Anne Cormac is the product of an illicit affair between the man of the house, William Cormac, and a maid. The affair is discovered, and William flees Ireland with his new wife and child to South Carolina to start anew.

In a time when kings ruled, slaves worked the land and women kept the house, William had no slaves, believing “no good will come” of “wealth based on human misery.”

Anne inherits her father's his ideals of equality — along with his passion and stubborn Irish pride — and pushes them a step further, challenging 18th century society's rules, especially those that keep women in their place.

“Would you be simply an ornament on (a) man's arm?” Cormac asks his daughter when she is of marrying age. She declares, “The man I choose will not have me as an ornament.”

Though she struggles to rein in her own passions, Anne's tipping point comes when she discovers her father indulging his: Catching him in a romp with a servant, Anne is overcome with her yearning to break free from the hypocrisy she finds abundant.

“Heart of a Pirate: A Novel of Anne Bonny” follows Anne's journey to the Caribbean, where she finds love, freedom and a measure of the equality she seeks on a little floating island of democracy and debauchery: A pirate ship.

Author Pamela Johnson, who lives part-time in Oregon House and part-time in Jamaica, offers the pirate's life as one where repressed social patterns of gender and class are transformed.

Well, sort of.

Anne and another woman pirate, Mary Read, bind their breasts and don trousers to gain the respect of their shipmates.

Later, when Anne comes to trial in Jamaica on charges of piracy, she takes on a system where married women are not held accountable for their actions because, as officials argue, they must take orders from their husbands.

But though she weds her pirate lover — her second husband — the judges don't recognize the marriage and try her as a spinster.

“That she be judged by these pompous, powdered men with as many grievances on their heads as she had upon hers, was indeed absurd,” Anne thinks.

Historical novel

Johnson derives Anne's tale from historical records, but drenches it with suspense, lusty encounters and romanticized fictional details.

Throughout, Johnson weaves overarching questions: Who decides what is right and what is wrong? Why are some ideas established and unchallenged in society, while others are dismissed? Even among the ruffian democrats of the high seas, why must Anne bind her breasts and masquerade as a lad?

Anne Bonny is a strong female protagonist showcasing the hypocrisy framing laws, morals and stereotypes, and Johnson's probing novel of the 18th century raises issues that continue to reverberate in the 21st.

While piracy is illegal, Johnson shows it is more appealing than the legal alternative: Merchant ships filled with hardworking sailors at the mercy of their captain, enduring poor food, overcrowded conditions and the reward of “low wages and disease.” In comparison, a pirate ship is “an anomaly in a world dictated by rank and privilege.”

Anne sees pirates as “victims of a system forced upon them.”

When she is challenged that pirates “take from lawful men their hard-earned wealth,” she wonders whether the wealth produced by slaves is not just another form of piracy.

“Anne was a complex figure, a source of dialogue in our quest to determine the true nature of equality and freedom for men and women of all persuasions, a touchstone in our attempts to understand issues of poverty, class, prison and the death penalty,” Johnson writes in the Afterword.

“Heart of a Pirate” is set against a “background of war on the seas and in Europe.” Through Anne Bonny, Johnson shapes the story of “a child who would one day grow to become the center of legend and a byword for freedom.”

Writing and politics entwine

Johnson is a 1980 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Her biography describes her as “actively involved in social and environmental issues ... Her writing (is) an extension of her politics.”

“Heart of a Pirate,” with ISBN 978-0-615-27560-4, is published by Stone Harbour Press and is $15. It is available at the Book Seller, 107 Mill St., in downtown Grass Valley.

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To contact Reader Liaison Angela Diaz, e-mail adiaz@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4203.