In Falling Angels, author Tracy Chevalier uses two women and their families to illustrate the changing of times from the Victorian to the Edwardian Era. The novel centers on Kitty Coleman, a suffragette who loses touch with her loved ones and those around her, and Gertrude Waterhouse, a subscriber to the rigid Victorian zeitgeist of repression and suppression. Gertrude and Kitty meet in January 1901, the day after Queen Elizabeth's death, while visiting a cemetery. Their relatives criticize the grave of the other's dearly departed. From this point on, Chevalier draws distinctions between classes and mindsets of the time.
Falling Angels also delves into the macabre obsessions with death and funerals, revealing the dark underbelly of the prim and proper Victorian period. The author first focuses on the death ceremonies and prescribed mourning periods — proper funeral dress and etiquette — dictated by the late queen. Later she introduces the more lenient social environment of the 20th century. Kitty's character painfully illustrates these social changes, especially as they pertain to women.
Chevalier writes as if you are reading the diaries of characters — acid flashback style — all the while allowing clear insight into their minds, keeping the reader interested with the wonderful details of Victorian/Edwardian life and the changes occurring in society. The plot itself, although somewhat anticlimactic, allows for some understanding of the suffrage movement. Chevalier reinforces stereotypes of the day, such as Kitty in her rebellion, as well as the seemingly purposeless suffragettes, who are perceived to be motivated more by boredom than belief in the cause.
The characters as a whole could have been better if developed further, but perhaps the tinge of mystery is Chevalier's way of enticing you to come to your own conclusions. The title is prophetic to a melancholy tale, and the sad and disturbing ending opens the reader's imagination with a lack of closure and discreetly tugs at your conscience not to take certain liberties of our time for granted.
—Nina Banez
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2002.
