The Miniaturist

by Jessie Burton

Overview

Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam—a city ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion—a masterful debut steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery, in the tradition of Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, and Sarah Dunant.

”There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed . . .“

On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office—leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.

But Nella’s world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist—an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways . . .

Johannes’ gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand—and fear—the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their destruction?

Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062306814
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	08/26/2014
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Jessie Burton was born in London in 1982. She studied at Oxford University and the Central School of Speech and Drama. The Miniaturist is her first novel.

Interviews

A Conversation with Jessie Burton, Author of The Miniaturist

What was the inspiration for The Miniaturist?

I was visiting Amsterdam when I came upon this dolls' house in the Rijksmuseum. It had been built in 1686 and was a thing of true decorative beauty. The owner was a woman called Petronella Oortman, who had commissioned it as an exact replica of her own townhouse in the heart of the city. She had spent as much money on it as you might on a real house, and miniature pieces had been made for its interior as far away as Japan and China. I was so curious as to why she would miniaturise her existence, why she would purchase food she couldn't eat and chairs she couldn't sit on...and then there was the city of Amsterdam and its history. A place of trade and power, contradictions of outward modesty and bursting inward pomp - and the dolls' house was a perfect symbol of this, of the need for secrets, for control, for domestic harmony that covered over inner chaos.

Is there any part of you in Nella? In any of the other characters?

I expect there is. My best friend says she can hear me in some of Nella's lines, in some of Cornelia's too. Marin voices things that are in me, but so do Otto and Johannes. I am sort of in all of them, and then completely separate from them too. They are their own people, and I end up on the periphery, and that is how it should be.

What do you like about writing historical fiction? Do you think it allows for anything you wouldn't be able to do in a novel with a contemporary setting?

This book is set in 1686 because the real Petronella Oortman had a dolls' house commissioned for her in 1686. I wanted to honour that time, and yet I did not want to be a slave to it. Part of my intention was an impressionistic offering to the reader of what life might have been like then, certainly not to smother them with a drab historical recreation. I was as diligent as it was possible to be - and it was fascinating to discover the social habits, the food, the clothing, the grieving processes, the feasting - and then to realise, in many ways it was not so long ago, and love, and pain were very much experienced the same as they are no. I think contemporary settings probably offer the writer more lassitude in which to express herself. But I have characters with Enlightenment instincts, burgeoning desires for female rights, for racial and sexual equality. Just because that was not overtly expressed in extant documents of the time, does not mean on a private level they were not felt. So I have gifted myself this nice synthesis of eternal contemporary preoccupations that also find a home in the 'past'.?

You've been an actress. How has acting affected your writing?

I think the two disciplines are quite different! Acting is communal, it thrives on mutuality, of leaving ego at the door. In writing, you have to be director, actors, and also the draconian producer who makes sure you turn up and do the work. You are godlike. But I do think my training has aided me in terms of getting into a character's head - yet all good writers can do that, I would hope. Being an actress has given me a sense of generosity to all characters, even the 'bad' ones - to understand that being a human on this planet is a 360 degrees experience - that just because x says words to y in a certain way, it doesn't follow y receives them how x intended, or indeed even that x had even planned them to have a particular effect. No one is inherently evil, or a saint. Acting has given me an appreciation of the ambiguous, because the best playwrights often leave it open as to what the character wants. Character is fluid. Life is a series of reactions, lived in the moment and suffered (and repaired) at leisure.

Who have you discovered lately?

I have really enjoyed Life Drawing, by Robin Black. Such a good book, with scalpel precision peeling back the beauty and pain of a long marriage and everyone's crosses they openly or secretly bear. Also, Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. Futuristic, yet rooted in a love for the world we may lose if we're not too careful. Arts and Entertainments by Christopher Beha was so close to the bone about celebrity and fame and reality TV, I almost read it peeping through my fingers, and I am reading Erica Jong's Fear of Flying for the first time, and I really don't know what has taken me so long.

Editorial Reviews

…a seductive meditation on greed, power and the tortuous journey even the well heeled must endure for self-possession. Burton adroitly depicts a culture of contradiction: a love of affluence and indulgence chafing against the impulse for God-fearing abstinence. The result is a population "living in the shadows between lies and truth."

The New York Times Book Review - Michael Peed

06/23/2014
Late 17th-century Amsterdam is the sumptuous backdrop for this debut novel about a young Dutch girl from the village of Assendelft, Nella Oortman, who is chosen to be the bride of Johannes Brandt, a wealthy merchant with a shocking secret. Not long after Nella’s arrival in the city, her enigmatic husband presents her with a beautifully wrought cabinet, an exact replica of the house in which they live with Brandt’s sister, Marin, and their loyal servants. Nella engages a miniaturist to fill it and begins to encounter mysteries no one is willing to explain, secrets in which everyone in the household is implicated. The elusive miniaturist, too, seems to know more than Nella, as reflected in the tiny dolls and furniture he creates for the cabinet. The artisan may even be able to predict the future: he sends Nella portentous objects she has not commissioned, such as a cradle and a perfect replica of Brandt’s beloved dog stained with blood. As in all good historical novels, the setting is a major character; in this case the city of Amsterdam, with its waterways and warehouses, confectioners’ shops, and kitchens, teems with period detail. Myriad plot twists involve Brandt’s commercial activities, especially the stores of precious sugar cones from Surinam, and the tragic, fatal consequences of illicit love affairs. Strangely enough, however, the central mystery, the miniaturist’s uncanny knowledge of the future, is never solved, and the reader is left unsatisfied. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2014-06-26
A talented new writer of historical fiction evokes 17th-century Amsterdam, the opulent but dangerous Dutch capital, where an innocent young wife must navigate the intrigues of her new household. "Every woman is the architect of her own fortune," reads 18-year-old Nella Oortman in a message that will gather meaning like a rolling stone as this novel progresses. It comes from the peculiarly knowledgeable artisan who is creating miniature objects for a dollhouse-sized version of her new home, which Nella received as a wedding gift. Hastily married to a wealthy older merchant, Johannes Brandt, after her father's death left her provincial family struggling, Nella arrives alone in Amsterdam, readying herself for her unknown husband's demands. Instead, she finds herself sleeping by herself, ignored by Johannes and dismissed by his brusque sister, Marin, who rules the house and influences the business, too. Distracted by the wedding present, Nella commissions a miniaturist to supply tiny items of furniture; but these exquisite objects and their accompanying messages soon begin to bear a chilly, even prophetic relationship to people and things—suggesting their maker knows more about the family and its business than is possible or safe. In a debut that evokes Old Master interiors and landscapes, British actress Burton depicts a flourishing society built on water and trade, where women struggle to be part of the world. Her empathetic heroine, Nella, endures loneliness and confusion until a sequence of domestic shocks forces her to grow up very quickly. Finally obliged to become that architect of her own fortune, Nella acts to break the miniaturist's spell and save everything she holds dear. With its oblique storytelling, crescendo of female empowerment and wrenching ending, this novel establishes Burton as a fresh and impressive voice; book groups in particular will relish it.

Kirkus Reviews

‘Utterly transporting...one of those rare debut novels that excels in every regard. The past is brought to life in potent, sensory detail: one feels steeped in it. Burton’s prose beguiles the reader...My first instinct on finishing this book was to immediately read it again.

Hannah Kent

[A] haunting debut.

Good Housekeeping

A standout portrayal of the wide range of women’s ingenuity.

Booklist

As in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, the pleasure lies in giving in to well-wrought illusions, and the result is a beach read with meat on its bones - perfect for the Labor Day transition from play to work.

New York magazine/Vulture.com

The Miniaturist is one of the year’s most hyped novels, and it’s easy to see why. Burton conjures every scent and crackle of Nella’s world. A-

Entertainment Weekly

Rich in 17th century atmosphere…Debut novelist Jessie Burton has a terrific subject... All those severe portraits of people in dark clothes and starched white ruffs, along with those glossy, death-scented still lifes, spring to life.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Miniaturist is a masterpiece of atmosphere and tension …. The themes Burton explores are as relevant today as they were long ago …. a thoroughly engaging, beautifully written work of historical fiction.

Washington Independent Review of Books

In The Miniaturist, Burton uses a historical object - the real Petronella Oortman’s cabinet house in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum - as the springboard for a fantastically spun tale of love and mystery. It’s a story that astutely reflects our own age’s obsessions and prejudices, and it’s one not to be missed.

Dallas Morning News

The Miniaturist excels in depicting Amsterdam and its wealthy upper class, and lovers of art and of Amsterdam will be drawn to Burton’s imaginative story, which flows as effortlessly as water down a canal.

BookPage

Jessie Burton nimbly transports contemporary social issues to the 17th century where a costume drama rich in historical detail is embellished with supernatural intrigue…The Miniaturist is a late-harvest summer delight.

New York Daily News

The Miniaturist is an impressive debut… Burton has created a world that, like the cabinet house, draws us in until we feel the dread and mystery and wonder that surround Nella.

Tampa Bay Times

In Jessie Burton’s atmospheric debut, The Miniaturist, the powers of love and obsession, sins and secrets, loyalty and forgiveness bind together a cast of sympathetic characters who all have a part to play in a collectively chilling conclusion.

Shelf Awareness

A magical, intricate marvel of perfection… with luxurious prose that immerses the reader in the cold, damp of Amsterdam… A book that enchants from beginning to end.

The Gilmore Guide To Books

A suspenseful and moving read.

My Friends are Fiction

Seventeenth-century Amsterdam comes alive in this meticulously researched, enchantingly told tale.

Entertainment Weekly (Must List)

Burton gives her narrative the propulsive drive of a thriller, but her distinctive prose conveys deeper, harder answers than a whodunit. This fine historical novel mirrors the fullness of life, in which growth and sorrow inevitably are mingled.

Washington Post

Jessie Burton’s debut novel…has all of the trappings of a historical page-turner: a rich setting in 17th-century Amsterdam, a plot inspired by an antique “cabinet house” located at the renowned Rijksmuseum, and a diverse cast of characters…a perfect amount of authentic detail and a plot that speeds along.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Teen bride Nelly strives to connect with her aloof husband and his spinster sister, but uncovers secrets that, in intolerant 1686 Amsterdam, could mean death. It’s a tense tale.

Us Weekly

A seductive meditation on greed, power and the tortuous journey even the well-heeled must endure for self-possession. Burton adroitly depicts a culture of contradiction: a love of affluence and indulgence chafing against the impulse for Godfearing abstinence.

New York Times Book Review

This debut novel, set in 17th-century Amsterdam, hits all the marks of crossover success: taut suspense, a pluck heroine- and a possibly clairvoyant miniature-furniture designer.

New York magazine

The Miniaturist is that rarest of things - beautifully written, yet also a compelling page-turner. It’s haunting, magical, and full of surprises, the kind of book that reminds you why you fell in love with reading.

S.J. Watson

A fabulously gripping read that will appeal to fans of Girl With a Pearl Earring and The Goldfinch, but Burton is a genuinely new voice with her visceral take on sex, race and class...

The Guardian