is heartrending, weighing miracle against coincidence, deviation against sincerity, with the remnants of one rural family hanging in the balance. The Visionist will have you holding your breath until the final, magnificent revelation.
11. • premium: False
    • source: -San Francisco Chronicle
    • content: Rachel Urquhart's shatteringly original debut transports readers...The Visionist is told in three eloquent voices, Polly, Sister Charity and Simon Pryor, all blazingly alive, each walking a high-wire act of moral choices...writing so rich, so detailed, that you not only come to care for all the characters deeply, you also become so immersed in the world of the Shakers, you can almost feel the floor moving as they stomp in ecstatic dance. Part mystery and part thriller, The Visionist is...
12. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      July 8, 2013
      Urquhart has written for Vogue and Allure, yet her debut historical novel features writing of a more restrained sort. Set in 1842 in a small enclave in Massachusetts called City of Hope, the slow-to-build narrative takes a jarring peek into the segregated Shaker way of life where the “wicked ways of the World” are shunned. Told from three disparate but oddly similar-sounding points of view—teenage Polly, who burned down the family farm to escape her father’s sexual abuse; Simon Pryor, a private investigator and “expert in incendiaries” hired to get to the bottom of the crime by a wealthy entrepreneur interested in the land; and Sister Charity, a particularly prim and self-effacing member of the covenant who watches over Polly after she and her brother are dumped there by their fleeing mother—conventional cultlike behavior and the espousing of Shaker beliefs (“flesh bonds are forged in the fires of carnal sin”) abounds. Though Polly’s christening as a “Visionist” soon brings notoriety to the community and Pryor’s ardent quest to uncover the truth about who set the blaze barrels closer to resolution, the temperature of the increasingly intertwined plot fails to rise above a simmer despite some well-placed twists. Think a cadre of easily provoked characters held back by unquestioning faith—but in need of Waco’s fireworks.

13. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      April 15, 2013
      A historical novel set in 1840s Massachusetts intertwines the stories of a Shaker community, a world-weary fire inspector and a beleaguered farm family. Silas, a depraved drunken wastrel, has ruined the prosperous family farm once owned by his late father-in-law, who died suddenly and mysteriously. He wants to sell the land but must first get wife May out of the way. He makes the mistake of revealing his intent to teenage daughter Polly, whom he has been sexually abusing. Fearing for their lives, May, Polly and younger brother Ben (whom Silas had tried to drown in infancy) escape by night but not before Polly drops a lamp on the floor near the bed where her father lies in a stupor. Flames consume the farmhouse, but Polly thinks she sees Silas running into the yard as they flee. Miles away, May indentures her children to be raised by the Shakers, a celibate Christian community, and disappears. Simon, a private detective in the employ of (and, due to a tragic childhood incident, lifelong thrall to) Hurlbut, a wealthy bully, is sent to sift through the ashes. Suspecting foul play after he finds Silas' body some distance from the charred ruins, Simon reports the conflagration as accidental because a lengthy inquest would thwart Hurlbut's speedy acquisition of the property. Racked with guilt over her role in the fire, and cut off from Ben by the Shakers' strict segregation of the sexes, Polly finds comfort in the Shakers' carefully ordered, self-sustaining way of life and a form of kinship with her roommate, Sister Charity. When Polly, in a trance, summons imaginary angel companions, the community reveres her as a mystic or "Visionist." As Urquhart explores the various enslavements that bind all of the characters, Simon's investigation becomes a high-stakes race against time. The plot is burdened by too many narrators and too much Shaker minutia. Nevertheless, Urquhart's fine craftsmanship covers a multitude of sins. An impressive debut.

      COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

14. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      August 1, 2013
      

      This debut novel draws the reader into the strange and mystical world of the Shakers. Following a devastating fire, May Kimball indentures her two children, Ben and Polly, to a Shaker community in 1840s Massachusetts. While attempting to cover devastating secrets, Polly is revered as a "visionist," develops a close but uneasy friendship with Sister Charity, and draws the suspicion of Elder Sister Agnes. Meanwhile, a fire inspector with secrets of his own investigates the fire at the Kimball farm and gets drawn into the family's misfortunes. Urquhart's research provides fascinating details about Shaker beliefs and practices, and she deftly displays how human nature will break out even where attempts are made to suppress it in favor of a "pure" life. The alternating chapters involving Simon Pryor's investigation of the fire mesh somewhat uneasily with the rest of the story, as they impose a few too many plot contrivances on a story about the nature of faith and sin. VERDICT For historical fiction fans wanting to immerse themselves in a setting they may know little about, this novel fits the bill.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

      Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

15. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      October 1, 2013
      Urquhart constructs this debut novel around a seminal era in Shaker history. Set in New England in the mid-nineteenth century during the Era of Manifestations, this tale explores the often paradoxical nature of a zealously rigid and charismatic belief system. After setting fire to her family's farmhouse while her abusive father sleeps, 15-year-old Polly Kimball escapes with her mother and young brother in tow. Seeking refuge as indentured orphans in a Shaker community, Polly is mistakenly hailed as a visionist, inflaming spiritual passions and arousing suspicions among various citizens of the City of Hope. As Polly attempts to guard her secret, a determined private investigator works behind the scenes to uncover the truth about the fire. Although the pacing is a bit plodding at times, the subject matter and the historical setting are compelling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

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An enthralling first novel about a teenage girl who finds refuge — but perhaps not — in an 1840s Shaker community.
After 15-year-old Polly Kimball sets fire to the family farm, killing her abusive father, she and her young brother find shelter in a Massachusetts Shaker community called the City of Hope. It is the Era of Manifestations, when young girls in Shaker enclaves all across the Northeast are experiencing extraordinary mystical visions, earning them the honorific of "Visionist" and bringing renown to their settlements.
The City of Hope has not yet been blessed with a Visionist, but that changes when Polly arrives and is unexpectedly exalted. As she struggles to keep her dark secrets concealed in the face of increasing scrutiny, Polly finds herself in a life-changing friendship with a young Shaker sister named Charity, a girl who will stake everything — even her faith — on Polly's honesty and purity.

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