Reese Witherspoon has selected Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait as the latest pick for her influential book club.
O’Farrell’s novel, published in September by Knopf, is a fictional account of the life of Lucrezia de’Medici, a 16th-century teenage girl who was married to a duke and died at 16, sparking rumors that she was poisoned by her husband. A critic for Kirkus called the book a “compelling portrait of a young woman out of step with her times.”
The Marriage Portrait is O’Farrell’s first novel for adults since Hamnet, her 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award–winning book about the family of William Shakespeare. In an interview with the Seattle Times, she said she was inspired to write the new novel after rereading Robert Browning’s poem about de’Medici, “My Last Duchess.”
“I’ve always loved the poem, and I only really recently investigated whether or not it was based on real people,” she said. “I discovered that Lucrezia was indeed real, and as soon as I saw her portrait, I knew I wanted to write about her.”
On Instagram, Witherspoon posted a brief video showing her reading the book, with the caption, “When the book is a true story & you can’t stop Googling…”
“You know I love historical fiction...and with a true crime element? I’m in!” Witherspoon wrote. “I could not stop Googling all the details of this true story! It’s a fascinating, historical thriller about an Italian Duchess, who we learn at the very beginning of the book will die either by sickness...or by her husband’s hand. I can’t wait to hear what you think!”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
