Bonjour les lecteurs! (Hello Readers!)
Today we are discussing the works of author Holly Tucker, Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France, Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, and City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris.
Let me introduce the author, Holly Tucker, before delving into her works. Holly Tucker is a professor at Vanderbilt University, in their Department of French and Italian; she is also in their Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society. Her book Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and a Best Book of the Times Literary Supplement and Seattle Times. Her main residence is in Nashville, TN, but she can oft be found in Aix-en-Provence, France.
As a history major and science nerd I cannot fully express just how marvelous I found these books to be. They read like novels, and yet are filled to the brim with history and science. I was lucky enough to have gotten a copy of City of Light as an ARC through Litsy and promptly spent the weekend I got it reading, after re-reading her first two books. It is not often that I fangirl and stalk authors only to be given the chance at an ARC, but I was thrilled to have gotten this one. My husband, who is 100% math and chemistry, even found Blood Work to be fascinating.
As a student of history, particularly medieval history, Tucker's first work "Pregnant Fictions" came to me by accident. I was searching for paper resources and grabbed everything with the term Medieval in it. While it was sadly of no use to me for my paper at the time I did appreciate the break it provided from my research, and the societal background it gave me on Medieval France. Here, Tucker makes the argument that "fairy-tale writers experimented with alternative ways of understanding pregnancy." While this seems far flung to many in the medical profession, it makes sense that women who were uneducated in biology would use what knowledge they had at their disposal to make sense of their surroundings.
In Tucker's second book, which was read purely out of curiosity, she goes on to describe the mildly baffling world of blood transfusions at the height of their invention. This book will make you nauseous if you are squeamish around blood. Yet the story she weaves is an entertaining way to learn about the murder of Parisian madmen, via a blood infusion of CALF BLOOD, by Dr. Jean Denis. This was also an interesting read from a legalistic point of view; was what Dr. Denis did actually murder? Was it an experiment gone awry? It serves to remember that medical advancements have only ever come about through experimentation, often brutal and gruesome, often on the clinically insane or poor. Tucker manages to present a clear and direct argument, combing the history and mystery of France at the time.
Her most recent book, City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris is the book I received an ARC of, which only served to save my book budget a few dollars because this would have come home with me no matter what. Her tale of Nicolas de La Reynie sweeps you up and spins you around Paris, making you feel as though you are following him in the labyrinthesque streets of the city itself. City of Light gives you this haunting history of Paris that almost seems impossible. As a city known for glamour and prestige, particularly during the reign of Louis XIV, Tucker illuminates Paris's secrets like no other. With every lamp hung, and corner turned, La Reynie and Tucker lead you further and further into the depths of Paris's dark heart.
Reading Holly Tucker's works have truly been a pleasure, and I will greedily lap up whatever she produces next. Her gift for blending the reality of history with the prose of her passion makes each book better than the last. Putting them down is hard.
Jusqu'à la prochaine fois,
XoXo
BrainyHeroine
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