{"id":19046,"date":"2023-12-11T20:08:25","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T01:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19046"},"modified":"2023-12-11T20:08:25","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T01:08:25","slug":"the-mysteries-by-graham-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19046","title":{"rendered":"‘The Mysteries,’ by Graham Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Here\u2019s the scenario:<\/strong> Jim, an Australian man, purchases a very old house in an out-of-the-way corner of Sidney. While doing renovations, he notices a basement concealed and sealed off beneath the floor of one room. He assumes this feature might have historical significance, so he notifies the government, which sends an assessor, a young woman, to look at it. To his astonishment, Jim discovers that this woman is his long-lost daughter, with whom his wife ran off long ago. Though he searched for them, he never found them, until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of that, they soon realize that the house he has purchased was built by an ancestor neither of them ever guessed they had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If all this sounds a little far-fetched, I entirely agree. But it\u2019s a tribute to the storytelling skills of Graham Wilson, author of The Mysteries<\/a><\/em>, that I was entirely swept up in the book and overlooked its gross improbabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We learn about Jim\u2019s life and his struggles to rise from poverty. We learn of his ancestor Michael, who built the house \u2013 how he was transported as a convict from Ireland, served his time at hard labor, and built a semi-legal fortune along with his stone house. As his descendants discover his story, the reader learns it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought the story slowed somewhat toward the end, and perhaps too many details about Michael\u2019s life come to light. But I read The Mysteries<\/em> all the way through, and quite enjoyed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were orthographic errors \u2013 word confusions, and sometimes quotation marks missing at the start of a paragraph. But I\u2019ve seen far worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sexual morality here is conventional contemporary, and attitudes toward Christianity tend to be critical, though few in number. Still, the storytelling was top-notch, and the book had undeniable charm. I do recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s the scenario: Jim, an Australian man, purchases a very old house in an out-of-the-way corner of Sidney. While doing renovations, he notices a basement concealed and sealed off beneath the floor of one room. He assumes this feature might have historical significance, so he notifies the government, which sends an assessor, a young woman, … Continue reading ‘The Mysteries,’ by Graham Wilson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4986,4987],"class_list":["post-19046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-graham-wilson","tag-the-mysteries"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19047,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19046\/revisions\/19047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}