The Secret Chord — a thundering, gritty, emotionally devastating reconsideration of the story of King David — makes a masterly case for the generative power of retelling.
Viscerally rich descriptions are not enough to bring a novel to life, and on the whole Brooks' The Secret Chord flails somewhere between history and fiction. Neither entirely convincing nor particularly compelling, Brooks' novel is a prototypical work of historical fiction that falters under the constraints of its own genre.
Brooks has humanized the king and cleverly added a modern perspective to our understanding of him. But as a sustained chronicle, The Secret Chord is wanting.
Ms. Brooks capably presents that enigma, but you will wish she went further toward unraveling it. David’s story is packed with incident, and she must resort to some dutiful summarizing in order to get everything in. What gets lost is the work of interpretation and the insights that make her reading of the story distinct from anybody else’s.
Two kinds of readers might exult over Geraldine Brooks's biblical epic about the life of King David, The Secret Chord. The first can cite chapter and verse of the Good Book. The second craves the resonance of the best historical fiction. Both will relish this new novel, which brings alive the Old Testament world of a thousand years before the Christian era.
As skilled as Brooks’ portrayals are, they’re ultimately not enough to keep The Secret Chord vibrating with the sort of passion that it evokes in its early pages. By the time David dies an old man’s death and Shlomo ascends the throne, its energy — like that of the great king himself — seems mostly spent.
The Bible's Book of Samuel says that when David played the harp, those around him would forget their troubles and feel happiness. Brooks has written a book to do the same.
