Ill Will by Michael Stewart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I sought out this book, which imagines the “lost years” spent by the Wuthering Heights character Heathcliff, after hearing Michael Stewart speak on the one of the “Sundays with Jane Eyre” broadcasts done by the Rosenbach Museum (excellent series, highly recommend for fans of JE). I was taken with Stewart’s ideas about how class issues function in JE and appreciated his perspective as a working class person, so I was interested to see how he would write about Heathcliff, who must be one of the most controversial characters in British fiction.
The book far exceeded my expectations. Stewart invests Heathcliff with complex motives that derive from a complex history, including an authentic (I’m an adoptee) representation of adoption as trauma in Heathcliff’s yearning and confusion towards the mother he cannot recall. The novel is also rich in period detail about class and race oppression. Stewart doesn’t turn away from ugly truths.
TBH, I wasn’t optimistic about the novel. I don’t read many books by male authors, as their assumptions about women often irritate me, I’m not into fan fiction, and I hold the work of the Brontes sacrosanct. Every year, since I was 8 years old, I’ve (re)read at least one Bronte novel, usually Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. I’ll turn 65 this year, so that’s a lot of re-reads. Nevertheless, Stewart’s novel expanded my thinking about Wuthering Heights.



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