Exclusive interview with novelist Priya Parmar and a review of her new novel about actress Nell Gwyn, the surprising mistress of Charles II
Rating: 4 stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“She was an actress, mixing in some of the most learned circles of the day,” says Exit the Actress author Priya Parmar. “She had red hair at a time when red hair was not considered attractive, She was small when voluptuous beauty was the ideal. Nell Gwyn was the first woman I met during my doctoral research. I was fascinated by her contradictions. She was everything that was not supposed to work.”
Exit the Actress is told through a collection of Nell Gywn’s diary entries, playbills, letters, and gossip columns of the day. Parmar telling of Gywn’s life brings her vividly to life.
Nell Gwyn sells oranges in the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. She becomes friends with the actors and impresses the theatre owner. Her wit and engaging manner earns her a place in the company. She avoids becoming a prostitute as her sister had. Gwyn is very learned and knows how to read and write. She catches the eye of the monarch Charles II many times over the years, but won’t become his lover until many years after their first meeting.
Charles II had a difficult reign. While he was king there was plague and the Great First of 1666 that destroyed most of London. He was also at war with the Dutch. He had a long-term mistress, yet he loved his wife. Gwyn was one of the few who didn’t encroach on her relationship with the king. She loved him and wasn’t after money or power.
“She fell in love with the king because of who he was rather than what he was, and then she went back to the stage,” says Parmar. “She had an extraordinary life. I don’t remember actually choosing to write about her. When I moved down to London, she would crop up all over the place. I was working in a theatre in the West End, her neighbourhood, and then would walk past her house in Pall Mall on my way home. When I decided I wanted to write a novel, she moved right into my head and would not budge.”
To get the feel for Gwyn’s life and her day, Parmar would walk all over London, as she would have done. “I got up really early and walked what would have been her walk from Coal Yard Alley to the fish market, or to the site of the New Exchange or down Whitehall.”
Parmar divides her time between Hawaii and London. She was born in Washington D.C. She’s currently working on a second novel, which set during the First World War.
Parmar’s website is priyaparmar.com.
Exit the Actress: A Novel by Pryia Parmar. Trade Paperback, 464 pages,,Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (February 1, 2011). Language: English, # ISBN-10: 1439171173 # ISBN-13: 978-1439171172 $16.00
