The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

    

                                                    

Hardback: 438 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Tinder Press, Headline Publishing Group 2022.

Source: Tywyn Public Library

First Sentence: Lucrezia is taking her seat at the long dining table, which is polished to a watery gleam and spread with dishes, inverted cups, a woven circlet of fir.

Favourite Quote: “Sadness keeps attempting to tie weights to her wrists and ankles, therefore she has to keep moving, she has to outpace it.” 

Review Quote: 'Her narrative enchantment will wrest suspense and surprise out of a death foretold' Financial Times

Literary Awards: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2022)

Setting: Italy

My Opinion:  I have been a fan of Maggie O'Farrell's writing for over twenty years! Beautifully descriptive literary prose and cleverly woven storylines that have never disappointed me as a reader. In her latest novel ‘The MarriagePortrait’ she has taken the historic real life characters, Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara and his first wife Lucrezia de Medici, Duchess of Ferrara and woven the storyline around their short marriage of just three years.

The retelling of this true story of the untimely death of the young duchess Lucrezia, which may have been, according to history, at the hands of her husband is an evocative read. One becomes immersed in the Italy of the C16 with the descriptions that Lucrezia gives us of her lifestyle.

Maggie O’Farrell in her renowned descriptive style of writing has turned this sad episode from history into a literary and readable story. Certainly one of my favourites for this year and therefore, highly recommended.  

Previous Reviews:   Hamnet.   Instructions for a Heatwave

Precis Courtesy of Goodreads:

I thought I had made myself clear. I want something that conveys her majesty, her bloodline. Do you understand? She is no ordinary mortal. Treat her thus.' 

Florence, the 1560s. Lucrezia, third daughter of Cosimo de' Medici, is free to wander the palazzo at will, wondering at its treasures and observing its clandestine workings. But when her older sister dies on the eve of marriage to Alfonso d'Este, heir to the Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: Alfonso is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood, 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 husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appears 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 uncomfortable finery for the painting which is 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 Ferrarese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, her future hangs entirely in the balance.

Author Profile

                                                     Photo courtesy of Wikipedia 

Maggie O'Farrell was born on 27th May 1972 in Coleraine, Northern    Ireland. She is married to the author William Sutcliffe and they live in Edinburgh with their three children.

Novels

• After You'd Gone (2000)
• My Lover's Lover (2002)
• The Distance Between Us (2004)
• The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (2007)
• The Hand That First Held Mine (2010)
• Instructions for a Heatwave (2013)
• This Must Be the Place (2016)
• Hamnet (2020), Tinder Press ISBN 978-1-4722-2379-1
• The Marriage Portrait (2022), Tinder Press ISBN 978-1-4722-2384-5

Autobiography/Memoir

• I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death (2017)

For Children

• Where Snow Angels Go, Walker Books, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini (2020)
• The Boy Who Lost His Spark, Walker Books, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini (2022)

Photograph and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

 Goodreads - Author Profile    Amazon Author Profile  Facebook - Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell - Official Website.   Wikipedia - Maggie O'Farrell