This novel is a triumph.
Two royal cousins—Ludwig II of Bavaria and the Empress Elisabeth of Austria—chafe against the constraints of power even as the world around them seeks to strip that power away.
Elisabeth (or Sisi, as she is known) is born in 1837 with a double dose of royal blood, but she's raised outside the intrigues and expectations of the Bavarian court. Her father, Duke Max—a minor member of the Wittelsbach dynasty—plays the zither and loves nothing more than the circus, while her mother, Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, Max’s first cousin, picks fleas from her lapdog at the tea table. Raised in Possenhofen, a summer palace 6 miles from the seat of power in Munich, Sisi has an idyllic childhood that prepares her for a life of willful privilege, a prophecy that seems fulfilled when she catches the eye of her cousin Emperor Franz Joseph, to whom she is promised when she is only 15. It soon becomes clear to Sisi, however, that life in the rigidly formal court of the Hapsburgs represents the exact opposite of the freedom she enjoyed as a child. She chafes wildly against the expectations of her new husband and his formidable mother, the Archduchess Sophie, that she be an ornament of the crown whose only real duty is to behave well and produce an heir. Meanwhile, in Nymphenburg castle in Munich, Sisi’s cousin Ludwig, heir to the Bavarian throne, eschews the more practical side of his royal education in favor of the heady distractions—art, theater, ballet, human beauty—he sees as his birthright. Obsessed with the exquisite, Ludwig becomes a fervent patron of the arts, a builder of pleasure palaces, a custodian of refined theatrical passion, and an utter failure at managing the pressing needs of a kingdom threatened by German unification under Bismarck. As the cousins’ lives intertwine, Jemc masterfully weaves the political intrigues of the time (replete with anarchist uprisings, proto-democracies, and the death throes of the Hapsburg dynasty that would eventually lead to cataclysmic war) without losing track of the essential humanity of Ludwig and Sisi in their fey quest to remake the world into the version of beauty they believe is its ideal. Sensual, intricate, and filled with the verve of its own opulent language, Jemc’s retelling of these apocryphal lives delivers all the urgency of their time into our own without losing any of the fidelity it owes to their real legacies.
This novel is a triumph.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-374-27792-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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