O's 2012 Summer Reading List

Those of us who remember the ill-fated Queen of France as the indolent and capricious young woman in Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette will be unsettled—and deeply moved—by the weary and brave queen of Francine du Plessix Gray's The Queen's Lover, which portrays a wizened and seriously depressed Marie-Antoinette in the years before her death. Told from the perspective of her lover and lifelong friend, the Swedish aristocrat Axel von Fersen, the story introduces us to a queen whose "aura of warmth and gentleness" and "infinite grace" inspired devotion in her real-life subjects. As the rage of the country's impoverished citizenry increases and anti-royalist sentiments escalate, Fersen takes immense personal risks to bring the royal family—including King Louis XVI—to safety. We all know the tragic results of these escape attempts, but du Plessix Gray pulls the curtain back to reveal the inner life of a queen who was a concerned friend and lover, a deeply protective mother and—saddest of all—a woman who knew much too early that her fate was out of her hands.