Twain's End

Starred review from August 3, 2015
The extraordinary relationship between the popular, complicated author Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, and his longtime secretary Isabel Lyon is wonderfully reimagined in this absorbing novel. Cullen (Mrs. Poe) depicts an immensely talented and virile, yet crude, hot-tempered, self-centered late-in-life Samuel, whose own children fear him and who remains tormented by his childhood with slave-owning parents—sordid realities that lie beneath the famous wit. Raised wealthy, Isabel must work after her father dies; she becomes social secretary to Livy Clemens, Samuel’s seriously ill wife, but in reality, she works for Samuel. Isabel is devoted, scheduling appearances, managing employees, paying bills and becoming the confidante to an aging, increasingly troubled, regretful man: “I kill the people I love with words,” he confides to Isabel. An intimacy develops, yet certain lines are not crossed. Messy romantic entanglements involving Samuel’s daughter Clara and her lover, Samuel’s business manager and Isabel, and even a visiting Helen Keller and her teacher’s husband make Samuel enraged and distrustful. Isabel and Samuel’s memorabilia are the basis of Cullen’s fascinating interpretation of this early 20th-century literary immortal, distinguished by incisive character portrayals and no-holds-barred scrutiny.

August 1, 2015
Mark Twain's dark side. Historical novelist Cullen (Mrs. Poe, 2013, etc.) returns to the plot of her last novel, which imagined the relationship between Edgar Allan Poe, married and a literary star, and Frances Osgood, a young poet who worshiped him. Now, she focuses on Twain, the most famous writer in 19th-century America, and his young assistant, Isabel Lyon, who meets him when she is 25, works for him for 7 years, and falls passionately in love with him. He calls her Lioness; she calls him King. After the sickly Livy Clemens dies, Isabel becomes Twain's hostess, yearning to fulfill "wifely duties" beyond cuddling, fondling, and kissing. She hopes to marry him, but although the man Sam Clemens lusts after her-as he did many other women-the famous author Mark Twain believes marrying her would ruin his reputation. Cullen portrays the author as a Jekyll-and-Hyde character: Twain, the warm and charming humorist, beloved by his fans; Clemens, an egotistical, possessive, tyrannical bully, humiliating his wife, brutalizing his daughters, despised by those closest to him. "Everyone I love best suffers," he confesses to Isabel. "He loathes himself," Livy explains, "and everyone's adulation only makes him loathe himself more." Yet despite the repeated acts of cruelty that she witnesses, Isabel, astoundingly, never wavers in her adoration-not even when he lashes out at her after she finally marries his business manager, damning her as "a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut." Because Cullen succeeds in portraying Clemens as so unsympathetic, Isabel's devotion becomes a problem for the novel. She comes across as star-struck, so dazzled by his attentions that she rationalizes all his execrable behavior. A more nuanced character would have strengthened this sad story of futile, desperate love.

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September 15, 2015
Cullen (Mrs. Poe, 2013) draws heavily on diary entries and other sources for her novel about the six-year relationship between Samuel ClemensMark Twainand his secretary, Isabel Lyon. Isabel is 39 when she is hired in 1902 to help the most famous man in the world write his autobiography. She quickly finds herself caught up in the complicated dynamic between the charismatic, mercurial Clemens; his invalid wife; and his daughters, Jean, who is epileptic, and Clara, who is straining against her father's strict control. Isabel, in love with Clemens, becomes indispensable, especially after his wife dies. She manages his household, arranges his activities, reads his works-in-progress, and oversees the construction and furnishing of his new house, Stormfieldalmost, but not quite, a wife. She marries Clemens' business partner instead, and Clemens turns on her. Compelling storytelling can sometimes take a backseat to fact in fictionalized biography, and Cullen doesn't entirely avoid this trap. Still, she does a fine job of bringing to life for the reader the complexities of Clemens' private life. A good read-alike for Susan Vreeland's Clara and Mr. Tiffany (2011).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)