In Emmeline, Judith Rossner has taken on a plot of high improbable melodrama and come so close to making it believable that the part we cannot swallow scarcely bothers our enjoyment….

Of course, claiming an origin in fact does not excuse plots that creak or circumstances that collide with unlikely bangs. The weakest answer any novelist can ever give is that something was that way and therefore is so transcribed. Fictional truth is more shapely and more persuasive than reality. We know people more clearly, understand motives and see how events ramify, as we seldom can in real life. Only because Emmeline is well drawn and because we identify with her determination to survive difficulties and save her family, we are able to accept a story that is archaic and sensational.

Emmeline is a fully realized character in her naiveté, her courage, her failing piety, her stubborn will...