Reviews

Jem (and Sam): A Novel by Ferdinand Mount

krismcd59's review against another edition

4.0

This moving and often hilarious work of historical fiction walks a narrow line between fiction and reality. The narrator, Jeremiah Mount, is the author's great-great-ancestor, and he was a living personage who shows up a few times as a minor figure in Samuel Pepys' Diaries. Pepys, of course, is the "(and Sam)" of the title. The historical events and personages of the novel are all meticulously researched, but there are enough invented characters to spice up the narrative nicely. Jem is initially an unlikable figure -- dishonest, scheming and vindictive -- but his long life includes enough moments of nobility that the reader is sorry to leave him at the end of the book. Jem's obsession with the pompous and opportunistic Mr. Pepys seems contrived at times, but he distracts himself from Pepys often enough to give us satisfying glimpses into the violent, seductive and fascinating world of Restoration England.