(When she asks what’s held there, she’s told “cargo.”) The narrative soon alternates chapters between the Ghanans and their American descendants up through the present day. The daughter of one tribal leader marries a British man for financial expediency, then learns that the “castle” he governs is a holding dungeon for slaves. Gyasi’s debut novel opens in the mid-1700s in what is now Ghana, as tribal rivalries are exploited by British and Dutch colonists and slave traders. Still, Pataki deserves kudos for choosing her subject matter well-Sisi’s life is ideal fictional fodder.Ī novel of sharply drawn character studies immersed in more than 250 hard, transformative years in the African-American diaspora. The plot doesn't stray far from the conventions of novels about royalty, exposing all the unsurprising human disappointments lurking behind the gilded façade. On her return to stultifying court life, Sisi is felled by depression but finally musters the will to stage a rebellion of her own. However, young Sophie succumbs to a fever while in Budapest, feeding the archduchess’s propaganda campaign against Sisi’s maternal suitability. On her first visit, she's captivated by the former rebel leader, dark, handsome Count Andrássy. Sisi is instrumental in healing the rift with Hungary, in part because this wildly popular empress has a special affection for the Hungarian people and landscape. Franz is preoccupied with affairs of state, dealing with rebellious upstarts like Hungary, Italy and Prussia, vassal nations eager to throw off the Habsburg yoke. (The same will happen with Sisi’s ill-fated son, Prince Rudolf). When Sisi gives birth to two daughters, Sophie and Gisela, the archduchess complains of the lack of a male heir but happily appropriates the princesses, barring Sisi from any involvement in their upbringing. After a gift-strewn engagement and lavish royal wedding, Sisi adjusts to the realities of wedded bliss among the monarchy: She has no privacy-every intimate detail’s observed and remarked upon by court spies-and a mother-in-law who's not about to brook any rivals for her son’s affection. To Sophie’s alarm, Franz prefers the pretty, vivacious and athletic 15-year old Sisi to the shy, homely and studious Helene. The sisters’ redoubtable aunt, Archduchess Sophie, has arranged Helene’s betrothal to her son, Emperor Franz Joseph, who reigns over Austria, Germany, Hungary and most of central Europe. In 1853, Elisabeth, known as “Sisi,” daughter of a Bavarian duke, accompanies her mother and older sister, Helene, to Vienna. A love match alters the course of the Habsburg dynasty in Pataki’s second novel ( The Traitor's Wife, 2014).
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