Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Oscar Hijuelos, is a luminous work of fiction inspired by the real-life,
37-year friendship between two towering figures of the late nineteenth
century, famed writer and humorist Mark Twain and legendary explorer Sir
Henry Morton Stanley.
Hijuelos was fascinated by the Twain-Stanley connection and eventually
began researching and writing a novel that used the scant historical
record of their relationship as a starting point for a more detailed
fictional account. It was a labor of love for Hijuelos, who worked on
the project for more than ten years, publishing other novels along the
way but always returning to Twain and Stanley; indeed, he was still
revising the manuscript the day before his sudden passing in 2013.
The resulting novel is a richly woven tapestry of people and events that
is unique among the author's works, both in theme and structure.
Hijuelos ingeniously blends correspondence, memoir, and third-person
omniscience to explore the intersection of these Victorian giants in a
long vanished world.
From their early days as journalists in the American West, to their
admiration and support of each other's writing, their mutual hatred of
slavery, their social life together in the dazzling literary circles of
the period, and even a mysterious journey to Cuba to search for
Stanley's adoptive father, Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise superbly
channels two vibrant but very different figures. It is also a study of
Twain's complex bond with Mrs. Stanley, the bohemian portrait artist
Dorothy Tennant, who introduces Twain and his wife to the world of
sv(c)ances and mediums after the tragic death of their daughter.
A compelling and deeply felt historical fantasia that utilizes the full
range of Hijuelos' gifts, Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise stands as an
unforgettable coda to a brilliant writing career.
