Book cover of “Inventing Victoria” by Tonya Bolden.
Caribbean L 32 ife, March 8–14, 2019 BQ
“Inventing Victoria” by
Tonya Bolden
c.2019, Bloomsbury
$17.99 / $23.99 Canada
264 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
You can be anything you
want to be!
That’s what you were told,
growing up: you could do
anything, try everything, and
be anybody you wanted to be,
if you tried. Set your sights
on something, and it was
yours — so in the new novel
“Inventing Victoria” by Tonya
Bolden, a young girl wants a
better life.
Five-year-old Essie was
embarrassed half to death.
High in her attic room,
she could still hear the
noises of the “uncles” that
her Mamma was entertaining
but the “uncles” were all
white men, which made no
sense and Essie hated it. It
should’ve come as no surprise
to anybody that she wanted
to go live at Ma Clara’s house,
where she never had to worry
about food or “uncles.”
At 13, Essie had enough.
Ma Clara had helped nourish
her mind and her soul,
and Essie knew the time was
right for her to leave Mamma
by taking a job at Abby Bowfield’s
boardinghouse. There,
she made her first friend and
she dared to dream of a happy
future — as if, for a girl whose
Mamma escaped from slavery,
that wasn’t impossible.
And then the impossible
happened.
Miss Dorcas Vashon, who
had Room 4 at Miss Abby’s
on permanent hold, took a
liking to Essie and made her
an offer she couldn’t refuse:
She’d take Essie away from
Savannah and make her into
a lady, teach her, form her,
correct her speech, and fix
her slouch. In exchange, Essie
would have to give up everything
she’d ever known.
And so, a girl named Essie
stepped away from Miss Abby’s
boardinghouse one day, and
became Victoria.
At 18, Victoria tried not to
look back at her life. Doing so
was “excessively ill-bred” but
she couldn’t help it. With the
guidance of Dorcas Vashon,
she’d reinvented herself, but
there were so many things she
didn’t know: how, for example,
could a new lady keep an
old woman in her heart? How
can a lady remember where
she came from, without ruining
where she was going?
How could Victoria keep
living the lie she’d been
given?
Absolutely, “Inventing Victoria”
is a familiar story with
a different twist: more than
a century ago, it was a play.
Half that, it was a movie.
Now, this Pygmalion-like tale
is set in the years after the
Civil War, and your teen is
going to love it.
Not only is it a great story,
author Tonya Bolden also
creates settings that invite
historical figures to pass
through her characters’ lives.
Frederick Douglass is here.
James Wormley is mentioned,
as is O.S.B. Wall and John
Mercer Langston, and Elizabeth
Keckley makes dresses
for Victoria. These people flow
through the tale like it’s an
everyday thing to nineteenthcentury
folks but for modern
readers, Bolden makes their
presence feel like visits from
royalty.
Relevant, timely, and quietly
informative, for a 12-to-
17-year-old who enjoys gentle
adventure plus romance
wrapped in a fairy tale, this
book is perfect. For her,
“Inventing Victoria” is a book
she’ll want to be near.
Young girl wants a better life