BEHELD

TaraShea Nesbit is the author of The Wives of Los Alamos, which was a national bestseller, a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, among other accolades. She is an assistant professor at Miami University and lives in Oxford, Ohio, with her family.

Most Anticipated Books of 2020 – Vogue, Medium, LitHub

“In a gripping retelling of the Plymouth colony’s first murder, we finally hear the voices of women–and they speak an unvarnished truth that turns history on its pointy-hatted head. Truly a riveting read.” – Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand and The Summer Before the War

“TaraShea Nesbit’s puritans are passionate and vengeful and entrancing. Part mystery, part love story, beautifully told and meticulously researched, Beheld reanimates and complicates the mythologies of America’s earliest settlers. I was sad when it ended.” – Anton DiSclafani, author of The Yonahlosee Riding Camp for Girls

“Beheld breathes fresh life into a world grown still and murky beneath the scrim of legend–rife with intrigue, fractured by difference, marked by violence, and full of haunting images. With gorgeous, period-inflected prose, Nesbit takes us back to the earliest days of New England to look through the eyes and over the shoulders of historical characters both remembered and not. I read it at a gallop. What a marvel this novel is.” – Laird Hunt, author of In the House in the Dark of the Woods

“Nesbit . . . cleverly recasts pilgrim history in this deeply enjoyable novel . . . Capturing the alternating voices of the haves (the Bradfords, Newcomen) and the have-nots (the Billingtons), Nesbit’s lush prose adds texture to stories of the colony’s women, and her deep immersion in primary sources adds complexity to the historical record.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review

“. . . the novel is a gripping read propelled by vibrant characterization, and an engrossing take on the Plymouth colony and America’s first murder.” – Historical Novel Society

“Restoring women’s voices, primarily through Alice and Eleanor, adds a new and welcome dimension to our history, made more vivid by solid research and clear, concise prose. In Nesbit’s hands, history once again comes alive.” – Booklist

“Nesbit brilliantly captures the wrath between the classes and the irony of coming to a country in pursuit of religious freedom only to have the sanctimonious Puritans circumscribe the rights of the Anglicans.” – Publishers Weekly

“Nesbit’s novel has all the juicy sex, lies, and violence of a prestige Netflix drama and shines surprising light on the earliest years of America, massive warts and all. A dramatic look at the Pilgrims as seen through women’s eyes.” – Kirkus Reviews

“. . . get ready for what the ladies of Plymouth have to say.” – Paperback Paris

1. In the first pages of the novel, Alice Bradford is anticipating the arrival of a ship. The passage is also full of foreshadowing. “Everything,” says Alice, “could have been a sign of what was to come” (6). How does foreshadowing work in the book? What expectations did you have as you read? What aspects of the story were still unexpected?

2. Both John and Eleanor Billington regularly refer to the puritans of Plymouth as “hypocrites.” What behaviors do the Billingtons see as hypocritical? Do you agree with their assessment?

3. The novel is written in sections from the perspectives of different characters—primarily Alice Bradford, John Billington, Eleanor Billington, and John Newcomen. (The exceptions are discussed in Question 6.) The men’s sections are narrated in the third person; the women speak themselves. What is the effect of having these different perspectives and different voices? Were there voices you trusted more than others? Do the characters ever differ on the facts, or is it only their interpretations that differ?

4. There are a few sections from other perspectives as well—the sections headed “Meanwhile” (139), “Nature” (173), “The Diary of John Winthrop” (230), and “Dorothy” (221 and 234). What purpose do these other sections serve?

5. Alice and Dorothy are very close as girls—“sisters,” Dorothy says after they share the blood from their scraped knees (111). But over time, Alice feels them growing apart. To what do you attribute the changes in their friendship? Do you feel either woman is to blame? Or is the distance brought on by certain cultural expectations at the time for how women and girls should behave?

6. Throughout the book, much goes unspoken about Dorothy’s death. How is our understanding of her death complicated through the course of the novel? How do you make sense of it in the end?

7. The conflict that leads to disaster in the novel is over a parcel of land. What is the significance of land for the colonists? What does it represent specifically for John Billington?

8. Although the murder in the colony is a first, death is very common in these characters’ lives, especially the death of infants and children. Religion—Anglican or puritan—is also important to their lives, and there is much discussion of God’s tests, signs, and punishments. How do grief and faith shape these people? Do you see differences in the characters’ personal relationships to God and religion?

9. Part Three expands the novel’s timeframe considerably. What is the effect of these leaps in time? How do you feel about Alice and Eleanor’s fates?

10. “If ever I beheld love, John, there was thee.” These are the last words we hear from Dorothy (236). What do you make of this statement? And how do you interpret the title of the book? Who or what in the story is beheld—or beholden?

11. The arrival of the Mayflower and founding of Plymouth Colony are familiar events in American history. Are there things you had learned—or assumed—about Plymouth and the puritans that the novel made you reconsider?

12. Prior to reading the book, what did you know about the interactions between the puritansand the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, particularly the members of the Wampanoag Nation? Was there anything that surprised you upon reading the novel?

13. The Author’s Note in the back tells us about the research the author did to write this novel, as well as that several aspects of the novel were fabricated. What do you think the relationship should be in a historical novel between what can be verified and what an author imagines, particularly when much of the history of women, children, and people of color has been suppressed, ignored, or cannot—due to a lack of written records, for instance—be verified?

14. How might the themes and stories of the book be relevant to our present moment?

Recommended Reading

Fiction: The Wives of Los Alamos, TaraShea Nesbit; Women Talking, Miriam Toews; Counternarratives, John Keene; I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem, Maryse Condé; A Mercy, Toni Morrison

Multi-genre: Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England, edited by Siobhan Senier

Poetry: WHEREAS, Layli Long Soldier; Mother/Land, Cheryl Savageau

Nonfiction: This Land Is Their Land, David Silverman; Our Beloved Kin, Lisa Brooks; Dissenting Bodies: Corporealities in Early New England, Martha Finch; The History of White People, Nell Irvin Painter; White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Nancy Isenberg