Review: The Egyptologist: A Novel

In 1980, my dad took me and my sister to San Francisco to see the King Tut exhibit at the DeYoung museum. This was historical for two reasons: 1) This exhibit marked the last time that King Tut's original treasures would be seen in the US until 2005, and 2), my sister and I got to play hookey from school. I'll let you figure out which was more exciting to me.

Actually, even as an 8-year-old, seeing that exhibit was thrilling. I knew I was looking at something very important. I didn't understand what an 18th-dynasty pharaoh was, or where the Valley of the Kings was...but I did know three things: I knew that stuff was really OLD, I knew that stuff was really PRETTY, and I knew that stuff had ORGANS in them. (And if you think that an 8-year-old doesn't know what "embalming" means...they will after seeing that exhibit.)

My dad bought a book in the gift shop and I read that book from cover to cover whenever it was raining outside or I didn't have any library books handy. I daydreamed about being an archeologist like Howard Carter and moving to Egypt with my trusty shovel.

This little trip down memory lane is a very long and convoluted way of telling you that I have a long love affair with Egyptian history and The Egyptologist: A Novel, by Arthur Phillips was a really, really fun read.

Phillips weaves fiction with fact as the story centers around the search for a missing 18th-dynasty pharaoh named Atum-hadu ("Atum is aroused") at the same time that Howard Carter is searching for King Tutankhamun, in 1922. The intertwining storyline is told from the perspectives of Ralph Trilipush, an archeologist with dubious credentials searching for Atum-hadu; Harold Ferrell, an private detective with a lot of questions about a missing and possibly murdered Australian; and Margaret Finneran, a bored Boston socialite engaged to Trilipush and whose father is the financial backer of the archeological dig.

The Valley of the Kings is the backdrop for much of the story where Trilipush finds what he believes to be the tomb of missing pharoah. He documents his findings through the tomb, along with some poetry of the slightly perverted and sex-obsessed pharoah's last days in power.

Trilipush, Ferrell and Finneran prove to be an extremely unreliable cast of characters, as we learn through their diaries, letters and telegrams to each other (the book is written 100 percent through journals and correspondence). It's a cool narrative technique because it allows the reader to figure out who is lying about what. To be honest, I figured out the plot twist pretty early on, but I'm pretty sure that was the author's intent, because it was interesting to figure out how the inevitable was going to occur.

The quest for immortality was pervasive in Egyptian culture and 3500 years later, the cast of characters in this book all strive for it in their own sad and destructive ways.

This book was a lot of fun, if a tad bit long. Enjoy!