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Summary
Summary
Before the Corleones, before the Lannisters, there were the Borgias. One of history's notorious families comes to life in a captivating novel from the author of The Birth of Venus .
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY COSMOPOLITAN (UK) AND THE TIMES (UK)
"In the end, what's a historical novelist's obligation to the dead? Accuracy? Empathy? Justice? Or is it only to make them live again? Dunant pays these debts with a passion that makes me want to go straight out and read all her other books."--Diana Gabaldon, The Washington Post
Bestselling novelist Sarah Dunant has long been drawn to the high drama of Renaissance Italy: power, passion, beauty, brutality, and the ties of blood. With In the Name of the Family, she offers a thrilling exploration of the House of Borgia's final years, in the company of a young diplomat named Niccol Machiavelli.
It is 1502 and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, aged twenty-two--already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans--is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics. What Machiavelli learns will go on to inform his great work of modern politics, The Prince. But while the pope rails against old age and his son's increasingly erratic behavior, it is Lucrezia who must navigate the treacherous court of Urbino, her new home, and another challenging marriage to create her own place in history.
Sarah Dunant again employs her remarkable gifts as a storyteller to bring to life the passionate men and women of the Borgia family, as well as the ever-compelling figure of Machiavelli, through whom the reader will experience one of the most fascinating--and doomed--dynasties of all time.
"Enthralling . . . combines flawless historical scholarship with beguiling storytelling."-- The Guardian
"Renaissance-rich details fill out the humanity of the Borgias, rendering them into the kind of relatable figures whom we would hope to discover behind the cold brilliance of The Prince ."--NPR
" Dunant] has an enviable command of this complex political scene, with its shifting alliances and subtle betrayals. . . . She] has a special gift for attending to her female characters." --The New York Times
Author Notes
She began her career writing mysteries, but with her last book, TRANSGRESSIONS (ReganBooks/HarperCollins), graduated to more ambitious, cutting-edge psychological thrillers. Three of her six books, including TRANSGRESSIONS, have been shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Edgar equivalent, the Golden Dagger award, and her third novel, FATLANDS, won the Silver Dagger. As a journalist and critic she has worked extensively in print, radio and television, where for many years she hosted her own show on BBC2. She has also edited two books of essays. Dunant lives in London with her family.
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Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Renaissance doyenne Dunant (Blood and Beauty) turns her sights once again on the Borgia family. Pope Alexander VI is firmly entrenched in his powerful position, consumed with revenge against his enemies. His ambitious son, Cesare-with access to the church coffers-is spurred to take over more and more of Italy's city-states, no matter the cost in money or lives, and his daughter, Lucrezia, a pawn in the power-hungry plans of her family, makes her own mark on 16th-century Italy. As the Borgia clan extends its reach, whether through bloody confrontations or cunning behind-the-scenes maneuvering, historian and diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli has a front-row seat for the various machinations, observing their stunning moves while advising his superiors in Florence how to deal with the changing political climes. Although the author occasionally gets caught up in some of the distracting internecine workings of factions against the pope (their opponents were many), Dunant is at her best focusing on the three Borgias, especially the conflicts between Cesare and his father as both gain in power and stature, and most particularly on the life of Lucrezia, forced into different marriages for political benefit, nearly dying from a debilitating flu, and finally coming to terms with the enigmatic Alfonso, son of the duke of Ferrara and her third husband, with whom she ensures the future of a powerful dynasty. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Another sojourn with the infamous Borgias from the author of Blood and Beauty (2013).Since the publication of The Birth of Venus (2003), Dunant has built a solid reputation as a practitioner of historical fiction who specializes in the Italian Renaissance. Even in a period with a surfeit of larger-than-life characters, Pope Alexander VI and his children, Lucrezia and Cesare, stand out, so it's no surprise that Dunant would revisit this family. Although the material is rich, this isn't the writer's best work. There are anachronismsor, at the very least, moments that lift the reader right out of 16th-century Italy. For example, there's a "maverick winter snowfall" in the prologue. "Maverick" didn't become a word until the 19th century, and it is too connectedetymologically and symbolicallywith the American West to feel natural in a passage written from the viewpoint of Niccol Machiavelli. Later, one of Lucrezia's ladies compares a stoop-backed duke to a question mark. Whether a woman in this time and place would have even been capable of making this analogy is not a settled matter, but it seems unlikely, and, in any case, a storyteller does not want readers pausing to Google the history of punctuation in Italy. These might seem like small matters, but they make it hard to believe in the world Dunant has built. There are other issues endemic to historical fiction, like slightly overripe language and dialogue laden with information that everyone participating in the conversation would surely possess already. However, one of Dunant's great strengths as a writer is in illuminating the lives of women who were able to amass and wield power despite having no authority. Even during her lifetime, Lucrezia Borgia was turned into a monster by her family's enemies, and her name is still a byword for feminine villainy. In Dunant's hands, she is a whole person, and that alone might keep readers captivated. Flawed but not without interestsort of like the Borgias themselves. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In Blood and Beauty (2012), Dunant brought her avid readers into the Borgia world to witness that family's initial strategies for amassing political as well as spiritual power over much of the Italian peninsula. In her opulent new novel, Dunant deepens her portrayal of this notorious Renaissance family of popes and adventurers. At the outset, readers will encounter the Borgia pope Alexander VI as he surveys the growing political rewards of all of his work to promote the influence of his military-leader son, Cesare, and his barter-bride daughter, Lucrezia. For so many years he has been working for this moment of his life: the founding of a Borgia state in Italy through the muscle of his son and the loins of his daughter. But by novel's end, the pope's vision is as dead as he is, and that devolution makes for a dramatic read. With a vibrant cast of characters both iconic, including the vastly influential Niccolò Machiavelli, and rarely highlighted, Dunant's captivating Renaissance Italian saga will thrill her fans and bring more into the fold. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The latest Borgia tale from internationally best-selling Dunant will be launched with a major, all-fronts promotional campaign.--Hooper, Brad Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IN HER LATEST novel, Sarah Dunant returns to the Borgias, that flamboyant family of 15th-century clerics and cutthroats, a larger-than-life clan that includes Pope Alexander VI, also known as Rodrigo; his son Cesare, a reluctant cardinal turned conqueror; and the infamous Lucrezia, whose reputation Dunant has done much to restore. In Dunant's view, Lucrezia isn't nearly as bad as, say, Victor Hugo or Alexander Dumas led us to believe - or Donizetti in his opera. And historians now agree, having dismissed as gossip the notion of Lucrezia as a murderer with a love of poison. To a degree, "In the Name of the Family" has less excitement than its predecessor, "Blood and Beauty," in which Dunant followed the rise of Rodrigo as pontiff, describing his galvanic lust for attention, for women, for power, and his willingness to make use of his helpless daughter, who becomes a pawn in his machinations, forced to marry men who would advance her father's worldly kingdom. To compensate, Dunant has added another character, Niccolö Machiavelli, author of "The Prince," who provides us, at the outset, with a snapshot of the Italy of his time, a boot whose surface has been "discolored by the vicissitudes of history." This is a reminder that the action will take place centuries before unification, that the Italy of the period is still a loose collection of citystates, each with its own internal tensions, its own rivals and potential invaders. In the midst of all this, the Borgias have risen, a family with a talent for conquest - just the sort of people to captivate Machiavelli, the master of expediency. It's material that, in the hands of a gifted storyteller like Dunant, will captivate readers. Dunant has written best-selling novels in the past. And in both her thrillers and her historical novels, she occasionally leans on the sort of ready-made language that merely carries this sort of story along. One gets any number of overly familiar descriptions, as when admirers of the pope "hang on his every word" or a bishop's expression "is one of stone." Elsewhere, a government official "throws up his hands in frustration" and a duke's feelings are "shrouded in cold clouds of secrecy." But more often than not, Dunant surprises us with fresh and inventive imagery, as when, near the end, we see the ailing pope in his bedchamber in late summer: "He has a cramp in his left leg, his gut is grumbling and his farts are a long way from the scent of orange blossom. The sounds and smells of old men: Such things had been repugnant to him when he was young and he feels no differently now. He heaves himself over onto his other side, his stomach collapsing like a small landslip next to him." Machiavelli comes to the Borgias as a diplomatic envoy, bathing in the glow of Cesare's ambitions and ruses. After meeting him, Machiavelli writes back to his superiors in Florence: "This lord is truly splendid and magnificent." Indeed, "he arrives in one place before it is known that he left another." Not surprisingly, Machiavelli's Florentine handlers find his swooning less than helpful. "Less 'opinion,'" they demand. "More facts." The character of Machiavelli is appealing, and I wished to see more of him. But Dunant wants to tell us everything she knows about the Borgias and their enemies, and she has an enviable command of this complex political scene, with its shifting alliances and subtle betrayals. It's a world of "plots and counterplots, layer upon layer of deception, lurid tales of traitors hewn in half or tied back-to-back to chairs, blaming each other and sobbing for mercy as the garrote tightens around their throats." Needless to say, "treachery is a disease of the age." As in previous novels like "Sacred Hearts," Dunant has a special gift for attending to her female characters. This is obvious in the picture of Lucrezia that emerges as the pope's daughter navigates the diplomatic entanglements wrought by her father and brother. Now she must deal with the prospect of a new husband, her third. Hardly a thing of beauty, Alfonso d'Este - heir to the Duchy of Ferrara - has "a heavy nose and thick lips," and his massive hands are "mottled purple, like the surface of rotting meat." The narrative sits up and preens whenever Lucrezia enters, and it's a pleasure to watch her deal with a trying father-in-law, an unappealing husband and visits from her overbearing brother, whom the old duke describes as an "unscrupulous, ungodly, uncouth, whoring, warring bastard son of a Spanish interloper." And that's his nicer side. This capacious if highly conventional historical novel glides on to its own dissolution as the lives of Rodrigo and Cesare unravel, the strings binding their empire loosen, their minds fray, their bodies weaken. Only Lucrezia seems to flourish, although we learn about this somewhat afterthe-fact in the epilogue, narrated by Machiavelli in later life. There may be more history in this novel than fiction, which lessens the emotional impact of an otherwise satisfying tale, impressive in its sweep and mastery of detail. I only wish that Dunant had managed to bring all her characters to life as ably as she has Lucrezia, who is perhaps the one indelible figure inhabiting this story. Dunant's Lucrezia Borgia isn't nearly as bad as Hugo, Dumas and Donizetti led us to believe. JAY PARINI, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College. His latest book is "New and Collected Poems: 1975-2015."
Library Journal Review
In 1502, the fortunes of the Borgia family are riding high. Pope Alexander VI, born Roderic Borgia, is secure in the papacy; his son, Cesare, is seemingly unstoppable in his thirst for conquest up and down Italy. Alexander's dazzling and witty daughter Lucrezia is set to marry (for the third time) into another powerful family to secure their alliance. Sent from his native Florence to observe the unscrupulous Cesare, diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, despite his keen intellect and excellent powers of observation, cannot bring about the desired treaty with the Borgia scion. As the main characters weave in and out of one another's lives, finally only Machiavelli remains, putting down his observations to instruct a new prince--Lorenzo de' Medici. Full to the brim with vivid historical details both gory and beautiful, Dunant's (Blood and Beauty) novel showcases a time when church leaders did not adhere to their own rules of morality. VERDICT Skillfully drawn characters and an excellent sense of place will entice readers of historicals, especially those who are interested in the Italian Renaissance. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]-Pamela O'Sullivan, Coll. at Brockport Lib., SUNY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.