Re-Run of the Day: The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire

In honor of Cinco de Mayo and, appropriately enough, the official launching of C. M. Mayo's historical novel The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I am re-running my review, first posted back in April: C. M. Mayo’s The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is the historically accurate, fictionalized account of Emperor Maximilian’s short reign over Mexico in the 1860s. Mayo’s hook is Maximilian’s “adoption” of the half-American grandson of the first Emperor of Mexico, General Agustín de Iturbide. The childless Maximilian makes the toddler his “heir apparent” to help shore up Mexican support for his French-backed regime, bribing the parents with pensions and promises of aristocratic lives in Paris – a bargain the Inturbides soon regret. But the book is more than simply the story of the Iturbide family. It encompasses Maximilian’s entire, brief reign, from his forced relinquishment of family rights as a Hapsburg and Archduke of Austria when he accepted the Mexican crown from Louis Napoleon, to his wife Charlotte’s crack up, and his ultimate defeat at the hands of Mexican nationalists. Mayo spent years researching the story of Maximilian and the Inturbides, focusing on obscure primary source materials stashed away in historical archives. The underlying story is fascinating. It is one thing to have a general understanding that the French were meddling around in Mexico the same time America was fighting its Civil War and the Prussians were vying with France for power in Europe. It is another thing to have all those moving parts come together in a coherent, entertaining novel that weaves the personal in with the political. As Mayo explains in the Epilogue, she chose to write the story as fiction because:

I wanted to tell it true, which means, of course, getting the facts as straight as possible but also, and this was the most interesting to me, telling an emotional truth. Why did Alice, Angel, Pepa, Maximilian, and Charlotte do what they did? Who encouraged and supported them, and who criticized, intimidated, and frustrated them – and for what motives? The answer is not only in historical and political analysis, but in their hearts, and the hearts of others can only be experienced with the imagination, that is, through fiction.

Mayo tells the story from the perspective of several characters, from Maximilian and Charlotte down to illiterate servants and even the toddler Agustín himself. This is an effective technique for layering details and pulling the most out of every aspect of the tale. But the continuous switching around made it difficult to become completely absorbed in the story. Despite this and a few other minor flaws – the diplomatic maneuvering got a little repetitive and the ending was rushed – The Last Prince deserves attention. It is an ambitious book for tackling such a complicated little sliver of history, and Mayo brings her historic characters to life with a compelling story for a modern audience.

Review: Red Square

Red Square is the third book in Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko series, following Renko’s introduction in Gorky Park and Siberian exile in Polar Star.  In Red Square, Renko is back in Moscow, reinstated as an investigator with the militia. His efforts to discover the killer of a black market financier lead him to the world of high-stakes art smuggling, the Munich studios of Radio Liberty, and the arms of his lost love Irina.

Set at the brink of the 1991 “August Coup” that precipitated the final breakup of the Soviet Union, Red Square is as moody and grim as all the Renko novels. Mafioso capitalists – still more robber than baron – vie for control of the fledgling new economy while people stand in line for beets and Party apparatchiks cling to the shreds of power. Smith captures the inherent dichotomies with snapshots such as this scene at the end of Renko’s interview of a suspect at the man’s Western-style sports bar:

Borya . . . dropped his voice. . . . “[D]o you think I’d endanger all this, everything I’ve achieved, to take some sort of primitive revenge? That’s the old mentality. We have to catch up with the rest of the world or we’re going to be left behind. We’ll all be in empty buildings and starving to death. We have to change. Do you have a card?” he asked suddenly.

“Party card?”

“We collect business cards and have a drawing once a month for a bottle of Chivas Regal.” Borya controlled a smile, barely.

It is detailed touches like this – as well as emotionally evocative lines such as “despair saturated the air” and “the threadbare overcoats of Soviet crime” – that create the authentic atmosphere in Smith’s novels and raise them above the typical thriller.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other Martin Cruz Smith book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Floating Opera

"To someone like myself, whose literary activities have been confined since 1920 mainly to such pedestrian genres as legal briefs (in connection with my position as partner in the firm of Andrews, Bishop, & Andrews) and Inquiry-writing (which I'll explain presently), the hardest thing about the task at hand -- vis., the explanation of a day in 1937 when I changed my mind -- is getting into it." -- The Floating Opera by John Barth. My goodness, what an overpacked suitcase of an opener! This looks like it is going to be quite a romp. Published in 1956, The Floating Opera was Barth's first novel and a finalist for the National Book Award. Barth is best known for The Sot Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy, both on my TBR shelf. But I am happy to start with this one as it is far shorter than either of the others and looks like it may be an accessible introduction to what is, for me, a new author. According to the back cover, The Floating Opera is "among many curious things":

the story of the day when Todd Andrews, hero and narrator, confirmed bachelor, convinced nihilist, practicing lawyer, rake, saint, cynic and potential suicide, decides not to commit suicide.

One reason I picked this up at Powell's the other day is because the shape of the book is super cool. It looks like the cover pictured above, but the corners on the right side are rounded. I've never seen a paperback like it.

Blog Pays Off!

Well, I am pleased as punch today because I have $50 in book store gift certificates coming my way from Reading Local. In addition to keeping the Rose City informed of book-related events, up on local authors, and generally entertained, Reading Local hosts a monthly contest aimed at keeping the blog lively. Points are based on the number of comments or links to community events posted. The person with the most points each month wins a $25 gift certificate to Broadway Books, a $25 gift certificate to the local book store of the winner's choice, and, starting in May, a $25 gift certificate to Title Wave, the used bookstore run by the Friends of the Multnomah County Library. The contest is open to those within 75 miles of Portland -- so local readers, get over to Reading Local and leave your comments! I chose Ampersand for my second award. I can't wait to go book shopping!

Hooray! Hooray! The Challenge Starts Today!

It is May Day! And even the usually gray skies here in the City of Roses have cleared because it is time to start the Sunshine Smackdown - Battle of the Prizes challenge. Read three books between now and Labor Day, September 7. One book that won the Pulitzer Prize, one book that won the National Book Award, and one book that won both. Details and links to the lists are here. To sign up, please leave a comment on the details page with a link to your blog post or a list of your books. Thanks to everyone who has signed up so far! Please leave a comment here on on the main page with progress reports and reviews. I will add links and post updates as the challenge progresses. Read on!