I did not immediately fall in love with this book, as I did with Hamnet, but it grew on me after a chapter or so. It is a great story and a rich read. It is indeed a portrait of a marriage but it is also a clearly painted picture of misogyny, control and female suppression in 16th century Italy.
It struck me that I was reading this at a time when we had recently had #metoo, the curtailment of women’s rights in the US and the gender discussions that some people see as a threat to hard fought for women’s rights.
However, none of this is new. I know, not a surprise.
This story brilliantly evokes the brutality as well as the beauty of Renaissance Italy. Using daughters as pawns in land, money and power situations is the norm here. Choice is non existent. Lucrezia, a young teenager, is married off at her father’s whim and sent far from home. Angry, desperate and outraged by what has happened to her, she begins to sense that enormous danger awaits. Erratic, secretive and threatening, her new husband, with the help of a grimly violent friend, wants to kill her.
Fertility is the problem and I was reminded of the whole Henry 8th situation with wife after wife being accused of not being able to conceive and give birth to live babies, in particular and inevitably boys. It is of course never thought to be a problem with the man.
Lucrezia is so young and so frightened but if she is going to escape a desperately unhappy life, and possibly death, then she is going to have to be brave and courageous. That ghastly friend of her husband is always watching her, following orders no doubt. The ending is not as I thought it would be. Read and see. A Maggie O’Farrell book is always worth it.