The Thirteenth Tale

“My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story…When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don’t expect hard-bones and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.”

This quote is from Vida’s initial letter to Margaret. In it, she talks about her famous propensity to lie to journalists who ask her about her personal history. Vida does not understand why the journalists who come to her would rather have the truth than the comforts of a story, and she implies that she finds no comfort in the truth.

“I like to disinter lives that have been buried in unopened diaries on archive shelves for a hundred years or more. Rekindling breath from memoirs that have been out of print for decades pleases me more than almost anything else.”

Margaret shares her experience as an amateur biographer who has focused exclusively on people who have caught her interest but are not necessarily famous. She sees her experience as not being up to the task of documenting Vida’s life but will discover that Vida’s life fits the parameters of the above quote, as her personal history is obscure and has been lost to time.

“My hand hovered instead over the old favorites: The Woman in White, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre...”

Margaret’s reading preferences, listed here, are all classic examples of gothic literature. These references offer insight into Margaret’s character, setting her up as a gothic heroine herself, as her journey parallels that of other famous gothic heroines.