The legend of a woman taking over her fallen husband’s artillery gained further attention when George Washington’s own adopted son (and Martha’s grandson from her first marriage) George Washington Parke Custis recounted it in an 1840 newspaper article. A woman he called “Captain Molly” was bringing water to men on the field at Monmouth, and after her husband was shot dead, she “threw down the pail of water, and crying to her dead consort, ‘lie there my darling while I avenge ye,’ grasped the ramrod, … sent home the charge, and called to the matrosses to prime and fire.” For her bravery, the next morning George Washington met with her to recognize her service. Yet despite his close relationship with the original commander-in-chief, Custis’ stories about the war were rarely family testimonials and instead legends passed down years later by others.

I enjoyed the 1st and 3rd sections particularly and found that it was much clearer how these 2 sections related to each other .The second section was for me less memorable . Why not reserve a copy at your local Hastings or Bexhill library? Or buy a copy online, through The Hive, and support the local bookshop? The first section of the novel, almost a novella in itself, is a collection of writings by Laura Merrymount. In her journal entries she is smart and perceptive, writing fondly of her father who is known as “the finest Face painter in England” and her sister, the “wild and headstrong” Molly, who is prone to “fits” and “delirium”. We also read Laura’s letters to Susan, a cousin in Sussex, in which she describes the glamour of the family’s life in Bath and London and, increasingly, the attentions of two people: the rakish Mr Lowther and an actor, Mrs Vavasor. The next section skips forward 100 years to the end of the 19th century. Our hero here is Paul Stransom, an artist with a twisted spine and a gifted eye. “Talent had come to him as mysteriously as disability,” we learn. Stransom lives with his sister, Maggie, in Chelsea. She is a teacher, disappointed in life and work, who in her late 20s has “the impression of an interesting future behind her”. Then, suddenly, she is being courted by two men, one of whom offers her Portrait of a Young Man. It took me longer to read than I expected although it is not a particularly long book. The pace is slow, Quinn takes times to describe his settings with characteristic care of detail. Essentially this is a gentle mystery, a question runs throughout the three sections: what happened to the painting ‘Molly & the Captain’?

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At the end of their itinerary, they might have gotten a sense of how Molly Pitcher, the beloved freedom fighter who joined the Battle of Monmouth upon seeing her slain husband, contributed to the American Revolution, but in reality, they were just chasing a figment of the American imagination.

The final section in Kentish Town in the 1980s recounts artist Nell and her daughter Billie, the latter a film actress appearing in what sounds like a British version of Wim Wenders’ The Wings of Desire, as they both vie for the affections of a young pop star, Robbie. This is all very enjoyable, by turns comical and poignant. A secret about the titular painting emerges to bind all three sections tightly together. Currier & Ives/Library of Congress In the 19th century, a Currier and Ives series celebrated “The women of ’76.” Molly Pitcher earned the title “heroine of Monmouth.” In 1782, Corbin married a wounded soldier, but he died a year later. Gruff and unfeminine, Corbin made few friends among the women of her time, instead feeling more at home smoking and conversing with other soldiers. As the story goes, Hays leaped into action during the Battle of Monmouth. When her husband collapsed, she grabbed his cannon and started to fire. But was Mary Ludwig Hays the famous Molly Pitcher? De Pauw suggests that many of the “Molly Pitchers” of the world followed their husbands to war, learned how to fire cannons, and stood ready to take their husband’s place, should he fall.The legend of Molly Pitcher first started to spread in the decades after the Revolutionary War. In 1830, a veteran named Joseph Plumb Martin published a book titled A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier. Whilst this book could be described as historical fiction I felt the late 20th century sections were stronger and the story here more character than history lead .There is something for everyone in this novel and would be enjoyed by a range of readers from lovers of historical fiction to those who like women’s fiction A century later, in Kentish Town, a painter and her grown-up daughters receive news of an ancestor linking them to the long-vanished double portrait of Molly &the Captain . Meanwhile friendship with a young musician stirs unexpected passions and threatens to tear the family apart. Perhaps the most remarkable female soldier of the Revolution, however, was a woman named Deborah Sampson who entered the military as a man named Robert Shurtliff in 1782. She served with the Light Infantry Troops in New York and her gender identity was only discovered when she fell ill and was examined by a doctor. After the war, she married, received a military pension, and achieved fame with a speaking tour in which she told her story. Left to support herself alone, Corbin struggled financially. After she recovered, Corbin joined the Invalid Regiment at West Point, where she aided the wounded until she was formerly discharged in 1783. Then, on July 6, 1779, the Continental Congress, in recognition of her brave service, awarded her with a lifelong pension equivalent to half that of male combatants. Congress also gave her a suit of clothes to replace the ones ruined during the conflict.