Costco Connection - November 2006

book
pick

Let them read this

Intensive research breathes passion into life and times of Marie Antoinette

By J. Rentilly

LESS THAN A decade ago, despite four well- at the feet of Eve—did exhaustive research for reviewed books to her credit, Sena Jeter Naslund Abundance, reading countless volumes on Antoin-was lost in a literary wasteland, her soulful, melliflu- ette, studying letters between the young queen and ous prose failing to capture readers in any great her mother (“To get a sense of her voice,” Naslund number. Then Naslund,who founded and edits The says) and visiting locations key to the young Louisville Review, a 30-year-old literary journal woman’s adventures during the French Revo-based in her home state of Kentucky, remembered lution. These included Versailles and the prison in Charles Dickens. which Antoinette was jailed.

MARION ETTLINGER

“How was it that Dickens was able “Research can be something you to be very widely read and at the same get lost in,” says Naslund, “but I really time write novels of lasting literary enjoy it. I especially love doing what I merit?” Naslund reflects. “I decided I call ‘body research,’ which is to use my would try to do that: write an accessi- own five senses to get an idea of what ble,immediatestory—anovelin which life was like for my characters. How many things happened—that also had does the wind blow there? What do valuable and lasting literary merit.” you smell? What’s the particular shade Naslund’s first attempt at merging of green? What flowers are there? What commercial and critical considera- shapes are the gardens? My job is to tions was 1999’s Ahab’s Wife, a stun- make all of this information live, not to ning novel that revealed the voice of report it in a dusty, archival manner.” the complex woman who loved Moby Sena Jeter Naslund Indeed, among the abundant tri-Dick’s nefarious Captain Ahab. It was umphs of Abundance are its vivid sen-followed by Four Spirits, an urgent, deeply felt story suality, its spirited intimacy and the awesome of four disparate characters caught up in the civil- accessibility of its main character. rights movement in the South. With two sure- “I believe in fiction as a technique, a mode, that handed novels, Naslund moved from literary allows the reader to go inside another person, unlike obscurity to the grand marquee, winning over major oneself. Imagination is, and has always been, a great critics and selling half a million books in the process. moral and spiritual force. It takes us beyond our-

This month’s Book Buyer’s Pick is Naslund’s selves and to the interior of others. I think that’s Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, a lush, meaningful to us as human beings,” she says. “And first-person account of the torrid, courageous life it’s really the reason I write.” C

of Marie Antoinette, a historical character suddenly thrust again—with Sofia Coppola’s feature film and several other Antoinette-related books— into the Zeitgeist.

“I see all of these approaches to Marie Antoinette as being complementary of each other. Films, for example, show us her life through the lens of the camera’s eye, and fiction takes you inside a character, so we’re looking out through her eyes, instead of at her. When you put those two things together, you have an essentially complete picture,” Naslund tells The Connection. “Also, I think we are interested in this woman today because she lived in an era known as the Reign of Terror. Of course, terror is a big aspect of our lives these days. Perhaps it is interesting and instructive to see how Marie Antoinette met with the threats of her time.”

Naslund—who believes historians have made a scapegoat of Antoinette, blaming her for the fall of the French monarchy, much the way responsibility for the degradation of mankind has been laid

Pe_pnn_ıie_c’s _k

FRANCE FREEMAN

I’M A CLOSET history buff, and proud of it. It’s not that I enjoy rattling off dates of important events. Rather, my weakness is for the stories of people whom I’ll never get any closer to than through the pages of a book.

This month’s pick, Sena Jeter Naslund’s Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, is an example of the kind of book that feeds my interest in historical fiction. Impeccably researched, it’s a first-person account of the young queen’s life—from her arrival in Versailles to her time spent in prison.

Abundance is available at most warehouses and at costco.com. C

J. Rentilly is a Los Angeles–based journalist who writes about film, music and literature.

Signed book
giveaway

COSTCO HAS 10 autographed copies of Sena Jeter Naslund’s Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette to give away.

To enter, print your name, membership number, address and daytime phone number on a postcard or letter and send it to: Abundance, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088; or fax it to (425) 313-6718.