The Magnificent Lies of Madeleine Béjart
Madeleine Béjart is a magnificent character, at once larger than life and beset by the problems of everywoman: love, loss, and the fraught decisions about what to tell and what never to reveal.
When her ne’er-do-well father disappears, leaving his family destitute, the exquisite red-headed eighteen-year-old assumes the thankless task of caring for his eccentric Parisian household. Only two professions are open to her: prostitution or the stage, which the Church considers equal. Feisty and charismatic, she moves rapidly between them, enchanting theatre-goers and the premier playwrights of Paris, Pierre and Thomas Corneille, while providing a generous livelihood for the many lively, talented, and improvident Béjarts. Yet this life brings setbacks. Along with the passion she discovers for the stage, she acquires the arts of deception and disguise, adapting them from theatre to life, as jealous rivals, inconvenient pregnancies, and an unrequited love for the still-developing talent, Molière, interfere with her rise.
This fascinating tragi-comic novel, set in the Golden Age of 17th-century French theatre, brings to life not only the colourful playwrights Pierre and Thomas Corneille, Molière, and Tristan L’Hermite, but also two magnificent actresses, Madeleine and Armande Béjart, and the vibrant world of French theatre in Paris and the provinces. It is a beautifully written tour de force that I highly recommend.
