Featured Reading Guide
Clare Clark
It is 1704 and, in the swamps of Louisiana, France is clinging on to its new colony with less than two hundred men. Into this hostile land comes Elisabeth Savaret, one of twenty-three women sent from Paris to marry men they have never met. With little expectation of happiness, Elisabeth is stunned to find herself falling passionately in love with her husband, infrantryman Jean-Claude Babelon.
But Babelon is a dangerous man to love. Witness to Elisabeth’s devotion is another of his acolytes, Auguste, a young boy despatched to act as a go-between with the ‘redskins’. When both Elisabeth and Auguste…
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Clare Clark is the author of two highly acclaimed historical novels: The Great Stink (longlisted for the Orange Prize) and The Nature of Monsters . Born in 1967, she graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with a double first in History, and now lives in London with her husband and two children.
topAbout the Book
It is 1704 and, in the swamps of Louisiana, France is clinging on to its new colony with less than two hundred men. Into this hostile land comes Elisabeth Savaret, one of twenty-three women sent from Paris to marry men they have never met. With little expectation of happiness, Elisabeth is stunned to find herself falling passionately in love with her husband, infrantryman Jean-Claude Babelon.
But Babelon is a dangerous man to love. Witness to Elisabeth’s devotion is another of his acolytes, Auguste, a young boy despatched to act as a go-between with the ‘redskins’. When both Elisabeth and Auguste find their love challenged by Babelon’s duplicity, the consequences are devastating.
topClare Clark interview/review
Reception & Reviews:
‘Richly and densely textured, serious, intelligent, passionately written, and with more than a hint of gothic’
The Sunday Times
‘Clark writes vivid, vigorous prose… A writer of promise’
Literary Review
‘Intricately plotted and thick with intrigue, Savage Lands gives us an insight into an overlooked era’
TLS
‘The book is vivid with historical details, the characters intense with drama and feeling… A story to lose yourself in, an intense and satisfying read’
The Times
Starting Points for Discussion
- The misuse of power is demonstrated repeatedly throughout the novel – is anyone innocent of this type of manipulation?
- Consider the governor and soldiers’ misuse of power, the power of fear, the power of love and marriage and the power of omission.
- Auguste’s relationship with Babelon is complex from the start – do you think Auguste’s actions leading to Babelon’s death can be justified? If he didn’t care for Elisabeth would the same result have occurred?
- Everything in the New World is available to trade – treasures from France, insults, wives, slaves – is anyone free in this money-obsessed society?
- Many young women lose babies in the settlement and the crops fail – yet the native women are described as sensual, desirable objects. Can this be read as a symbol of the colonial enterprise?
- Elisabeth carries her copies of Montaigne with her across the ocean – and names her baby Michel. Do his books turn out to be a useful thing to carry across, despite Elizabeth’s mothers frustration? Consider how the French re-learn how to live in the swamps of Louisiana.
- Betrayal and treachery run through the novel like blood through veins – French vs English, husband vs wife, European vs native, friend vs friend – can anyone be considered above this behaviour?
- ‘Who knew what kind of a savage he himself might become among the savages?’ (page 298) – the fear of intermarriage, friendship and bastard children between the French and the natives is found throughout the novel. Is it exposure to the natives that ruins the settlement, or the Europeans inability to react to their new situation and surroundings?
- At the start of the novel, Babelon repeatedly compares Elisabeth and Auguste. Would both of their fortunes in the New World have been better if they had never met Babelon?
Other Books by Clare Clark
Savage Lands
Louisiana, 1704, and France is clinging on to a swampy corner of the New World…