Fifty-Fifty Split

Misfortune, Wesley Stace. This is a novel about a boy raised as a girl, in an English estate, in the 19th century.  The author is more famous as John Wesley Harding, the relatively successful folk-rock singer. (I'm going to say his biggest hit is "I'm Wrong about Everything," from the High Fidelity soundtrack.) Misfortune is a weird hybrid: in the readers' guide, Stace says that he set out to write a modern novel, set in the 19th century, rather than a Victorian pastiche. I would argue that he ended up splitting the difference: while he mostly uses 21st century language and structures, the complicated, coincidence-dependent plot strikes me as very 19th century. It doesn't matter, though. The novel is compelling -- the plot moves, it's intermittently very funny, and the psychology is absolutely convincing. -- Peter