The Twelve Rooms of the Nile
"A mesmerizing new work of historical fiction...The Twelve Rooms of the Nile...ribald and sometimes explicitly sexual, is a fascinating travel back in time" (The Miami Herald)"Let’s talk about the imagery first. Let’s choose one word: magnificent. This is the Nile; this is Egypt; this is desert sun and camel rhythms, Harem seduction and ‘spavined mules.’ This is what Shomer does best.” (Beth KephartThe Chicago Tribune)“Shomer’s exquisite debut is an intellectual adventure through mid-nineteenth-century Egypt as experienced by two dissimilar people sitting on the cusp of greatness, though neither one knows that. Prim, earnest Florence Nightingale yearns to do good works, but her sex and disapproving family constrain her exuberant curiosity. Gustave Flaubert, a devoted cynic, loses himself in debauchery while seeking literary inspiration . . . a captivating story about close friendship and all the pleasures and complications of understanding another human being. The superb characterizations, poignant observations on the Egyptian religion, and depictions of the land’s ethereal beauty—all perfectly interwoven—are rendered in memorable language that excites and enriches the mind.” (Sarah JohnsonBooklist (starred review))“The meeting in 1850 of Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert in Egypt, an unlikely but immensely satisfying confluence, is deftly imagined in this brilliant book. The louche Flaubert and the sober Miss Nightingale are fitting representations of ourselves as life’s travelers—alternately lazy and alert, sensuous and restrained, complacent and curious.” (Susanna Mooreauthor of The Big Girls)“I could not imagine it: Gustave Flaubert and Florence Nightingale as friends, almost as lovers! Step by step, detail by detail, Shomer constructs the story of how a man and a woman with nothing in common but genius, one French, one English, one steeped in cynicism, one drowning in despair, could meet on the Nile in 1850, talk, write, hold hands, and see into each other’s souls. As brilliantly sensual as it is finely psychological, this novel is a tour de force of twenty-first century storytelling.” (Gillian Gillauthor of Nightingales)“With the voice of a poet and a keen eye for time, place, and character, Enid Shomer tells of the imagined intersection of two famous lives—and the communion of two unlikely souls—on the crossroads of the Nile. Beautifully written, touchingly rendered.” (Alan Brennertauthor of Moloka'i)“Once in a blue moon I read a novel and want to weep with envy that it is not my name on the cover.The Twelve Rooms of the Nileis such a book. This clever, funny story of Florence Nightingale—English, earnest to a fault, virginal—and Gustave Flaubert—hedonist, sexual gourmet, and cynic—is brilliant. Every sentence, every paragraph shimmers with the color and heat of the Nile and the intelligence of the characters.” (Roberta Richauthor of The Midwife of Venice)"With its beauty and wit, its bawdiness, its specificity of characterization, its historical rigor, and its cinematic evocation of time and place,The Twelve Rooms of the Nileis an astoundingly good first novel. In fact, forget ‘first.’” (Daniel Menakerauthor of A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation)“Enid Shomer’s ingenious first novel,The Twelve Rooms of the Nile, is a richly imagined meeting of the minds of two brilliant, iconic figures . . . skillfully depicted here as unformed youth, a pair of lost souls on the cusp of greatness. This is a poignant story of two very different people who find that true illumination often comes in the form of the unlikeliest of human relationships.” (Amy Hill HearthNew York Times bestselling author and winner of the George Foster Peabody Award)