Hannah’s Pick of the Week: The Pretender by Jo Harkin

“I am John Collan \ today in the yere 1483 I will defeat the goat. \ In the name of honnour and glory to god highest & for reson that

it knocked me in the mud again today \ & has TRODDEN churlishly over my back \ has despoiled \ ! \ an insult that cannot be borne.”

Jo Harkin, The Pretender, pg. 1

Unquestionably, to say I devoured The Pretender would be an understatement. Lyrical, raunchy, ebullient, heart-breaking, this book traverses a near-decade in medieval England. Europe, 1483: Spain’s Inquisition began; The Sistine Chapel opened; and the War of the Roses is raging in Britain. We are introduced to John Collan, ten-years-old, the youngest son of an Oxfordshire farmer. John’s main goal in life is to seek vengeance against the devilish goat on his family’s farm. That is, until a genteel man on a horse visits the farm to pluck John from his humble roots and gives him earth-shattering tidings: John is actually the 17^th Earl of Warwick — ferried to the countryside as a baby for his protection — and the rightful Edward VI, King of England.

Thus begins a rollicking quest to place John (then Lambert, maybe Edward) on the throne. Shuttled from England to Brittany to Ireland, John reflects on what it means to be someone who came from nothing, as well as what it means to be not only a good king, but a good human being. This story is as much a coming-of-age story as it is a historical saga. You’ll fall in love alongside our hapless hero, who philosophizes about goodness, even when surrounded by the worst knaves on the planet.

Chock-full of references to medieval pop culture and incredibly well-researched, this fictional investigation into a real-life pretender to the English throne humanizes history in a way that I adore. It’s funny, it’s sad, it makes you relate to these people from over 500 years ago. If you enjoyed either Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell or The Good Wife of Bath: A Mostly True Story by Karen Brooks, you’ll enjoy The Pretender by Jo Harkin.