Fortune (Peepal Tree Press, 2021; shortlisted for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction) packs a lot into a cracking good read. It’s a tense thriller, a moving love story, and a fascinating eye-opener into an unfamiliar place at a pivotal time. The setting is the roaring ‘20s in Trinidad, when the rush for oil changed lives profoundly, bringing the allure of fabulous wealth along with the ever-present threat of disaster. It is this threat which gives the novel its nail-biting edge. We know the story is going to end in tragedy. “Based on true events”, we are told in the blurb, and at the back of the book are photographs of the “Dome Fire” and a burning oil field. Yet somehow Amanda Smyth manages to ratchet up the tension until the horrific climax at the end, which numerous prophesies, signs, dreams and details point to, but which the reader can hardly bear to accept.
The story is poignant for being based on true events, but more than that, it’s based on events that touched the life of the author personally. One of the key characters, Tito Fernandes, a Portuguese entrepreneur, is based on her great-grandfather, who invested in the Dome Well. She says: “On the night of the explosion, he was visiting the islands with his family, otherwise he would have been there, and no doubt died, too. He was deeply affected by the tragedy. Life was never quite the same again.”
The photographs are unusual for a work of fiction, but they ground the story in truth. It was fascinating to hear that the author used one of them as a starting point to enter the novel. This is an image of a man walking, dressed in white, and two women against a backdrop of derricks. “I began by simply describing this image,” says Smyth, “the man became Tito”, and “the young woman became Ada”, his wife, with “his mother right there alongside.” In the story they carry on walking, right into our minds.
Like all terrific novels, this is one that succeeds on many levels. It’s not just an excellent work of historical fiction referencing the key events of the time: the Wall Street crash, the development of cars and consequent demand for oil, the dress of the 1920s, the music, drinks and dances, even the habit of always reaching for a cigarette. At its heart is a love triangle. An ambitious young prospector, Eddie Wade, arrives fresh from the rigs in the U.S., hungry to use his skills to strike oil. After a chance encounter with Tito, he finds his investor. He also finds, in Tito’s wife, the wild-spirited beauty who will become his lover.
All of these characters are superbly drawn and empathetic, and while we want Eddie and Ada to realise their love for one another, we also hope to spare Tito the pain of betrayal, not least because he trusts in Eddie completely and has given Ada everything he can. With dramatic irony we see Eddie and Ada begin their affair while Tito remains in ignorance, even after confiding in Eddie that Eddie saved him from suicidal despair after he faced financial ruin. “I’ll owe you for the rest of my life,” says Tito. “You’re not that kind of man,” meaning the kind who would cuckold him. We read this and we’re wincing for Tito, and for Eddie’s dilemma when he wants to confess to his friend and say he’s sorry but cannot bring himself to do so. There is no moralising from the author, no defining of right or wrong, only a delicate probing. “I read Light Years by James Salter”, she says, “the way he writes about marriage, love, was really helpful and beautiful. I wanted Ada and Eddie to have their love affair, but to describe their dynamic and predicament without judgement, something Salter does brilliantly”1.
There are echoes of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in this novel, its period and doomed love affair, the themes of money, greed and materialism. Indeed, Smyth says she re-read Gatsby just before beginning the novel, but there were other books that pulled her deeper into the story and time, such as: “a collection of Tales from the Derrick Floor, which includes oral accounts of oil men in Texas in the early part of the twentieth century.”2 This careful research makes the descriptions of the drilling process and equipment used utterly convincing. We follow Eddie as he scavenges old machinery from abandoned derricks, worries about the danger of sand in oil, and fights to cap the fountain from each new well.
As a foil to the protagonists are the Trinidadians of colour, who speak in voices which ring wonderfully true: the poor villagers and those of Indian extraction who prove the most wise, humane and attuned to the environment. Grace is one such. She reminds Eddie: “Yuh cyah [can’t] build happiness on somebody else pain.” “Grace is familiar to me,” says the author. “I have grown up with women in my life like Grace. They have a deep wisdom and a simple way of speaking the truth.” Here is one of many gems from Grace: “She wondered who was in such a hurry and where were they rushing to. They should slow down. People must learn to sit with themselves.”
Another of the deep themes that resonates throughout the novel concerns the abuse of the natural environment. Sonny Chatterjee permits Eddie to begin drilling on his land with much misgiving, a foreboding which is heightened when a “sacred” silk cotton tree is felled by a neighbouring prospector. Sure enough, trouble follows. For Sonny: “The soul of the land had let loose its fury on the people who’d harmed it.”
Fortune is profound; it’s also beautifully written. Eddie shares a thought from his first love with Ada which at the end she passes on to her daughter: “It is not the star you see but the light left behind when a star has gone.” So too, this story has lingered with me.
About the contributor: Jenny Barden is the author of The Lost Duchess, which focuses on the first attempt to found a permanent English settlement in North America. https://jennybarden.com
References:
1. James Salter, Light Years. Penguin Modern Classics, first published 1975, 2007.
2. Mody C. Boatright, William A. Owens, Tales from the Derrick Floor. A People’s History of the Oil Industry. University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
Published in Historical Novels Review | Issue 102 (November 2022)
