More pulp romance than historical fiction.
Erickson (Lilibet: An Intimate Portrait of Elizabeth II, 2004, etc.) tries to get inside the mind of Marie Antoinette and winds up reinventing her as a Harlequin romance-style heroine.
As represented in this fictional diary, which she began keeping at age 13, Marie Antoinette is no Mensa candidate, to be sure—but what leading lady in a melodrama is? Like girls her age, she’s obsessed with boys and her burgeoning libido. Unlike other girls, however, she’s forced into an arranged marriage to the heir to the throne of France at age 14. Leaving her home and family is understandably traumatic, and, as any student of European history knows, the hits just keep on coming. Her life has all the makings of a prime-time soap opera, and we’re in for a sudsy ride as young Antoinette falls for her stablehand, marries pudgy prince Louis XVI, gets sexual tips from the local courtesan, is indoctrinated into the malicious backbiting world of the King’s court, becomes Queen, takes a gallant Swedish lover and pops out a few kids. Between parties and bouts of swooning over her Swede, Antoinette develops an affection for and loyalty to her dotty, neurotic husband. She also becomes increasingly aware that something is amiss in her adopted country—why are those pesky peasants throwing mud at the palace gates? Oh! It’s because they’re starving! Her diary entries at age 30 are strikingly similar to those at 14, only her interests have widened to include fashion, sex and palace politics, i.e., bossing people around. When the French Revolution comes pounding at her door, she’s struck dumb by its severity. As the public cries for her blood, she finally grasps the seriousness of the situation, and, seemingly overnight, becomes tender-hearted and goes to the guillotine with her head held high.
More pulp romance than historical fiction.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-33708-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Canin's return to short fiction should be a cause for welcome- -yet isn't, disappointingly. In four adipose, rhetorical, quite forced long stories, he continues—as in his unfortunate last book, the novel Blue River (1991)—to strive for ``wise'' adult tonalities. But these rich, deep voices all but neglect the small flashes of humaneness and helpless knowledge that made Canin's debut collection, Emperor of the Air (1988), remarkable—turning him into a writer who builds high, fussy, false ceilings without walls to support them. Upon an unstartling theme—that we repeat as adults what we do as children- -each story here plays out a variation. In the baldest, the title piece, a powerful captain of industry still is moved to impress his elderly prep-school teacher with his temerity and moral sleaze. In ``Accountant,'' an old friend's later-life success throws a careful man to the edge of his rectitude. In ``City of Broken Hearts,'' a middle-aged father learns something about trust and love from his college-aged son. And in ``Batorsag and Szerelem,'' a boy observes in his elder genius brother what seem like signs of schizophrenia but are instead sexual misapprehensions. It's here that the book is most ragged but also most genuine-seeming: the younger boy has available to him an X-raying psychology no grown-up character in Canin ever does (Canin must be the ultimate ``kid-brother'' writer)—and it's frustrating that this quicksilver perceptiveness is given so little play in the stories, which are bulked-up instead with grown-up characters that are invariably slow, large, and overwide. The stories thus always seem to be wearing their parent's clothes—an effect that reaches into the prose itself, a simulacrum of Cheeverian and Peter Tayloresque modulation that in Canin's hands is just pomp and circumstance.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-41962-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1993
Carefully researched and meticulously crafted historical fiction fused with ho-hum horror.
Demons both literal and figurative torment a Titanic stewardess in this supernatural-tinged suspense novel.
After scandal causes 18-year-old Annie Hebbley to flee her family’s home in Northern Ireland, she decamps to Southampton, England, and takes a job aboard the Titanic. The ship contains every imaginable luxury, but when an otherworldly voice nearly lures the Astors’ young servant over the railing, Annie and several others become convinced that the vessel also harbors evil spirits. Four years later, in 1916, Annie is at Morninggate Asylum, convalescing from a head injury sustained in the Titanic’s sinking, when she receives a letter from fellow former White Star Line employee Violet Jessop. Now a nurse, Violet is about to set sail on the Britannic—a hospital ship that is the Titanic’s twin—and she wants Annie to join her. Annie has misgivings, but her doctor strongly endorses the plan, so despite having no medical training, she signs on. The hope is that the experience will help Annie heal; instead, it unearths painful memories that provide shocking clarity regarding what actually transpired during the Titanic’s fateful crossing. Atmospheric prose and exquisite attention to detail distinguish Katsu’s follow-up to The Hunger (2018). Regrettably, though, while crosscuts between the voyages add tension and a kaleidoscopic narrative adds color and depth, the book ultimately founders beneath the weight of glacial pacing, paltry plotting, and sketchily conceived paranormal elements.
Carefully researched and meticulously crafted historical fiction fused with ho-hum horror.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53790-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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