Isola, based upon the story of a real-life sixteenth-century woman, shifts between details of a life of moneyed ease and an abandonment on an unforgiving, uninhabited island after our main protagonist falls in love with the wrong person.
Marguerite is heir to a fortune, but after she is orphaned, she grows into a young lady while her guardian Roberval squanders her inheritance.
The unfolding of this continued theft and this absurd man's greedy, gratuitous mishandling of funds--which he legally pursues as a male distantly related to her, ugh--was enough to make my blood boil, but things deteriorate much further from there.
As Marguerite enters into her early teens, she begins to fear that her cousin views her as a creepy match for himself. At the very least it becomes clear that he will pay no dowry in order to make another match for her. Instead, in a somewhat shocking turn of events, he forces her to sail with him to New France. But on the way, Marguerite falls for her guardian's servant.
When their relationship is discovered, Roberval cruelly punishes them by abandoning them on an uninhabited island to perish. Marguerite, once a privileged, protected child of wealth and opportunity, must learn to survive in the wild.
Chapters are preceded by tips from Anne of France to her daughter (from Lessons for My Daughter) urging constant preservation of reputation, exuding modesty, maintaining a paralyzing fear of making errors, and striving for perfection in the form of delicacy and beauty. These prescribed behaviors suggest a goal of women's disappearing into the background, serving as beautiful, silent, ghostlike creatures. The highly controlled, minutiae-filled advice contrasts more and more starkly with Marguerite's desperate situation on the island and her necessary rejection of even the most basic societal expectations for her status (wearing shoes, using utensils, living a life without work, not developing freckles in the sun, and not dirtying her hands, much less killing, skinning, and processing animals) in order to cling to life.
Her slowly deteriorating social and financial standing early in the book gives way to a fascinating, unforgiving stretch of life lived on the rocky island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, bounded in part by Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Labrador Peninsula.
As Marguerite taps into her inner strength, she builds a resolve to get home again. But if she is saved and delivered safely back, where will she make her home? How will she secure a future for herself? If her guardian is living, how will she remain safe from him? After a harsh winter, her guardian's ships sail by again, but veer away after spying her. But Marguerite won't give up hope. Now she knows she can see her way through any adversity.
I was fascinated by each aspect of this tale, and Goodman transported me into the details and (often infuriating) dynamics of life at the time.
Isola is inspired by the story of the real-life sixteenth-century heroine, Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval.

I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book!
I first read Allegra Goodman's work 25 years ago, when I enjoyed her novel Kaaterskill Falls. Since then she has published many more novels, including Sam.
I received a prepublication edition of Isola courtesy of Random House and NetGalley.
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