Review by Martha Quillen
Tabor Saga – June 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Matchless
by Jane Candia Coleman
published in 2003 by Five Star in conjunction with Golden West Literary Agency
ISBN 0-7862-3803-8
MATCHLESS is a compelling novel based on the life of Augusta Pierce Tabor. But the first forty to fifty pages of the book are so packed with information about Augusta’s background and family and the political climate of their era that it reads like one of those juvenile biographies.
In its first chapters, Matchless seems more like a thinly veiled attempt to deliver a history lesson by disguising it as fiction, than like a fully developed novel. But Coleman’s version of Augusta Tabor’s story slowly comes to life, and it’s well worth pursuing.
This is not merely the well-known tale of the prim, proper Victorian wife who lost her husband to the vivacious Baby Doe. It’s the tale of a courageous young New Englander who followed her husband West and frequently earned their keep by cooking, cleaning, gardening, and laundering.
The Augusta Tabor on the cover of Matchless is not the dour, middle-aged women of legend. She’s an attractive young wife from a prosperous family. In her youth, Augusta had a reputation for being sickly, but she evolved into an intrepid pioneer. And together she and Horace Tabor not only survived, they thrived.
Coleman, however, portrays the Tabors as a sadly incongruous couple. In the beginning they succeeded because they were both extraordinarily persistent and determined. But they harbored very different dreams. Augusta wanted a home, love, security, respectability and roots. Horace yearned for fame, fortune, political power, diamond stick pins, fine cigars, beautiful women, and admiration.
Coleman’s fictional version of the Tabor story presents Augusta as a clear-headed, pragmatic women who is confused, exasperated, and repelled by her husband’s behavior. Although Augusta wants her marriage to work, she’s sickened by the excess of the gilded age, and by Horace’s love of conspicuous consumption and showy flamboyance.
Once upon a time, Augusta Pierce fell in love with a politically ambitious, young abolitionist. But in later years, she sees the aging Horace as a crass buffoon, who’s easily led astray by sycophants, con-men, dance- hall girls, and greedy tycoons. In her view, the middle-aged Horace is a pompous peacock who revels in ostentation and foppish fashions.
Therefore, even though Augusta wants to improve her marriage, she finds herself nagging her husband about how he’s forgotten the miners, the little guys, and the hungry children. She criticizes his extravagance, and berates him for his licentious behavior. Augusta knows she’s making things worse, but she can’t seem to help herself.
From the very first page, the reader knows that the Tabor marriage is headed for destruction. But Jane Candia Coleman manages to instill drama into the old tale, regardless.
As the Tabors’ finances soar, their marriage falters. Augusta becomes confused and bitter. She’s a good sister, a loyal friend, a compassionate social worker, a talented gardener, and loving mother. But through much of this tale, she simultaneously loves and despises her husband.
Augusta is a respectable Victorian, who is driven to save her marriage. But she’s appalled by Horace’s grandiose lifestyle and repeated love affairs. And Augusta actually has a pretty good life without Horace, with lots of friends and relatives who adore her.
Matchless tells the story of a famous woman who tried to make her life and her marriage work. Yet Augusta Tabor never quite succeeded. Or did she?
Augusta and Horace Tabor survived disease, Western migration, bloody Kansas, shootings, blizzards, the gold rush, and poverty.
In the end, Coleman’s Augusta isn’t sure what to make of her own life. Too ill to survive Colorado’s altitude, Augusta moves to Pasadena, where she observes: “Removed from it all, my life appears like a dream. Scenes play out behind my closed eyes when I least expect them, and I watch, wait breathless, as if I can make them turn out differently.”
Coleman’s tale of Augusta features the same old ending, but Matchless gives the old story new life and inspires fresh perspectives. It also makes one think about men and women, love and marriage, heartache, bitterness, and disappointment — and about how some things never really change.
–Martha Quillen