One of the more appealing aspects of Jenny Davidson's upcoming YA alt history novel, The Explosionist, is the way her earth is so close to the spirit world. (A formal review of that one will follow in my June column.) Seances are not uncommon, speaking with the dead is not unheard of and mediums are fairly common (and accepted). America has a rich history of spiritualism and most of it begins with the Fox sisters. I first heard about Margaret Fox because the great love of her life was the great polar explorer Elisha Kent Kane, a man who truly was famous in his own time. The Fox sisters were the ones who claimed to hear "spirit knocking", mysterious knocking or popping noises from the dead in response to questions. They later admitted (a long time later) that they produced the popping sounds by cracking the knuckles in their toes. They reigned supreme in the spiritualism era of the mid 19th century and had a massive following. Maggie's relationship with Elisha Kane just added to her allure.

I reviewed an excellent biography of Margaret Fox a year ago. Here's a bit from my piece about Nancy Rubin Stuart's The Reluctant Spiritualist:

And as Nancy Rubin Stuart shows in her biography, The Reluctant Spiritualist, Maggie Fox was a beautiful woman, and Americans are always more than happy to believe what a pretty face tells them.

It's hard to believe how quickly and completely Kane and Fox could be forgotten and how easily their lives could disappear into historical obscurity.

Maggie's story is ultimately a tragedy, aided in no small part by the fact that she fell in love with a man who could not (or more honestly would not) publicly admit his feelings for her. Kane did try to save her but in a very Pygmalion kind of way and it just didn't work. Plus the payoff was never going to be that he married her and brought her into his world. The combination of being an acclaimed fraud (who could not handle the guilt of her lies and came clean about to great scorn) and never being acknowledged by the love of her life (or being allowed to even mourn the love of her life) was clearly soul crushing.

Margaret Fox's life is fascinating stuff and The Reluctant Spiritualist is one riveting story. When I first read it I was only interested in her as an ancillary to Kane's life but in the end I was more impressed with her than Kane, for all his professional accomplishments. She honestly loved him and deserves some credit for that; it's too bad he couldn't love her enough.

[Post pic of Margaret Fox]

Other Wicked Cool Overlooked Books:

Little Willow takes a look at the Zibby Payne series over at Bildungsroman: "In the spunky, stubborn Zibby Payne, author Alison Bell has created an outstanding character who sticks to her guns and trusts her instincts. Were they contemporaries, Ramona Quimby and Zibby Payne would be friends. Zibby is extremely loyal and very aware of the power of words. She's unafraid to say how she feels, and she also apologizes if she gets too loud or overworked about something. Young readers will learn some important lessons from her, including three very big ones: you don't have to change for others to like you; be proud of who you are; and sometimes, you just gotta go for it! I highly recommend this series for kids in elementary school and just beginning middle school."

At Finding Wonderland TadMack answered my recent call for YA mysteries by highlighting James Moloney's Black Taxi: "Sometimes I'm not in the mood for the hard work of figuring out whodunnit and can't deal with the high level of anxiety created in psychological thrillers. It's then that I turn to my favorite frothy mystery, Black Taxi, by Australian author James Moloney, which uses both elements of suspense and mystery with a little comedy on the side."