Review: The Visitors

The Visitors

By Sally Beauman

Harper July 2014

544 pages

From the library 

Lucy is an elderly woman looking back on her life. It is a life that has been far from ordinary. As an eleven year old girl, she traveled to Egypt and met a lifelong friend in Frances, the daughter of an archaeologist. As she becomes a part of their inner circle, she is privy to the details of one of the most exciting and secretive discoveries in history - Tutankhamun's tomb. As a researcher for a documentary grills Lucy for information, she discovers that she can no longer hide from the ghosts of her past. It is time to come clean about the secrets from the Valley of the Kings and her own life.

The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb was a sensation in the 1920s. Archaeologist Howard Carter, with the assistance of his benefactor Lord Carnarvon, had been searching for the tomb for years. When he finally discovers it, one of the first media frenzies descends on Egypt as journalists race to break the news first. After the tomb had been opened, there were allegations that Carter had opened it earlier and perhaps taken treasures from it. The research that went into writing this novel is abundantly clear, even before the large bibliography at the end of the book. Ms. Beauman brings Egypt to life with dazzling precision as we see it for the first time through Lucy's childish and sometimes naive eyes. 

The Visitors is marketed as a story of Egypt and archaeological discoveries, which is true. But it is so much more than that. Beauman captures beautifully the uncertainty of a child in a world of grownups - their desire to know all of the secrets and the knowledge that the things adults say are not always what they mean. We are also privy to a beautifully nuanced elderly Lucy. Here is a woman who has experienced war and peace, life with people she loved and agony when they die, the chilly drawing rooms of England and the hot sun of Egypt. She is surrounded by memories and her reminiscing made me think of Iris Chase of The Blind Assassin and Vida Winter from The Thirteenth Tale.

This book does so many things within the same story. Beauman has written a lovely coming of age story as Lucy searches for people to love and trust. It's a thrilling adventure tale as we search for hidden treasure with famous archaeologists. But it might truly be a ghost story, as Lucy finds herself surrounded by the memories of people she loved and lost and the decisions that she made. The Visitors is the kind of book you can truly immerse yourself in as you marvel at the pyramids and determine exactly what happened at Tutankhamun's tomb.