Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval lived in 16th-century France until she set sail with her guardian, who aimed to establish a colony near what is now Quebec. The facts of Marguerite’s true story are tantalizingly few, but, by all accounts, she and her maid, Damienne, traveled to New France along with a man who was or became Marguerite’s lover on board. Allegra Goodman’s eighth novel, Isola, celebrates this lesser-known historical figure in an exciting, imagined narrative.
When Marguerite’s tryst with her lover, Auguste (her guardian’s secretary), is discovered, her guardian banishes the couple and Damienne to an island, where they must survive the winters and wild beasts however they can. Goodman takes elements from 16th-century tales, including an account in The Heptameron, and fills in the many blanks in Marguerite’s story with exquisitely rendered imaginings of her inner turmoil, capturing all the longing and fiery will to survive that Marguerite finds within herself when her life and the lives of those she loves are at stake.
Goodman effectlively dramatizes the precarious position of a female orphan in the 1500s, even one of means, making Marguerite’s anguish and powerlessness palpable. Though she starts as a naive and untested child, she grows in tenacity and faith in herself throughout her ordeal, her anxiety maturing into a determination and defiance that engages the reader’s sympathy and respect. The intertwining of Renaissance religious beliefs and superstitions supplies an irresistible atmosphere of foreboding to Goodman’s tale, while the first-person point of view immerses the reader in what Marguerite is feeling and learning. “I understand what it is to be a man,” Marguerite says after tragedy has struck the island. “To be a man is to have your way.” Damienne, horrified by this unbecoming attitude, responds, “And is that good? . . . Is it right?” to which Marguerite truthfully replies, “It is satisfying.”
As a novel of adventure and redemption and as a story of a woman coming into her own, Isola is a rewarding read.