The Affair of the Necklace [Mass Market Paperback]

Elizabeth Hand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2001

The child Jeanne Valois lost her family, her home, and her fortune to the greed of an influential aristocrat. Now grown into a proud young woman of rare beauty and exceptional wiles, she has gained entrance to the court of Louis XVI and exquisite, reviled queen Marie Antoinette through an expedient marriage, seeking restitution for what was stolen from her. But Jeanne de La Motte-Valois's entreaties have fallen on deaf royal ears, inflaming her desire for justice...and vengeance.

In an era of excessive splendor, squalor, and cruelty, amid the myraid intrigues, both dangerous and erotic, that swirl around the powers of France, the brilliant stratagems of a woman wronged will eclipse all others -- as infamy, tragedy, and death loom in the shadows of a conspiracy that begins with a breathtaking vision of diamonds and gold...and ends with revolution.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elizabeth Hand is the award-winning author of six novels, including Black Light and Waking the Moon, and one short story collection, Last Summer at Mars Hill.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment (September 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061076163
• ISBN-13: 978-0061076169
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,812,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A couple of years after seeing Patti Smith perform, Elizabeth Hand flunked out of college and became involved in the nascent punk scenes in DC and NYC. From 1979 to 1986 she worked at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum; she was eventually readmitted to university to study cultural anthropology, and received her B.A. She is the author of many novels, including Winterlong, Waking the Moon (Tiptree and Mythopoeic Award-Winner), Glimmering, and Mortal Love, and three collections of stories, including the recent Saffron and Brimstone. Her fiction has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopeoic, Tiptree, and International Horror Guild Awards, and her novels have been chose as New York Times and Washington Post Notable Books. She has also been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship. A regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Hand lives with her family on the Maine Coast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Revisionist history, overly dramatized., March 24, 2002

By 

mys_reader "mys_reader" (Fort Worth, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Affair of the Necklace (Mass Market Paperback)

Not a bad book, if it had been completely fiction. But the glaring errors distracted from my enjoyment. As for the "script-like" quality, the book was written from a script.

First - Jeanne did not have a happy childhood with loving Mommy and Daddy. She was NOT raised on the Valois estate. (Her father had sold off the land long ago.) Daddy was a drunk, not a nobleman brought down because he spoke out against injustice. Her parents did not have a happy marriage (they may not have been married at all). Her mother was a peasant and sometimes a prostitute. Jeanne was sent out to beg for money and beaten if she didn't bring enough home.

With this childhood, it is little wonder she turned out to be a grifter and conwoman. But that is what she was. I don't know why the film-makers had to sanitize her character.

She slept with both Rohan and Reteaux at the same time. She used anyone who could benefit HER. Her motive was money, not getting back her family's estate and rescuing the innocent peasantry. When she got that money, she spent it on HERSELF.

And for the record, she died BEFORE Marie Antoinette.

As for Marie Antoinette, she had THREE children at the time of the Scandal, and was pregnant with her fourth. They were not permitted to be spoiled, and would never have acted to others the way they were portrayed.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Con Artist made Heroine of Scandal that Hastened Revolution, November 29, 2001

By 

Axel (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Affair of the Necklace (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is well written and tells a most interesting tale. I don't give this book highest marks because both it and the movie make a scoundrel into a hero. Nonetheless, it is a memorable tale to be told, however told. It is the tale of the infamous Diamond Necklace Affair, that rocked the 18th century French monarchy and its king and queen, every bit as much as the Watergate Scandal rocked the 20th century American Republic, driving the U.S. President from office.

[...]

This book gives its focus not to the real victim, Marie Antoinette, but squarely to the perpetrator - the swindler Madame Jeanne Lamotte - and her supposed motivations to restore her claimed titles and property. Unlike other books on this affair, this book glosses over Lamotte's affair with Cardinal Rohan, her efforts to show herself likewise a physical intimate of the Queen and fails to mention Lamotte's lies at trial and after.

I would give the book and movie a 5 for bringing forth the Scandal itself and for the telling of this most interesting tale that gripped a nation. I would give the book/movie a 5 also for its originality. It is daring to create for Lamotte a purpose in life beyond shere avarice, her consuming desire for riches she was not born to. However, I give the book a 1 for the liberty it takes in making this culprit / con artist into a heroine who somehow deserves sympathy. Lamotte wanted money. Lamotte had incredible nerve to tell her lies and to stick to them. But to make Lamotte into a sympathetic heroine who only wanted truth and justice - NO WAY

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a script, January 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Affair of the Necklace (Mass Market Paperback)

The plot is interesting, but the writing is more scriptlike than good literature. I wish that I had just waited to see the movie rather than taken the time to read this book.