Epistolary Twists & Turns: On Susan Rivers’ ‘The Second Mrs. Hockaday’
Rivers’ novel sucks you in with its twists and turns & shows the resilience of women when faced with complicated choices.
Susan Rivers
Historical Novel | 256 Pages | 5.5”x 8.25” | Reviewed: Paperback ARC
978–1–61620–581–2 | First Edition | $15.95
Algonquin Books | Chapel Hill, NC | BUY HERE
Susan Rivers provides us with a compelling and unexpected story as we follow the life and hardships of her main character, Placidia Hockaday. Told through letters and taking place in the Civil War era, we follow the journey that is Placidia’s life, and the vague mention of something disturbing having happened in the past. This historical fiction is one that grasps you as intensely as Placidia herself caught her husband’s admiration:
“You are like walking out on a sunny day and being struck by lightning. The force of you. So unexpected.”
Placidia is left to tend a large farm property mere days after meeting and marrying her husband, Griffyth Hockaday, as he heads off to war. This is the first time that she has been on her own, and she has gathered herself for the task of not only learning and running a property with “servants,” but also with the task of caring for the late first Mrs. Hockaday’s toddler son. Throughout the story that Rivers weaves, we are always left with questions that urge us to move forward. We see the truth unfold, and it becomes more complex and unsettling as each of the puzzle pieces fit together. It is best put in a conversation between Placidia’s descendants:
“He told me that once known, there is nothing that can be unknown. I answered that this is precisely where the value lies in acquiring knowledge — it can never be taken from us as other treasures may be. […] Exactly, he said. I wish you had reminded me of that fact four days ago.”
As you come to the close of The Second Mrs. Hockaday, it is finally made clear what secrets has occurred, through the words of Placidia herself, written in the margins of a volume of David Copperfield, which she uses as her own personal diary in the days before her husband returns to the farm. It is through these pages that Griffyth learns what truly happened to his wife while he was gone, and how we learn the strength that it takes to survive through both a political war, and the war at home.
“We are no longer blessed with innocence, nor do we deserve to be. Paradise may have been lost, but paradise is a bad bargain. It costs too much. It conceals serpents, and is littered with graves.”
Rivers has used her talents in The Second Mrs. Hockaday to provide us with a novel that even those who normally turn away from historical fiction would not be able to put down. This story sucks you in with its unexpected twists and turns, and the final revelations will leave you reeling. It shows the resilience of people when faced with complicated choices, and the determination and composure of a woman suffering in the trials that she is forced to carry alone.
