Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

Will review at www.fantasyliterature.com.

I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to read this book. Easily, a month. So long that I had to hand in one copy from one library and borrow another copy in order to finish. I just kept putting it down and not picking it back up. Clearly, it was boring me. I should have been more on board! It's historical, it's got a sort-of fantasy element, it's just so damned...repetitive. I suspect now that I could have skipped some chapters and not missed a bit of action (I have never skipped chapters and I don't skim).
What I will take from this is the Monty Python-esque scenes of the parade of doctors, clergyman, and apprentices marching through the village to attend to the births and the idea that people with a great deal of money grow bored and will pay large amounts of money to witness horrible things.
Other than that, I'm just glad I finally finished the story.

Palmer's third novel confirms that the author likely intends to show some range throughout his bibliography. Each of his novels is wildly different from the next, and I personally love and respect that. In the same way that a writer such as Kazuo Ishiguro can pen half a dozen novels that resemble one another only in their themes of identity and acceptance, Palmer addresses the power of belief, the wonder of magic, and the role technology plays; and he does this whether he's penning a steampunk-influenced retelling of Shakespeare, or a physics-laden exploration of time travel. This time, Palmer steers the reader into the lane of historical fiction.

Have you heard of Mary Toft, the woman who gave birth to rabbits? I hadn't, but I could already tell you how this story would end. And it amazes me that the experts spent so much time looking for an explanation when the answer was so obvious. Dexter Palmer does an amazing job of shaping these characters in a way that makes their assumptions believable. In hindsight, it's maybe too easy to say, “well, duh,” but after reading this novel, whether it accurately depicts the doctors' true opinions and feelings at the time or not, I can see a different perspective.

Palmer's larger points about humanity's need to believe were spot on, though they may have dominated the story at times. Even with these asides, Mary Toft is strangely riveting. That said, Mary Toft has several horrific moments, a few which are revolting enough to distance some readers. Readers weary of seeing the worst in people may want avoid this one.