Jessie Burton

Picador, $29.99

Review by Daphne Guinness

Expectations for this literary novel are high. After a seven-figure advance and publishing deals in 30 countries Jessie Burton with her debut novel The Miniaturist has become this season’s industry excitement. In her words, “there’s a sodomy trial, a hidden love, a miniaturist who predicts the fate of her customers, a parakeet called Peebo and a plan to escape to the sea”.

There’s more than that, of course, much more. In 17th century Amsterdam, 18-year-old country girl Nella Oortmann is married off to the rich and charismatic merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but when she arrives at his grand house in the Dutch capital’s wealthiest quarter she is met not by her new husband but by his sister the acid-tongued Marina.

So it was trouble from the start. Worse, hubby treats her politely but without the passion you’d expect a lusty 39-year-old would have for his beautiful, virgin child bride. (If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, stop it at once. This is no way to fast forward the plot, give the author credit. She knows what she’s doing.)

She ignores the shifty Johannes for a bit and instead has him giving Nella a wedding present of a magnificent replica of his house in miniature with instructions to decorate it as she sees fit. In other words, to keep her from agitating about his long absences travelling and a reluctance to inhabit her bed.

Burton is good at tension and to help her there are other characters who harbour guilty secrets. Otto the black manservant, Cornelia the clingy maid, Jack  the deceitful runner, the bitter and twisted Marina collectively give Nella a hard time as she receives from a mysterious miniaturist parcels of tiny objects: furniture, people, dogs exactly matching their real-life counterparts in creepy ways. But where did the information come from? How did they know? Is there a spy in the camp? Nella decides to find out for herself. Which leads to some shivery descriptions of dark passages and sinister buildings that make you glad you’re not packing your bags for a clandestine trip to Amsterdam.

Central to the plot is sugar, a luxury commodity of the time, and Johannes and his fractious family face ruin if he does not sell a pile owned by a past friend, Frans, and his shady wife Agnes. Worse than ruin, actually, as the narrative unfolds. Burton’s imagination works overtime with whispered conversations behind forbidden doors, sexual behaviour of a provocative nature, snobbery in spades and the unspeakable racist attitudes prevalent in 1686.

The writing is gripping, at times mesmerising. Her visceral take on a birthing scene is better, if that’s the right word, than anything seen on television. The screaming flies off the page. A stabbing scene is gruesome, giving this reader a bad night’s sleep. The killing of a dog results in a prolonged nightmare.

The novel was inspired by a doll’s house in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum that took 19 years to build and cost thousands of gilders, making Burton ponder why such extravagance, what were the people like who lived in the real house, and why so much adversity?

Now we know, and the movie is doubtless in the pipeline. But the ending is a downer and written so graphically you feel you are there and wish you weren’t. Well done, Jessie.