![]() The novel provides a wealth of detail as Toinette savors the food, architecture, music and gardens of Versailles indulges in hair and clothing rituals gets acquainted with her indifferent partner and her scheming new relations and experiences motherhood and loss. ![]() In Naslund's (Ahab's Wife) sympathetic portrayal, 14-year-old "Toinette" arrives in France a pretty-mannered naïf determined to please the king, the court and, most importantly, her husband, the Dauphin. ![]() The opening sentence of Naslund's fictional memoir of Marie Antoinette ("Like everyone, I am born naked") sets a hypnotically intimate tone that never wavers as the much-maligned Austrian princess recounts her life from baptism in the Rhine and rebirth as French citizen to appointment with the guillotine. ![]()
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