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Alexandre Dumas was already at the head of his class. Few writers, if any, could approach his masterful way of intertwining historical fact (layered, of course, by his own imagination) with high-octane action, adventure, and romance. He proved it again and again in his novels about revenge-seeking counts and sword-slashing musketeers. And now he does it once more, with an even more powerful voice, in his tale of a magical and heroic young knight.
     The Knight of Maison-Rouge is one of those rare gifts that are all too seldom found in the book world. A work once thought lost in the dustbins of a shuttered store, with few if any editions in circulation, is rediscovered, lavished with a fresh coat of paint and polish, and brought out to the front of the shop for all to see and grasp. Once the pages are cracked open, from that very minute we enter the streets of Paris in early March 1793, we are thrust back into another time, hurtling into a distant world. It may well be a place we have never seen or even heard about. But it is one that, through the many works of Alexandre Dumas, we have come to know so very well.

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His world was always my escape route. As I read through each page of this wonderful new novel, crammed to the brim with fights, betrayals, deceit, friendships, and the quest for honor, it became a simple feat to drift back and remember all that Dumas has given me. I was raised in a violent household, my parents always within inches of taking that final plunge toward death. When the battles became too difficult to face, the shouts and screams too wrenching to hear, I would turn to Dumas and his books, and in their company I would always find the safest refuge.
     I would sit in the rear of a small, quiet library in my New York City neighborhood, in a room that faced onto a busy and bustling avenue, a wood table with four chairs all to myself, the pages of one of his novels spread out before me. There, through many a long afternoon, I allowed Dumas to take me deep into his world, miles away from the anguish of my own. I have never been to Paris, but in the back room of that cramped library, I walked and fought my way through its streets with the best possible guide by my side.

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All great writers offer a refuge through their work, speaking to us with words and tales they have chiseled with their own particular stamp. Dumas was a man of great wealth and high-end tastes who had spent his way through a fortune by the time he lay on the thick quilts of his deathbed, breathing his last. Yet, despite the money he spent so freely, his stories and his heart rested in the soul of the working man. His heroes are all colored with the flag of honor, each bred through the ranks of abject poverty. Dumas made himself so rich by writing so well about their adventures, each of their tales wrapped in the cloak of loyalty to king and queen, giving them the veneer of the respect each central character very often had to draw sword to obtain.
     With this fresh and vibrant novel now reclaimed, the heroic Maurice and Lorin will soon be placed in the vaunted ranks of other Dumas stalwarts -- from Dantès to D'Artagnan and the rest of the glorious musketeers. Brave men who willingly flipped aside their thick robes to clash swords for a noble cause or a beautiful woman (and few are as luminous as our current heroine, Geneviève), or very often both at the same time. Dumas's characters all live through turbulent days, death always a mere flick of a blade away, romance ever elusive; they are men of power and wealth flaunting their riches in cities drowning in poverty and despair.
     It is what helps make Dumas timeless -- his Paris of 1793, with a mere shuffling of the deck, can be any other major city, with little care to decade or century. The turmoil faced by Lorin during the glory years of Marie Antoinette could easily be matched in today's world in many a city and any number of countries.

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In The Knight of Maison-Rouge, as in all his other works, Dumas treats history with the casual indifference of the storyteller. He uses it not for accuracy but to propel his story forward, to turn its laws and abuses to suit the goals of his tale. His fictional creations mingle easily in the company of historical personages, fighting for their causes, bowing to their lineage, pledging fidelity to their reign. All of it done for the sake of story. Yet despite any quibbles historians may have with Dumas, his Parisian novels paint a more than accurate picture of an explosive time and a changing world.
     In this enchanting book, the anger that percolates on the stone streets of Paris is felt through every page. The tension between the classes, between those casually dismissive of their wealth and the hands and faces of those one missed meal away from death, is as palpable as a baby's heartbeat. The seeds of a revolution are not merely planted in a careless manner but seem always to be on the brink of a bountiful harvest. Through his many novels, this latest just one more brilliant addition, Dumas has made the city and its history his own and is more than eager to share it with a willing world.

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It is so very easy to get lost in the pages of a Dumas novel. To forget time and place and be engulfed by characters rich and full, battles one-sided and hopeless, promises that must be kept and deceptions that cannot be forgiven. There are dozens of unforgettable characters in The Knight of Maison-Rouge, each one of them a complete portrait, his strengths, weaknesses, foibles, and motives painted with a palette of many colors. The panorama is, as always, lush and layered, from the overview of a struggling nation to the turmoil of a small side street, all drawn down to the most precise detail. It is the work of a writer trolling within the full force of his powers, both the destiny and the direction of his story resting in his hands alone. The reader is merely a passenger venturing on a literary journey that will always be remembered.

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After my childhood, I continued to turn to the works of Alexandre Dumas. As a troubled teen, I sought out his stories as a safe haven from the questions of a life that offered me so few answers. As a young man, I looked to his work as my template for the proper way to deliver a story, to coat it and coax it and bring it to a conclusion with the power and brilliance it so much deserved. I have always fallen short in my attempts, while Dumas never failed to succeed with his own. And now, as a middle-aged man, I read his works for the fond memories they never fail to bring. The time I've spent with those fine novels will always belong to no one else but me.
     Ride with The Knight of Maison-Rouge. If you have never read Dumas before, let this be the first of many steps in his direction. If you've crossed his path, are familiar with his many sagas, then there should be no hesitation to journey on yet another adventure. Either way, once we are inside the pages, there is no escape, as we are again taken hostage and made this master's literary prisoners.
     So allow Dumas to do what he does best -- turn us all once again into quiet children sitting in the warmth of small libraries, at empty tables, our heads buried in one of his books, our imaginations filled with the raging battles and the fierce loves of another century and another place. As we turn each page, we are once again free to turn his adventures into our very own.
     It is the truest gift any novelist can hope to give.
     And none has been more generous than Alexandre Dumas.

Copyright (C) 2003 by Lorenzo Carcaterra. Posted by permission of Modern Library, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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