Herma: A Novel by Macdonald Harris

by MacDonald Harris

An ambitious novel by one of America's foremost fiction writers, rediscovered and with an introduction by Michael Chabon.

A delightful literary rediscovery by the National Book Award-nominated Macdonald Harris, Herma is the colorful, fanciful, and moving story of a willful young opera singer at the turn of the century. As a child in Southern California in the late 1900s, Herma exhibits an incredible talent for vocal mimicry. Her gift will eventually take her from the choir of her country church to the Paris Opera, thanks in no small part to the machinations of her daredevil agent, Fred Hite. It is an opulent rags-to-riches tale full of excitement, sexual intrigue, and decadence, and features cameos by Puccini and Proust, among others. Herma and Fred are glamorous and adventuresome guides to turn of the century San Francisco and Paris, but there's a secret at the heart of their intimate relationship. This twinned hero and heroine pair and the profound connection between them makes Herma the most ambitious novel in the repertoire of one of America's greatest and most skilled writers.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Pseudonym of Donald Heiney

Donald Heiney was born in South Pasadena in 1921. Seastruck from the time he read Stevenson at the age of twelve, he went to sea in earnest as a merchant marine cadet in 1942, sat for his Third Mate's license in 1943, and spent the rest of the war as a naval officer on a fleet oiler. After the war he earned a B.A. at Redlands and a doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Southern California. In 1964 he lived with his wife and son in Salt Lake City where he taught writing and comparative literature.

Taking the pseudonym MacDonald Harris for his fiction, his first story appeared in Esquire in 1947. Since then he has published stories in The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a number of literary quarterlies. His story "Second Circle" was reprinted in the 1959 O. Henry Collection. Private Demons, his first novel, was published in 1961. Mortal Leap, his second, was finished in the summer of 1963 in Rome.

His novel The Balloonist was nominated for the National Book Award in 1977. He received a 1982 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his entire body of work.

Heiney died in 1993, at age 71, at his home in Newport Beach, California.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt sad when I put this book down, not because it was so good I hated to see it end, but because I was so disappointed that I'd wasted my time with it for 3 days. While the topic and setting intrigued me, the authors handling of the characters did not. I found myself basically disliking both Herma and Fred and could pretty much care less what happened to either one of them less than half-way through the book. I must be very "old school" though, because I have a very difficult time abandoning books. I suppose it's because I assume there's a sacred trust between an author and his/her readers, in that if he/she has made the effort to put words to paper and gone through the editing, publication and distribution process, he or she must have something of significance to say on one level or another. Alas, I am discovering more and more that a growing number of contemporary writers do not adhere to this principal.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully odd and moving. Harris' book requires one major suspension of disbelief, that a person can change at will between male and female (anatomically correctly), but once done, it's easy to get caught up in an excellent work of historical fiction.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted this book to work, but in the end just got bored with it. I bought it because I'd read Yukiko by MacDonald and, whilst a very weird book, had enjoyed that.

This is another book with one major weirdness in the central character. However, it covers an interesting period in time from late 1890's to 1915, Herma is an opera singer and sings in many new operas (Offenbach, Puccini etc) meeting composers and working with other greats like Caruso. She travels from US to Paris, there meeting Proust. Her manager is Fred (who is also Herma - by some strong meditation she/he can change sex and become the other). Fred is interested in flying and pilots some of the early planes -meeting likes of Bleriot etc.

In synopsis, it could be a good premise for a novel. In reality it is tedious, and the characters are uninvolving. Like many other reviewers after a couple of hundred pages I lost interest...

[Mary Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Herma was a great book at first, but I started losing interest in the San Francisco earthquake part. If I could, I would give Her 3 and a half stars.

[Sasha]

Here's Michael Chabon poking you and telling you to read this book, about a musical prodigy who's also some kind of hermaphrodite.