Author recommendation: Fiona Valpy

Of The Dressmaker's Gift and the upcoming The Sky Beneath Us

One of the best and most moving works of fiction (though not spiritual or mystical in nature) that I’ve read in the last year, twice, is The Dressmaker’s Gift by Fiona Valpy. It’s a World War II historical novel about three young women who become involved in the French resistance during the Nazi occupation of Paris. This historical tale is set alongside a parallel modern storyline of one of the women’s granddaughters, Harriett.

In this novel, Valpy not only immerses the reader in the settings of the two storylines, but weaves in various bits of the history of fashion and haute couture, as the three women in Paris are seamstresses and Harriett is just starting a fashion-related career of her own.

Now, I must admit that fashion is not an area in which I have any particular interest. In fact, I acquired The Dressmaker’s Gift some years ago only because it looked like the most interesting title in Amazon’s First Reads offer for September 2019. And yes, it took me nearly four years to get around to reading it. But I’m glad I did! Through Valpy’s excellent research and engaging storytelling, I was not only taken on a harrowing journey of the three women during World War II, but also learned to appreciate the role that fashion plays in a culture like that of France. I won’t be turning into a fashonista anytime soon, but the next time I’m in Paris I think I will visit the museum of fashion that’s one of the book’s settings.

Valpy’s work also helped me appreciate what writing a story like this demands of an author. In this case, two of the women are arrested by the Gestapo, tortured, and hauled off to a series of concentration camps, with one of them dying the day before the camp was liberated. It’s one thing to read such accounts; it’s another thing to have visualized it and felt it in order to write it in the first place. For this reason I consider Valpy’s work, and that of other authors who put themselves under duress in order to tell a story, heroic.

In short, I highly recommend The Dressmaker’s Gift as an example of very well-written fiction and as an example of an author who really cares about her craft and the deeper meaning of the stories she tells. I trust that her other dozen or so novels demonstrate the same qualities.

Just last week, Valpy announced her next novel, The Sky Beneath Us, which is available for pre-order. The Sky Beneath Us also runs two historical and modern storylines in parallel in the setting of Nepal. As someone who has spent several months in India and has intersected sherpa culture in Darjeeling (including a visit to a Tibetan refugee camp), I’m looking forward to the novel’s release in September and have put in my order already.

I also enjoyed the Valpy’s 13m video about the research trip she made to Nepal for this novel. The video demonstrates why Valpy’s writing carries such realism, as she not only makes a long trek on foot to the sherpa village of Phortse in the high Himalaya, but also dives into the everyday life of the village as her characters do. Indeed, the video provides an excellent lesson on how to do in-person research for a novel, which I found most inspiring! If you’re working on fiction yourself, I highly recommend spending thirteen minutes with this little documentary.