Oct 31

Oct 31 The Marriage Portrait

Author: Maggie O’Farrell
Publisher: Knopf
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

From the author of the breakout New York Times best seller Hamnet—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award—an electrifying new novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de Medici.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Moderna and Regio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now make her way in a troubled court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the drama and verve with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life, and offers an unforgettable portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.

TL;DR Review

The Marriage Portrait is an immersive, engrossing novel that fictionalizes the life of an Italian Duchess in the 1550s. To put it simply, Maggie O’Farrell has done it again.

For you if: You like literary historical fiction.

Full Review

Thank you, Knopf, for the gifted copy of this book! I loved loved loved Hamnet and couldn’t wait to read Maggie O’Farrell’s latest. While Hamnet still has the #1 place in my heart, I also loved The Marriage Portrait and absolutely recommend it.

The story is a fictionalization of the life of Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici d’Este, Duchess of Ferrara. At the age of 15, she was married to Duke Alfonso d’Este, who was 27. As we learn on the first page, she died within the year. But the book traces all the way back from her childhood (daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany) and then into her marriage, which is very quickly revealed to have a very ugly side.

While The Marriage Portrait isn’t as witchy as Hamnet was, it’s just as immersive and cinematic and engrossing. O’Farrell will pick you up and place you right inside any scene she writes. The sense of doom and tension mixed with beauty was super impressive.

Come for the prose, though, and stay for the story: It had a very exciting ending, and even though I more or less guessed what was going to happen from some early hints, it didn’t lessen my enjoyment at all. But most importantly, the way O’Farrell writes Lucrezia’s descent into the darkest parts of abuse and gaslighting — the confusion, the justification, the awakening, the despair, the resolve — was excellent. Lucrezia’s emotional whiplash and her determination to adapt and continue to retain her own internal power, all while having very little external power, was very well done.

If you loved Hamnet (or even if you didn’t), read this one too!