The Sisters of Versailles
In The Sisters of Versailles, the first of a planned trilogy about the women in the life of King Louis XV, Sally Christie takes us to one of the most oft-trodden spots in historical fiction: the decadent court of Versailles, with its sparkling chandeliers and dingy back stairways. Fortunately, the characters who glide down the halls are fresh faces in historical fiction: the five Mailly-Nesle sisters, four of whom will share the bed of the king.
This is Christie’s first novel, and she handles it with aplomb. The daughters of a debauched father and a mother of dubious reputation, the five aristocratic sisters, who take turns narrating in the first person present, have distinct voices and personalities. The letters between the sisters, which usually say something quite different from what the letter-writer is actually thinking, are a nice touch.
Getting the reader to sympathize with characters who lead essentially superficial lives is a formidable task, and Christie manages it with most of the narrators, although not all readers will grieve the abrupt departures of some main characters or sympathize with the last surviving sister’s nostalgia for a lost world as she looks back from the vantage point of post-revolutionary France. That aside, I look forward to more from this author.
