Ken Follett’s “A Column of Fire” and the Emotional Thrill of Historical Fiction

Having told two stories set in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, Ken Follett returns with the third installment in his saga, A Column of Fire. Set during the reigns of the monarchs Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, and James I, it chronicles the intertwined fates of several men and women, most of whom have some connection to Kingsbridge. As per usual, a romance is at the center of the novel, this time between the Protestant Ned Willard and the staunchly Catholic Margery Fitzgerald, who find their love tested not just by the escalating conflict between their rival faiths but also by the tense politics of Elizabeth England.

In typical Ken Follett fashion, the story is very much a historical melodrama, with clearly good and clearly evil characters. Pierre and Rollo are, as religious zealots, clearly coded as evil and, in Follett villain fashion, are sadistic and cruel almost to the point of caricature. As a result, their ultimate deaths and defeats are cathartic; they suggest that evildoers, no matter how powerful they might be for a time, are always brought low by their own nefariousness. This is particularly true of Pierre, whose yearning for power over others, which leads him to ally himself with the ultra-Catholic Guise faction, leads directly to his demise at the hands of his mistress and his stepson, both of whom…