As a portrait of a marriage, it鈥檚 bizarre. I鈥檓 talking about the John Singer Sargent painted in 1885 of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Louis, whose first novel, Treasure Island, had been published two years earlier, is captured pacing in a darkened room. Tall and thin, Louis looks every inch like an "insane stork," which is how fellow writer Henry Adams described him. Louis stares out beyond the confines of the portrait at us, the viewers, as if to share an idea he鈥檚 just had.
Fanny sits barefoot on a chair at the opposite end of the room, all but shrouded, like a piece of furniture, in a golden Indian sari. No fool, Fanny recognized Sargent鈥檚 depiction as yet another attempt by an admirer of her husband鈥檚 to diminish her. 鈥淚 am but a cipher under the shadow,鈥� she complained to Sargent.
Camille Peri鈥檚 lively and substantive dual biography of the Stevensons, called A Wilder Shore, whisks those obscuring draperies off Fanny and restores her to full personhood. But, Peri aims for something even more ambitious than a feminist recovery of a mostly forgotten wife of a famous writer. In her 鈥淚ntroduction,鈥� Peri describes her book as: 鈥渁n intimate window into how [the Stevensons] lived and loved 鈥� a story that is at once a travel adventure, a journey into the literary creative process, and, I hope, an inspiration for anyone seeking a freer, more unconventional life.鈥�
鈥淚nspiration鈥� is something of a quaint term these days in lit crit circles and, yet, it鈥檚 always been an abiding draw of biographies. Speaking for myself, after reading A Wilder Shore, I鈥檓 inspired to do two things: I want to reread Robert Louis Stevenson鈥檚 three great works of fiction: Treasure Island, Kidnapped and . And, I want to schedule a s茅ance with Fanny to get some one-on-one instruction on how to live more fearlessly as a woman.
Peri opens A Wilder Shore with a scene that could have been written by Louis but, instead, was lived by Fanny: In the summer of 1875, she and her three children and their governess rushed aboard a train in San Francisco to cross the country and catch a ship in New York harbor that would carry them to Belgium.
This was no pleasure trip: To reach their destination the little band rode a wagon through floodwaters, but Fanny was desperate to escape her humiliating marriage to a prospector who lived openly with his mistress. With the little money she鈥檇 earned by sewing, Fanny planned to enroll herself and her teenaged daughter in art school.
Hurtling into the unknown put the 36-year-old, still-married mother of three in the orbit of Robert Louis Stevenson 鈥� a sickly Scottish writer who was 10 years her junior. It was love at first sight, at least for Louis. Peri says that:
Peri details how the bohemian relationship that evolved between Fanny and Louis included other such gender role reversals: The frail 鈥淟ouis was what the Scots call a 鈥渉andless鈥� man,鈥� she writes. During the couple鈥檚 honeymoon spent squatting in an abandoned silver mine in California, it was Fanny who 鈥渙ut of scraps of wood and packing crates ... nailed together furniture.鈥� Of course, the Stevensons鈥� union caused dismay among Louis鈥� friends who disparaged Fanny for her age, her American-ness, her short hair and cigarette smoking, and, most virulently, her olive skin.
As convincing as she is about the progressive relationship between the Stevensons, Peri is also clear-eyed about the fact that Fanny still got the somewhat shorter end of the stick. While Louis respected Fanny as his best critic, he also assumed she would handle the mundane household routine and provide nursing care.
Louis鈥� undiagnosed illness 鈥� he chronically coughed up blood 鈥� did have the 鈥渦pside鈥� of broadening the couple鈥檚 life through travel in search of a healthier climate. They spent their final years together before Louis鈥� death in 1894 at the age of 44, in Samoa. Fanny lived on for 20 more years, writing, traveling and attracting male prot茅g茅s. No doubt her contemporaries derided her for that, too; but, thanks to Peri鈥檚 vivid biography, Fanny has the last fearless laugh.
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