A Poisoner’s Tale by Cathryn Kemp gives life to the alleged real life 17th century poisoner Giulia Tofana. Kemp’s tale opens in Palermo, Sicily where Giulia is taught by her mother how to make the infamous Aqua Tofana poison. While her mother charges for other herbalist and remedy work, distribution of the Aqua is always free because it is given as means to freedom. The Tofanas do not distribute their Aqua to just anyone–it is made only for women seeking to be free of abusive marriages. While the more religious take issue with this line of work “playing God,” others view the Aqua as freedom and retribution from abusive situations in which they have no other way out of than death of their husbands. When Giulia’s mother is caught, Giulia at just age 14 travels to Naples before settling in Rome where her “business” grows and she takes in a circle of women poisoners and herbalists.
I have A LOT of mixed feelings about A Poisoner’s Tale. I usually try not to include spoilers in my reviews, but there are points I have to talk about because I think it is important for readers to know there is a *trigger warning of rape, child rape, and domestic abuse in the beginning of this story.*
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When Giulia is 14, she is raped and subsequently impregnated by her step-father. Her mother, being a cunning woman, immediately wants to Giulia to take an abortive–not just because she is 14 and it was her step-father, but also because there is no hope of Giulia securing a “front” marriage with her mother’s past history as a courtesan. However, there are some general allusions to Giulia having the Sight and feeling an instant connection with the collection of cells in her womb (I word it this way because she feels this connection pretty much as soon as she gets pregnant.) As such, she is adamantly against an abortion. I have to be honest–I really struggled with this turn of events and it even made me question if I should continue the story. It had already been established that Giulia and her mother were not particularly religious Christians, therefore the reason to forgo an abortion was not based on Catholic doctrine. Kemp’s vague allusions to the Sight connection to the barely formed fetus was not enough to make me believe a 14 year old would EVER have her rapist’s child, from her step-father no less.
I did in fact choose to keep reading because I figured there must have been a narrative reason WHY she had to keep the baby. In a 23 years later time jump, Giulia’s daughter is a haughty astrologist named Girolama. Having finished the book, I honestly do not think the story would have been changed much with the omission of Girolama. She did not contribute much, if at all, to the story beyond reminding Giulia of her rapist (there are a few lines referencing how her physical appearance and temper were very much like her rapist and that just did NOT sit right with me at all.) In a story presumably meant to show a more freeing, feminist side of history, I really struggled with the choice of having 14 year old Giulia have a rape baby.
I also felt that the inclusion of the Pope’s POV chapters were unnecessary and detracted from Giulia’s story. I honestly don’t know why they were in the book at all as this tale seemed to be about uplifting the voices of women forgotten by history, but maybe I missed something. It seemed like there may have been some connection with their mothers, but it was ambiguous as if the author either hadn’t quite figured it out or it was not written clearly enough for this reader to figure out the connection (did they have the same mom or were related in some way??) I was not invested in, nor did I particularly care about his POV and found myself skimming over his bits. The story would have been exactly the same with the omission of his chapters.
I was also confused as to why Giulia seemed so surprised when her circle of women, and later her, are caught when she was willfully and flagrantly spreading her Aqua throughout Rome.
The story ends how you would expect, drawing out the inevitable in repetition for reasons that do not really serve the story. While the writing style itself was of quality (the writer is indeed capable at the craft of prose,) the story and plot did not provide an engaging or believable enough story or character motivations for me to truly enjoy this book.
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