Gratton’s first novel for adults is a force to be reckoned with: she expands the world of Shakespeare’s King Lear and crafts a narrative that, despite its scope, never loses control. The basic plot remains, but the true accomplishment here is the characterization: Lear and his men slip quietly into the backdrop, more catalyst than character, while the women—the difficult, complex, astoundingly realized women—claim center stage. A darkly rendered epic of old magic, hard hearts, and complicated choices.
Reading Queens is at first a study in finding analogues. While Lear is Lear, his daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia become Gaela, Regan and Elia; Edgar and Edmund are Rory and Ban. But the Shakespearean counterparts are at most touchstones for the fully developed characters Gratton writes. Most notably, Gaela and Regan aren’t petty, scheming villains; they’re grieving daughters who’ve had to wonder for years whether their father murdered their mother ... While the storytelling is certainly decompressed — the novel has a somewhat ponderous prologue, seven different points of view, and a flashback every other chapter — Queens is always thoroughly engaging; right up until the end, I found myself wondering with increasing urgency whether this story, like Lear, would end in tragedy. I’ll leave you to wonder, too.
The Queens of Innis Lear is an atmospheric novel, well-written and well-characterised. Its prose is clear and elegant. But it’s long, and its measured pacing builds to the futile, inevitable destruction of most of its characters’ hopes. I found myself increasing discouraged by the act of reading about people making poor choices out of a lack of compassion or willingness to compromise, or out of pain—for this describes several of the characters. Ultimately, I can’t say that I liked The Queens of Innis Lear, as a novel. But it’s still an interesting work.
Gratton’s emphasis on the voices of the women (including Elia’s maidservant, Aefa) and the depth and dimensionality of their stories is what truly reshapes the familiar elements of the Lear tragedy into something fresh, with a suitably tragic yet satisfying ending.
Her writing is atmospheric, staying just shy of florid. The racial diversity is a welcome sight in the genre, as is an epic tale full of such dynamic women. And yet, as the page count pushes past 500, it’s hard not to feel that the action drags. Scenes of political intrigue become repetitious, and the final plot points feel mired in lyrical imagery by the time they finally arrive. Gratton achieves the rare feat of a Shakespeare adaptation that earns the right to exist, but it's possible to have too much of a good thing.
