"It’s because I’m all wrong that I have to find something right. And I found it here, in this room. We all did, didn’t we? We found something that alters the conditions of life. You write. You write yourself out of it, you write it out, you write it right.” ( p. 258)

Like many other readers, I suspect, I first read the books by the Brontes in young adulthood, and I’ve returned to them from time to time, with fresh eyes, over the years. While I’ve never read a formal biography of any of the sisters, I know a few basic details about each of them. Given their talent and the seemingly endless tragedies in their lives, including the fact that not one of the six Bronte children made it to the age of forty, I’m not surprised that a mythology has arisen around them, as it tends to do around gifted, heroic, or beautiful people who are cut down before their time. With the Brontes, you can't help but wonder: what if fate had been kinder?

In The Taste of Sorrow, Jude Morgan has written a moving biographical novel about this iconic, literary family. It is a sort of ensemble piece that begins with the harrowing death of their mother when the eldest of the six children is less than ten years of age; it follows their story (or stories, more precisely) through to the time of Charlotte’s marriage. Morgan writes in the present tense and flexibly shifts point of view between Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—mostly keeping to the third person, but sometimes relating characters' innermost thoughts using the first person point of view. Their brother, Branwell, and father, Patrick, figure prominently in the narrative, but they are always presented from the outside, through the eyes of one of the three sisters.

Morgan’s fine writing (which does not adhere strictly to 19th-century style, rhythm, or idiom) and considerable descriptive powers transport the reader back in time. Because this is a fairly big book, which I read over several days, I had a sense of being with the characters, knowing them in a way I hadn’t before, and even of grieving with and for them.

Since I haven't read any scholarly biographies of the Brontes, I am unable to comment on the liberties Morgan may have taken with the biographical material. His characterization of the three sisters--the serious, self-conscious, approval-seeking Charlotte; the taciturn, fierce, elemental Emily; and the gentle, temperate, slightly bland Anne--is fairly consistent with my previously formed impressions of them. Even though there were no particular surprises in the book (aside from some information about Charlotte's husband), reading it was a rewarding experience, both intellectually and emotionally. ( )

Unputdownable story of the Brontes,
By sally tarbox on 18 November 2016

The Brontes are like Henry VIII - you know their lives inside out, you've read biographies, watched TV documentaries - yet you continue to find their story utterly fascinating, told from different angles, in different ways. So Jude Morgan certainly has great material to begin with - but what a wonderful novel he has crafted from it.
Told in the present continuous (something I don't always enjoy, but it works superbly here), the novel opens with their mother on her death bed, about to leave her five daughters and one son to the care of their rather dour father. In beautifully envisaged scenes and conversations, the author follows them through their wretched school at Cowan Bridge; their secret world and early writings, their various teaching posts, Brussels, Branwell's self-destruction.... He writes from the point of view of various characters, their personalities an amalgamation of historical research and the surely autobiographical hints in the Brontes' works.
Such a brilliant read that I have ordered Mr Morgan's other novels (based on true-life). ( )

A novel of the Bronte family, from the children's childhoods to their deaths. It's told in a beautifully elliptical manner. I got the impression of grim, narrow lives with loads of tragedy and lack of opportunities--but also the shining, open vastness of Emily, Charlotte and Anne's imaginations. ( )

This is a thoroughly intense novel...the writing style of the Brontes is applied to their lives, emotions, rampant thoughts. It's not a book you can read while sleepy....Each paragraph is dense, filled with stream-of-consciousness thoughts, spoken and unspoken words, several people's feelings and reactions. The breadth of understanding of the human psyche in general and of these humans' psyches in particular is amazing...obviously a great deal of research has gone into this book.

I think it took me longer to read this book than usual, partly because I got too involved in the characters' lives and sometimes needed a break from the intensity of their quiet lives...but I loved it at times. ( )

I'm a big fan of Jude Morgan's historical novels, and I also love the Brontes, so I expected to be borne away by A Taste of Sorrow. Sadly, not so. I found the book extremely slow going. At first I thought this was simply because I was occupied with end-of-semester tasks that inevitably kept my reading sessions short. Once the semester ended, I figured I would whirl through to the end in a few days, but my reading plodded on at a snail's pace. I just did not find the story very compelling. Perhaps that is not entirely the author's fault: I found myself wondering if the Brontes lives could really have been that dull, and, if they were, well, no wonder they lived such exciting imaginary lives through their characters. The plot pretty much boils down to someone gets sick and either dies or gets better--only to get sick again and die shortly thereafter. In between, Branwell gets drunk, acts like a spoiled brat and a boor, and gets fired from a series of jobs that decline in status. Everyone but Emily hates being at home, but they also hate wherever they are sent away to. The highlights, of course, are Charlotte falling in love with a married man, and the eventual publication and popularity of Anne's, Emily's, and Charlotte's novels. Morgan does a decent job of portraying the complex, ambiguous relationships among the siblings and their overbearing father, but that wasn't enough to keep me engrossed in A Taste of Sorrow. ( )