Two White Queens and the One Eyed Jack by Heidi von Palleske
Reviewed by Emily Weedon
Heidi von Palleske’s novel Two White Queens takes the reader to a place somewhere between fairy-tale and film set. And not one of those over-done fairytales, Like Snow White or Cinderella, masticated and pulverized by Disney into something unrecognizable. No, the fairy tales Palleske channels are the B-Side one, like “Snow White and Rose Red” or “King Lindwurm”, the one’s that tug at the psyche. Neither is the film something plush, treacly and American; there’s a European sensibility at work here, at times lyric, or frankly sexual. Tonally it lands between the epic “Les Uns Et Les Autres” by Claude Lelouche or Tom Tykwr’s punky, frenetic “Run Lola Run”.
“A beautiful book full of stunning imagery and intertwining lives.”
The titular women, albino twins Clara and Blanca are visually evocative. They challenge the world around with their visual difference, they take a stance by simply being and they exhibit a theatrical, quirky danger like Bjork or Annie Lennox or Grace Jones. With their unpigmented skin and a penchant for red stained lips they are something fierce and sharp, all Gustave Klimt Lines drawn on the wide backdrop of a stage, singing in eerie voices which are honed by their pain and longing.
The One Eyed Jack was once Johnny and once had both eyes. His quest, his climb is partly to emerge from overprotection, in contrast to the twins who needed some protection, any protection. His one sightless eye gives him an edge in some ways. It benefits an archer, or a photographer, to see with only one eye. Jack looks for clarity through his life and is led at last to a satisfying conclusion where his clarity, his single vision and his upward climb bring him to an extraordinary flashpoint in history.
Clarity, seeing, vision, sight, looking within. von Palleske balances out metaphor throughout a sprawling tale that wends through the lives of all those who encounter Clara, Blanca and Jack.
Much of the book follows the yearning growth of several young people. The twins seek to grow out of what could be a curse of mythic proportion: poverty, misfortune, blighted by a terrible family secret. Jack and Clara and Blanca move towards becoming adults in the exuberant 80’s when the Cold War was ending and it seemed like art and love might triumph over the old curses of Europe. As flashy and sexy as the young people are, it is the love story between two peripheral characters, Hilda and Siegfried, who must fight the inertia of age, and the vastness of space and culture between the New World and The Old to try to be together somehow that is the true heart of the novel.
Without question, with the dramatic flair for punk opera dashed through the book, the character’s names are telling us something: Siegfried and Brunhild are famous as characters from the Nibelungenlied or Ring Cycle. But Palleske gives us characters caught up in smaller worlds. Hilda’s is a domestic keep and prison, his, pinioned by his work among unseeing eyes. I could have spent an entire novel with just Siegfried and Hilda whose arc is capital R romance, as beautiful as an impressionist painting, as ephemeral as cherry blossoms, small and yet sweeping, inconsequential yet universal.
In addition to her work as a novelist, They Don’t Run Red Trains Anymore and Two White Queens and the One Eyed Jack with a new work forthcoming from Dundurn Press, readers may also recognize von Palleske from her film career with roles in features such as Rabid, My Animal, Dead Ringers, The House Next Door and many, many more. Cut from dramatic cloth, the way she handles the internal lives of all her characters brings to mind the careful, precise observation a sensitive actor needs to convey nuance and subtlety in characters. The backstories, the things privately admitted, the things privately not understood are teased out in the process of building a character, whether as an actor or a writer.
Much of the novel plays out while inside the thoughts of characters which makes it feel as if they are all atoms swirling in each other’s orbit, not quite touching, but deeply affected by one another.
There is a vibe of La Vie Boehme keeping the narrative afloat; the foibles and mistakes of young people as they perfect or abandon their chosen art, their chosen lovers, seeking wildness, seeking fulfillment, finding completion and completing a satisfying circular structure indicating that our growth will always be somehow tied to our birth. A beautiful book full of stunning imagery and intertwining lives.
About the Author
Heidi von Palleske is a film actor and an author. Known for populating her stories with outcasts and misfits, Heidi’s work spans film, TV, and literature, often challenging societal norms. She lives in Toronto.
About the Reviewer
Emily Weedon is a CSA award-winning screenwriter and author of the dystopian debut Autokrator, with Cormorant Books. Her forthcoming novel Hemo Sapiens will be published in September 2025, with Dundurn Press. https://emilyweedon.com/
Book Details
Publisher : Dundurn Press (Feb. 9 2021)
Language : English
Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 1459746783
ISBN-13 : 978-1459746787