ST. GEORGE, UT, May 26, 2021
Clifford Browder
Lady of the Chameleons, the sixth novel in Clifford Browder’s Metropolis series of historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York, was recently acquired by E. L. Marker. It is the first in the series to feature a female protagonist. Thoroughly researched, often from primary sources from the period, Metropolis brings the grandeur and cruelty of old New York alive.
All Browder’s novels begin with a question: what would it be like to be a particular character in a particular time? His characters live outside the casual wealth and opulence surrounding them–pickpockets, prostitutes, hired help–and must earn what others take for granted. Lady of the Chameleons centers on Mathilde Mesnard, a French woman who survived a childhood of poverty and abuse to achieve wealth and fame as an actress.
Imperious, demanding, brazenly self-confident, moody, capricious, and deeply sensual, Mathilde Mesnard comes to New York in 1880 as part of an American tour. As her guide and lover she takes Rob Peterson, a young New York reporter who copes as best he can with her needs and demands. When Mathilde and her troupe leave New York to tour the West by rail, Mathilde invites Rob to watch over her luxurious Fifth Avenue brownstone. Rob keeps the public interested in Mathilde through newspaper stories reporting on her adventures out West. Skeletons from Mathilde’s past surface, intent on convincing Rob that Mathilde is not who she claims to be.
In Lady of the Chameleons Browder brings the past into the present so it lives and breathes for the reader. The worlds of journalism and theater intersect in a way that is both entertaining and enlightening as readers follow Mathilde Mesnard and her lover Rob Peterson struggling to find and forge their identity.
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Clifford Browder is a writer and retired editor. He lives in New York, high above the Magnolia Bakery of “Sex and the City” fame. He has never owned a television, a car, or a cell phone, and he barely tolerates his computer. His poetry has appeared in various literary magazines both online and in print, and his blog, No Place for Normal: New York, is about anything and everything New York. This is his second book to be published with E. L. Marker. To learn more visit https://www.cliffbrowderbooks.com