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Angel and Apostle
by Deborah Noyes
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Unbridled Books (2006-10-10)
ISBN: 1932961291
EAN: 9781932961294
Dewey Decimal #: 813
Binding/Media: Paperback - 304 pages
Release Date: 2006-09-10
SKU: AR051506
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: Exactly as shown, Ex Library copy with usual stamps and stickers. Book is bound strong, has little to no wear and text is clean and unmarked. Spine uncreased, Covers flat and shiny.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
At the end of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, we know that Pearl, the elf-child daughter of Hester Prynne, is somewhere in Europe, comfortable, well set, a mother herself now. But it could not have been easy for her to arrive at such a place, when she begins life as the bastard child of a woman publicly humiliated, again and again, in an unrelentingly judgmental Puritan world.
With a brilliant and authentic sense of that time and place, Deborah Noyes envisions the path Pearl takes to make herself whole and to carve her place in the New World. Beautifully written with boundless compassion, Angel and Apostle is a heart-rending and imaginative debut in which Noyes masterfully makes Hawthorne's character her own.
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Customer Reviews
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Reviews by The Bibliophilic Book Blog
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-03-10
Having had to read and discuss 'The Scarlet Letter' in high school English class it was sort of cool to see this book and I jumped at the chance for a review copy. This book did not disappoint, I truly love it. I wish I could have had it to read after 'The Scarlet Letter' in high school.
The one thing that truly held me captivated was the detail of each character's life. I got to know each character while reading, it's like when you are acquaintances with your neighbor, you know a bit about them but don't truly know them, then you invite them for tea and truly get to meet them and spend time with them. I think I just met some of these characters briefly in high school and just now got to truly make friends with them.
I loved getting to see little Pearl grow up, I loved learning a bit more about Hester and I loved seeing the whole world and times that these characters lived in. Ms. Noyes gave this story a new life, now I am going to go back and re-read 'The Scarlet Letter' with adult eyes and see if it feels differently.
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Whatever happened to ...?
Rating  (4)
Date: 2010-02-07
First let me confess that I'm not a huge fan of The Scarlet Letter nor of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I've read it multiple times for multiple classes and the novel has always left me cold. I could never find anything to relate to with regard to Hester Prynne other than a vague admiration for her stubbornness. Beyond that the whole thing always felt to me like An Important Book You Should Read and I just never really liked it.
Having said that, I enjoyed Angel and Apostle, Deborah Noyes' debut novel. She manages to capture the flavor of Hawthorne's writing without being enslaved to it and it was fun to see how someone thought Pearl, the impish symbol of a child from the original, might turn out.
The character of Pearl is fleshed out here as we follow her through her friendship with Simon, a blind boy with whom she explores the world. Less about the nature of sin and more about what constitutes a good life in a colonial setting this was a well-written, well-imagined book.
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A mix of marvelous complexities.
Rating (4)
Date: 2010-02-02
Angel and Apostle: a novel by Deborah Noyes. Denver: Unbridled Books, 2005.
Love and lust, beauty and depravity Angels and Apostle has it all in a mix of marvelous complexities. Progressing at a deliberate pace we are with Pearl as she grows from childhood to adulthood. Because of the historical and sociological insights we empathize with our young, spirited outsider.
Our Pearl is the daughter of Hester Prynne, Nathaniel Hawthorne's unfortunate victim of Puritan society in his work The Scarlet Letter. Noyes begins her novel with Hester in the stocks and Pearl wanting desperately to understand her place and relationship to those of her community.
We see those around her the intermingling of duplicity, jealousy, mockery, even hatred yet we also witness love, responsibility, and nobility of purpose. Adultery, the plague, squalor, and merriment at alehouses are all part of the seventeenth-century intercontinental tale along with the sweet duality of the verdant New Forest.
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Bridget's Review
Rating (5)
Date: 2010-01-31
THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a legendary classic. If you are like me, you can't help but wonder what happens to the characters after such an incredible first novel. ANGEL AND APOSTLE tells the story of Pearl who had to endure a lot of humiliation because of her status as a bastard child. Pearl grows up and marries her close friend Simon's brother. Simon is blind but he is the only one that is able to fully understand who Pearl is and loves her unconditionally. Pearl knows that there is more to life than black and white, sometimes in order to live life to the fullest, you have to think in shades of gray.
Deborah is a writing genius whose knack for writing becomes apparent in the first few pages. It's pretty hard to live up to the standards when writing a sequel to a timeless romance novel but Noyes carried through with shining colors!
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"The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman... lofty, pure... beautiful and wise."
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-11-13
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
With the story of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter serving as her inspiration, Deborah Noyes recreates the life of Pearl, the "elf-child" of Hester Prynne and a father Hester has refused to identify. Meticulously reproducing the cadence and speech of the period (and of Hawthorne's novel), Noyes imbues her debut novel with energy and literary weight, continuing Pearl's story while remaining faithful to the original. Her inclusion of period detail and recreation of the religious beliefs and practices of the period give additional credence to her story, and the character of Pearl is free-spirited enough to strike a chord with modern readers.
Focusing on Pearl, not Hester Prynne, who plays only a marginal role here, Noyes reminds the reader in the first third of the novel of some of the key events from The Scarlet Letter. Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale is not mentioned by name here, though he is referred to as "Arthur" once early in the novel, and Roger Chillingworth, Hester's missing husband in The Scarlet Letter, becomes Dr. Daniel Devlin here, still Evil and trying to ingratiate himself with Pearl.
Noyes does more than simply update the Hawthorne story, however. Pearl, a free spirited child in a very repressed society, develops a strong relationship with Simon Milton, a blind boy a few years older, who delights in her company and in her desire to give him a more normal life as she explores the world with him. Pearl's irresponsibility on one occasion, however, eventually causes a rift, both with Simon and with his older brother Nehemiah, who has entrusted Simon to Pearl. The lives of Hester and Pearl change significantly when they accept passage on one of the Miltons' ships to England, where they remain till Pearl reaches adulthood and marries.
Investigating what constitutes a good life and dealing with the subjects of life and death, and salvation and sin, the novel explores universal themes within the colonial setting, but its focus on the passion of love and its aftermath give it a modern context. When Pearl begins to relive her mother's life within her own, the themes begun in Hawthorne's novel come full circle. Noyes's pacing and her exploration of behavior as a series of good acts vs. acts inspired by the Devil are consistent with Hawthorne. Lovers of literary novels will admire Noyes's careful reconstruction of a period and its beliefs, her care in reproducing the language and style of the period, and her development of the character of Pearl, a free spirit who grows up in a repressive theocracy. n Mary Whipple
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