Literary Bex

Pieces of Eight by Joshua Blair Delaney

Finished 1.7.12

If you have any interest in Colonial America, Cape Cod, pirates, Colonial witch trials, historical fiction, local legends, romance, American Indians, the hypocrisy of man, finding your place in the world, or the pilgrim church have I got a book for you.

Pieces of Eight was written by a Cape Cod local man who grew up knowing the legend of Sam Bellamy, Maria Hallett and the pirate ship Whydah.  In his novel Delaney gives us his romanticized (and highly researched) version of this old tale.  He shares with us a legend worthy of Knickerbocker, only better because this story is true… to a degree… a large degree.

Delaney’s novel is slow to start.  He introduces the reader to his three main characters and the landscape of Colonial Eastham in Massachusetts Colony.  We get to know how seriously the Church was taken; how the Reverend’s word was nearly the Word of God; how easily corporal punishment was doled out for seemingly ridiculous things (like missing the Sabbath Meeting or talking back to an Englishman); and we get to see how society hasn’t changed much – gossiping neighbors, hiding the truth to avoid ostracism, the likening of women to cattle…  But once the introductions are done and we have a basic understanding of the characters and the times, the story becomes quite captivating.

(Soap Opera-like, if I may say so.)

While the plot is very character driven – it is the decisions made by the characters that create the drama and the tension and the consequent actions – I’d like to mention the format of the book before I discuss the characters.  I found the format very refreshing.  Lately many people have been talking about recently popular novels such as The Hunger Games and how well written they are and how it’s such a relief to read after reading Twilight… but the one only real complaint about The Hunger Games is the linear structure of the novel, it’s a little boring.  Pieces of Eight has a partial-linear structure that makes the novel a touch more exciting than it would be had Delaney just told the story straight through, interweaving Maria, Julian and Bellamy’s stories in chronological order.

Each character has a section dedicated to their individual story.  Each character bobs in and out of the other sections and the others’ stories fill in the gaps and answers questions left in the previous sections.  Delaney introduces us to our heroes on the day the giant squid washes up on shore (and Bellamy) and takes us forward from there.  When he’s reached a critical point in one character’s story, about two years after the start, he ends the section and takes us back to that fateful day after the storm and begins again.  Delaney graciously gives the reader approximate and specific dates, months and years for easy reference between the sections.  The inherent not-knowing in the early segments increases the drama and keeps the reader fascinated, wanting to know more, wanting to know what happened and why they happened.

The characters, major and minor alike, are all very interesting and well-rounded, believable characters.  The tense dynamic between the English villagers and everyone else who deviates from their proscribed way of life is well represented.  Maria is ostracized because of her “psychic” dreams, Julian is stuck in the pillory because of his reluctance to accept the White Man’s god, and people are wary of Bellamy because he is a stranger who doesn’t hold to the ideals of the Pilgrim Church.   What these characters have in common, along with Palsgrave Williams, Mittawa and the Widow Chase, is that they are all searching for a place where they belong.  Maria discovers after her father’s death that Eastham is not the place where she can truly be happy, her attempt to grieve and blossom as an individual is squashed by her peers and the town elders; Bellamy initially leaves England because he literally has no physical place to call home, his family were farmers on rented land before he took to the sea; and Julian hasn’t felt at home since his people allowed the English to settle on their land and adopted the Englishmen’s way of life.  Their stories are quests for home and acceptance and the freedom and struggle to be ones true self.

Through Pieces of Eight Delaney explores the many injustices laid on people in that time.  Anyone who wasn’t a white, English man with money and in good standing in the community then a person didn’t have much value.  Before Maria makes waves for herself, she is seen simply as a pretty girl who will work hard on the farm and bear pretty babies.  Women were expected to obey the menfolk, and be pious and virtuous.  This one sided system kept the women meek and submissive, but left the men open to other sins.  Crimes against women going unaccounted for and unnoticed because the men were merely attempting to keep their woman “in line” or beating “the devil” out of her.  It is more the Widow Chase and Maria’s “backtalk” that gets them in trouble than anything else.  When Widow Chase has beaten Elder Knowles in a corner he cowardly falls back on the accusation of witchcraft to keep his own sins under wraps.  His reputation, pride and standing in the community keeps him pointing the finger at the women, all the while forgetting the adage “Pride goeth before the fall.”

As for the men, the Englishmen never considered the native people of the America’s to be little more than ignorant savages who were beneath the Europeans.  A group who could condone kidnapping people from their home country, transporting them to another place and enslaving them for their own profit wouldn’t think that the people they’re attempting to control could have a mind of their own.  Julian’s resistance against the English settlers is never once seen by them as resistance but defiance and devilry working against the good Christian community.  That Julian could be feeling ill treated or that he and his people have been misused by the English never crosses their minds.  It is more pride and arrogance on the part of the privileged Englishmen who left England to escape this sort of treatment in the first place.

Sam Bellamy has been searching the majority of his life for a place where he belongs, a place that can truly be his, whether that means a physical location or a feeling, he does not know.  All he knows is that there are men in the world who feel they can control everything around them and that it isn’t right.  He’s known since an early age that these men are dangerous and do not care about the people who support their luxurious lives.  Bellamy is determined not to be ruled by these types of men.  Unfortunately, like all tragic heroes, Bellamy learns that one way of doing this is become the top dog yourself.  He discovers that all men are prone to developing inflated egos and feel they are entitled to certain amounts of goods and services over others.

Pieces of Eight is an intense and dramatic book that has had me riveted for days.  In my mind I have been picturing every scene from every colonial period film (except for The Scarlet Letter with Demi Moore), and the beaches of Cape Cod (which if you do not know, I strongly suggest you do), and the rolling ocean that I lived by all last fall and many summers past.  I have had very few reservations about this book.  The writing is very good.  There are very few jarring moments, a couple of repeated lines that seem unnecessary, even though it is acknowledged and one time when Maria utters the line “It is okay”.  I don’t know that the etymology of “OK” goes back quite that far.  The earliest documented account of OK as a general expression of “all good” is 1790, but that doesn’t mean it was not a colloquialism in 1715 Massachusetts.  But these little things matter little, really.  The writing and the story is so good that I found I was sucked right in and could hardly bear to put the volume down (I even took the book with me to run errands even though I didn’t read a word the entire time we were out).  Pieces of Eight is absolutely worth reading.

Recommend: Highly.  I also recommend that you keep your eyes open next summer when Delaney’s next book in the Cape Cod Legend Series is due to come out.