Marcus's Time to Shine: A Review of Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness
My ADHD meds haven't come in the mail yet so this is what you're getting.
A little-known fact about me: I’m a fan of Deborah Harkness’s All Souls series. There was a period pre-pandemic where I absorbed these books, as if by osmosis. Of course, I eventually calmed down on my love affair with these books, but that hasn’t stopped me from deciding to read the fourth book in this series: Time’s Convert.
Time’s Convert takes place a couple of years after the events of The Book of Life, and is told from three points of view: Diana Bishop’s, Marcus Whitemore’s, and Marcus’s mate Phoebe Taylor’s. For Diana, it’s summer and she’s off from Yale. She plans to work on her new book and spend a peaceful summer with her family, including her half-vampire, half-witch children, and the toddlers Rebecca and Philip. Unfortunately, Marcus, who, according to the vampire family structure is her stepson and therefore family, has a lot on his mind, so much so that the threads connecting him to reality are becoming hopelessly discolored and tangled. This leads to Marcus’s POV: Chapters that narrate his life from his childhood in colonial Massachusetts through the American Revolution and his transformation into a vampire before ending with the massacre of the majority of his vampire children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in New Orleans that Marcus has never quite forgiven Matthew for. Dispersed throughout the novel is Phoebe’s first 90 days as a vampire.
While I was excited to read about the twins and the adventures of Diana and Matthew now that Benjamin is dead and the Covenant is broken, those small glimpses turned out to be unnecessary when it came to keeping me engaged. While I understand their importance as a framing device, these chapters felt irrelevant in comparison to Marcus’s chapters. They’re the meat of Time’s Convert, showing us the events that made Marcus into the person he is, while also providing readers unexpected ideas such as the fact that the de Clermont family’s rot didn’t begin and end with Benjamin; it started with the member they love and miss the most, the dead patriarch Philippe.
I’ve always wanted to view Philippe through the eyes of an outsider. While, yes, Diana was an outsider (she’s a witch, after all), she was also fully accepted by Philippe for who she was. Because of that, we only get the de Clermont as he was to those who fell in line. Marcus never really did that. Throughout the original trilogy, the young vampire always struck me as a bit of a rebel. Here is this dude who was born on the eve of the American Revolution, who’s still chasing those ideals of freedom and equality of all that this nation has never quite been able to deliver on. This aristocratic French vampire that he joined has to have a different look through his eyes.
And, as expected, it did! From the moment he’s reborn as a vampire, Marcus is the de Clermont’s black sheep. He hates the rules upon him as a de Clermont and despises the circles Philippe forces him to run in. Being born the son of a farmer in the backwoods of Massachusetts and embracing the ideology of Thomas Paine, he feels an affinity for the revolutionaries. Unfortunately, these groups tend to go against what Philippe stands for, maintaining his power and authority and therefore viewing himself as “above” these folks, and following the Covenant regulation stating that creatures are forbidden from interfering in human affairs. This makes for a very lonely and frustrated Marcus, along with acknowledgment of a quality that Philippe had but no one ever acknowledges: The de Clermont patriarch was a fucking hypocrite.
This hypocrisy is seen most clearly in Time’s Convert because this is Marcus’s story and Marcus chafed the most against Philippe and, by extension, the Congregation’s “no interference” rule. But these are things Marcus would hate, but eventually accept if it weren’t for the fact that Philippe interferes with the lives of humans constantly. He had Matthew serve as a spy in Queen Elizabeth I’s court, was an active presence at Versailles, and even met his end at the hands of Nazis. Marcus points this out to the remaining de Clermonts, a move that shocks everyone except, ironically, the ghost of Philippe himself. But it’s through this move that everyone finally acknowledges that while they can love and miss Philippe, they do have to accept that he was not a perfect man, and the legacy that he left behind is a painful one just as much as it’s a great one.
This concept of realizing that the old ways aren't necessarily the best ways shows itself again in Phoebe’s vampiric transformation. Since she wants to be Marcus’s mate and have immortality, Marcus’s human girlfriend agrees to undergo the process of becoming a vampire. This being the 21st century, said process is hardly as romantic as one would expect. First off, Marcus ends up not being the one who turns her because that would make their mating bond a form of incest. On top of that, Phoebe’s actual sire, doctor, and Matthew’s assistant Miriam perform a whole range of tests on her along with keeping track of her weight and diet. It would all seem very dry and sterile if it weren’t for Harkness’s lush writing.
But that’s where the ties to modernity end. You see, vampires have made their transformation into fine art, with traditions and steps that seem superfluous but haven’t caused any trouble in the millennia that vampires have had a society. Phoebe’s chapters seem to explore how many of these elements are important and how many could go. Of course, when it comes to the latter, Phoebe is fought hard for their removal.
That’s not the say that some of the precautions taken aren’t necessary for the safety of not only the public but the young vampires themselves. For example, keeping Phoebe in her bedroom for the first few days after her transformation? Probably a good idea since the world is confusing and dazzling for someone unused to enhanced vampire senses, and that’s if we ignore the uncontrollable thirst. Preventing her from speaking, even on the phone, to everyone Phoebe cares about? Turns out, that’s not a great idea. But, just like with Marcus’s chapters, Miriam and Matthew’s sister Freya quickly learn that not everything has to follow tradition.
And that’s where Time’s Convert leaves us; With the de Clermonts learning that change requires exploring elements that do not bring one joy, but are required to achieve growth. Let’s hope this trend continues in Book 5: The Blackbird Oracle.