On the trail of secrets and truth

• Published date: 21 January 2023
• Publication title: Mix, The

William Boyd

Penguin Random House

The solemnly named Cashel Greville Ross is the centrepiece, the ‘‘Romantic’’, of William Boyd’s new outstanding epic.

He is a 19th-century explorer and dreamer and an entirely believable but completely fictional construct. In the likewise fictional ‘‘Author’s Note’’, Boyd claims to have received Ross’ autobiography, reminiscences and bundle of letters, and to be weaving a story out of these.

The finished product is no less than a soaring and exotic adventure story, dreamy, heartbreaking and full of high-flyers and slanderous gutter crawlers. Impressively, it spans Ross’ eight decades of life, technological and industrial advancements, and times of warfare and political upheaval.

Boyd has playfully dreamed up this deep-thinking character and given him a complex personality and emotional life which leads to exciting and often rash decisions.

Born on the cusp of a new century, in 1799, Ross grows up on the edges of an aristocratic estate in County Cork. An orphan, he spends his childhood here with his young aunt, who is in service.

On the fringes of social life but never quite there, young Cashel prefers solitary play and has an active imagination, which expands as he ages into young adulthood.

His childhood is marked with legendary, fearsome figures: aristocratic characters on horseback appear as if from medieval folklore, and he knows early on to be wary of men. They are usually absent figures in business or military ventures, and he feels safe in the domestic world created by women. However, these women are usually little more than prop parts (although blessed with strategic minds), while the men hold the might. Gossip, secrets and hints of knowledge float around in the air as he...