The Marriage Portrait: the Instant Sunday Times Bestseller, Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023
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Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023
A Reese’s Bookclub December Pick (2022)
An Instant Sunday Times, New York Times and Irish Times Bestseller (August 2022)
A Guardian and LitHub Book of the Year (December 2022)
‘Every bit as evocative and spellbinding as Hamnet. O’Farrell, thank God, just seems to be getting better and better’ i newspaper
‘Her narrative enchantment will wrest suspense and surprise out of a death foretold’ Financial Times
‘Ingenious, inventive, humane, wry, truthful . . . better than her last novel’ Scotsman
‘Finely written and vividly imagined’ Guardian
‘In O’Farrell’s hands, historical detail comes alive’ Spectator
Winter, 1561. Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here. He intends to kill her.
Lucrezia is sixteen years old, and has led a sheltered life locked away inside Florence’s grandest palazzo. Here, in this remote villa, she is entirely at the mercy of her increasingly erratic husband.
What is Lucrezia to do with this sudden knowledge? What chance does she have against Alfonso, ruler of a province, and a trained soldier? How can she ensure her survival.
The Marriage Portrait is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Tinder Press, 1st edition (6 July 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 448 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1472223888 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1472223883 |
| Dimensions | 12.8 x 3.8 x 19.6 cm |
by AnnM52
We are reading this book for our Book Club. I was therefore very pleased to receive the book in good condition and so speedily. A particularly good book in my opinion. Thank you.
by TootingBren
Great visual writing, describing the powerful Medici family trying to further their influence using their poor daughter as a pawn and marrying her off.
She must find the will to survive somehow…
I loved the writing, you have to get used to the time jumps, in both directions. Everything is lavishly detailed, I could see it as a film easily.
by The Doc
I think you would need to know the poem ‘My Last Duchess’, which was drilled into me at GCSE level. It always raised more questions that it answered and there was a menacing tone to it. This book provides the answers, and is also very good at keeping the menacing tone going throughout.
It has a lot to say, too, about controlling and abusive behaviour (as well as violent and murderous behaviour).
I just found it a little long for its content. At times, I felt I was ploughing through.
Well worth a read, though, especially if you are an O’Farrell fan, but for me this book will not stay for ever on my bookshelf.
Well you can’t keep ’em all!
by VM Shepton
Maggie O’Farrell writes so beautifully and her book transports you to the period with her descriptions. Jeopardy for the lead characters keeps you turning the pages, and the ending is satisfactory. I almost feel there is a another book because you want to know how their futures panned out.
by Miss Elaine F Young
Story seemed old but contemporary and it was well written
by P Coutts
One of Maggie O’farrells best books.
Only complaint I have is I don’t like the toing and froing between the years.
by Gemma – Read A Book Gem
Having now read all of O’Farrell’s novels, this one certainly felt like a departure from her usual style of writing. Gone were the shifts between different character’s perspectives which are a feature of so many of her books, and instead we focus solely on Lucrezia’s point of view.
Also gone was the “less is more” writing seen in Hamnet which was so emotionally powerful in its simplicity. Instead, in The Marriage Portrait, the writing is rich and descriptive in a way that I have not seen before in O’Farrell’s work. It was beautiful to read, and captured the historical setting, however as the story progressed it took away from some of the dramatic tension and mystery.
I only had a vague recollection of My Last Duchess from my university days going into this book but I liked the reimagining of that story. Lucrezia was a fascinating character in her childhood with her natural intelligence and affiliation with animals. It was sad, though not surprising, to see her personality diminish after her marriage to Alfonso. The desperation and hopelessness of her situation, particularly as a woman at that time, was both infuriating and heartbreaking to read about. The story was often bleak yet atmospheric as the tension is maintained throughout.
Overall I enjoyed this book, even though the subject made it difficult at times, and am curious to see if this style of writing will continue in O’Farrell’s next book.
by Kindle Customer
The title of The Marriage Portrait is again used in it’s figurative and literally within the novel. This is because O’Farrell was inspired by what little is known of the very short life Lucrezia de Meditci who was married off to the Duke of Ferrara when she was 13 and he in his thirties. Betrothed at 13 and actually married at 15.
As a woman I found this novel very hard to read at times. The beautiful prose really brings home what it feels like to be bought and sold as property rather than considered a person. You have one destiny in life and when you fail to fulfil that destiny there have to be consequences.
This is a brutal read but I kept turning the pages despite this which is the hallmark of a master wordsmith. It is also important to read books like this occasionally so that we appreciate that which we might otherwise take for granted.
Reading this also inspired me to start learning Italian.