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The Phoenix by Ruth Sims

Our story starts in London in 1882 as thirteen year-old twins Michael and Jack mingle amidst a crowd of departing passengers on a wharf, picking pockets.  The boys have a grim life:  their uncaring mother is an alcoholic prostitute, and their dad Tom Rourke is a hulking psychopath who beats them and their mother when home from various seafaring jobs.  Jack, the older twin, is the strong one who steals to support them and tries to stand up to their father.  Poor Michael is gentle and easier to hurt. 

Jack, however, is lucky enough to have an obsession that gives him hope for a better life: the theater. For a year now, he has been unofficially attached to a theater troupe whom he once accidentally interrupted during rehearsals.  The theater owner Lizbet Porter recognizes Jack's intelligence and talent, and takes a maternal interest in him. She teaches him to read and cleans him up. Soon he is performing in small parts in their plays.

This is good because life gets even worse for Jack when his mother skips out.  Old man Rourke comes home to find the boys and no wife. In a nightmarish scene, he murders Michael and then beats Jack unconscious. When Jack wakes and finds his dad nearby in a drunken stupor, he stabs the man in the chest.  It's an important scene because Jack could have walked away. To kill his dad at this point is a homicide; he can no longer claim self-defense. He could face the gallows if caught and convicted.

Jack goes to Lizbet for help, and she takes him to her wealthy cousin Xavier St. Denis who becomes key to Jack's subsequent metamorphosis. St. Denis, who comes to love the boy like a son, adopts Jack and gives him the new name, Christopher "Kit" St. Denis.

Kit flourishes under St. Denis's guidance and grows up to be a cultured and beautiful young man. He learns the theater business from the ground up at St. Denis's famed Xavier Theater, and soon achieves fame himself as a talented actor.

Soon Kit realizes that he is attracted to other men. It turns out that St. Denis is gay as well.  Kit's adopted father becomes a positive and accepting role model, protectively sheltering Kit from the wrong sort of man while teaching him how to keep his sexual orientation discreet in mainstream society.  In the 1890s, men are no longer sent to the gallows for being homosexuals, but they could face prison time (as Oscar Wilde did).

Kit lives life to the fullest: having affairs with handsome men, and getting glowing reviews for his performances in Shakespeare's plays. Even so, he still has nightmares, reliving his brother's death at the hands of old man Rourke. Further tragedy strikes when his beloved adopted father grows ill and dies.  Now Kit is alone, and the heir to millions.  Devastated, he comes across a painting in an obscure art gallery: it shows a phoenix bursting into flames, resurrecting itself according to legend. Recognizing himself in the phoenix, Kit buys the painting.

This fast-paced and absorbing back-story takes us to page 50.  Next we get the back-story of the man destined to become the love of Kit's life: Nicholas Stuart. Born to a stern Puritan doctor in a village in the Cotswolds, Nick is told early on that he will follow in his father's footsteps. 

That's fine with him.  He's an even-tempered boy, gifted with scientific curiosity.  Somehow his intellectual drive and deep religious faith support one another, fueling his inexhaustible work ethic.  However, he decides he'd rather practice medicine on people than serve as the village physician-veterinarian as does his father.  At age eighteen, he leaves home without his father's blessing to study medicine in London.  He harbors one guilty secret: the pleasure he experienced once when sexually experimenting with another boy.

Nick works day and night to get his medical degree, and then to open a surgery in the London slums to tend to those who need him most.  By page 71, he accepts an extra ticket to a theater performance of Hamlet.  Not only is it his first theater experience, he falls in love at first sight with the lead actor:  Kit St. Denis.  Of course, the innocent doctor doesn't recognize his own obsession. Confused and shaken, he attends Kit's performances whenever he has any free time.  Soon, he's lucky enough to be present when Kit suffers a minor injury and a call goes up for "a doctor in the house." Our two heroes meet, and their lives, together and apart, will never be the same.

Those hoping for x-rated sex scenes will have to look elsewhere. This novel leaves our heroes' couplings to the reader's imagination, and concentrates instead on their romance.

The Phoenix covers our heroes' lives through their initial love affair, a tragic misunderstanding, separation, immigration, marriage (not to each other), entrepreneurial battles within the theater world, blackmail, mental illness, healing, further separation, and finally to a deep realization of what they mean to each other. It's a vivid journey that shapes this big-hearted, flamboyant, historical romance. 

Kit, in particular, knows how to live large. It's a treat to see how his hard-edged survival instincts mix with his aristocratic sophistication to produce such a unique personality:  reckless, daring, capable, shrewd, and a more than a bit arrogant.  By contrast, Nick seems almost subdued, especially when the poor guy submerges himself into married life with the complicated and tragic Bronwyn. But if you look closer, you can see the enormous reserves of strength and patience beneath Nick's reserved demeanor. Vivid minor characters include headstrong actress Rama Weisberg who, during shaky times for Kit's theater company, must sometimes take a teaching position within the grindingly proper Squires Academy for Select Young Ladies.

The highlight of the book for me here at Obsidianbookshelf.com is when Kit struggles to establish his theater company in New York City.  It's fast-paced, often highly amusing, and digs deep enough to give you a real flavor of both the theater world and the cut-throat politics of the time.  My only real problem with the novel centers on a threat from the past who turns up, hoping to blackmail Kit for big money. Surely a criminal would know that a rich man like Kit could have him assassinated quite easily within their first day of contact.  But that's a minor quibble in a novel that offers great entertainment. (Note: it is self-published in an extremely elegant, flawless, and durable trade paperback.) I look forward to reading more from this talented author.

Relevant Links: Historical Fiction   Captain's Surrender by Alex Beecroft Website of Ruth Sims Which One of Two Lovers Did I Like Best and Why? The Phoenix is available at Amazon:   The Phoenix

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