The Secret Chord

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. An acclaimed historical novelist gives us yet another beautifully told story drawn from history and legend, this one based around the Biblical figure of King David. She grounds and humanizes the myth in vividly imagined portraits of the people who surrounded David, making her central character the prophet Natan. As Natan strives to understand and reconcile his own perceptions and memories of David's conflicted nature, other voices also come to life, most memorably the women whose lives were touched and sometimes broken by David's powerful divine mission. As these fell away in the latter part of the book, I found that it lost focus somewhat, but I was still absorbed in the rich, complex portrayal of a man with a destiny that was sometimes greater than he could bear.

Told from the prophet Nathan's point of view, David doesn't come off looking so good. But it was a well-written, interesting way of seeing King David and Soloman from a different perspective.

I raced through this novel in record time, which is pretty funny considering I knew exactly what was going to happen throughout its 300 pages! That's a testimony to Geraldine Brooks' storytelling and writing ability. Everything I learned in religious school is here, but it seems new, compelling and relatable. As Natan says early in the novel, he wants to set down the story of David as a man, not just a historical figure, and boy does he succeed. David was a brilliant strategist, dynamic leader and skilled musician but he was also violent, sexually abusive, blind to his faults and those of his sons. He used whatever means necessary to unite the Israelites and suffered the consequences by losing many of his loved ones and not being allowed to build the temple he dreamed of. Somehow Brooks makes it seem realistically Biblical but also at the same time strangely modern. Bravo.