Matrix (2021) by Lauren Groff

American author Lauren Groff

Book Review

Matrix (2021)

by Lauren Groff

  I loved, loved, loved this new novel by American author Lauren Groff, which is nominated for the National Book Award this year.   I liked Florida (2018) and Fates & Furies (2015) and I was excited for her new book even before I learned it was the reimagining of the life of a nun during the pre-Black Death Middle Ages.  Her protagonist, Marie de France, is the bastard child of a French noblewoman (a rape at the hands of an English royal during hostilities in France.)  After her beloved Mother expires, Marie spends three years undetected pretending that her Mother is still alive.  Discovered, she is packed off to England "Angle Terre" to revive a decrepit Nunnery in the English country-side. 

   While it isn't exactly a cheery place, the Middle Ages before the upheaval of the Black Death was relatively stable. Groff seems well versed on recent development in scholarship on this period of history, because Marie's nunnery doesn't seem like a such a bad place to land, especially after Marie starts taking care of business.  Also, at 220 pages, Matrix isn't a slog- it's actually quite unlike a normal work of historical fiction, where the author seems set on making darn sure that the reader knows how much the author knows about the period.   Can a television version a la The Favourite or Catherine the Great on Hulu.