THE IMPERIAL WIFE

Fiction

The wretched empress

THE IMPERIAL WIFE

By Irina Reyn

276 pp. St. Martin’s Press

Reviewed by Dennis Rizzo

The Imperial Wife leaves us pondering the lives of Catherine the Great, Russian Empress, and Tanya Kagan Vandermotter, Russian Arts Specialist for fictional, upscale New York auction house Worthingtons. Either way, we are immersed in a world of immeasurable wealth, hauteur, and emotional ennui. Early on, we see that the label “imperial wife” could refer alternately to Tanya or Catherine. In fact, Reyn organizes the book as a series of back-and-forth chapters; at one point talking about Tanya’s rising star and failing marriage, at another discussing Catherine’s rising fortunes and despondent regal fiancé. Tanya’s entrance to wealth and privilege may as well refer to Catherine’s entrance into the world of Czarist Russia. 

Can you even imagine an immigrant girl who finds herself in a gilded auction house, a junior cataloguer trainee in a palace of glass and white walls, adorned by somber rugs and saucy milkmaids framed in Baroque gold? Just imagine what it’s like to daily enter a shrine to beauty that gleams with two sides: the spotless exterior veneer and the hidden heart of it.

The Imperial Wife is a novel - a work of fiction couched within the realm of history. Historians should be aware that there is little presentation of the Czarist court or the Order of St. Catherine (the centerpiece of an auction) that is not relatively common knowledge. Fiction aficionados should know that you may never come to associate with or like either of these protagonists. They are simply too structured and predictable, the emotions too sotto vocce. The most interesting aspect of the book is the depiction of capitalist oligarchs in modern Russia.

Tanya spends much of the time fluttering about high-end social functions, prepping her catalogue of Russian art, and angsting over the impact this auction will have on her career. She suffers the pangs of a professional woman whose star is on the rise, while that of her writer husband, Carl, is waning. Does she pursue the career or the marriage?

For the first time in almost a year I Google Young Catherine. It takes some effort to retrieve the memory of how the book’s publication stirred our household. .... The book’s unexpected triumph unsettled Carl and he began losing sight of daily details even more than usual. Slips of paper fluttered about unorganized, items of clothing were professed missing, meals were forgotten. Just when I hoped that everything that arrived with the book’s success would lend Carl the validation he’d been waiting for, he surprised me with an uncharacteristic shortness of his temper, his fruitless pacing, his rejection of all interviews and prizes.

 Likewise, Sophie Frederika Augusta (to be rechristened Ekaterina Alekseevna) sees her star rising as the betrothed to the Czar-apparent, Peter II. A despondent, brittle teenager, he is clear that this match was merely an arrangement by his aunt to shore up a crumbling Russian lineage and is not something of his choosing. 

[Peter] picks up a wing, then flings it back to the table. “My aunt, of course. The wretched empress. If not for her meddling, I would still be in Holstein. This country is backward, loathsome, filled with rude, parochial creatures. I detest it. You will find it to be so.” 

.... Peter slumps down in his seat. “I suppose I will have to marry you since She wishes it. But I want you to know, I love another. Her mother was sent to Siberia as soon as the witch found out about my affections.”

 The interplay of two couples, two hundred years apart, is somewhat intriguing, but not compelling. Tanya suffers through the usual issues of marriage collapse, accepting her greater independence and new role playing Russian millionaires off against one another.  Catherine accepts her growing position as mediator for court politicians and conspirators who find her character preferable to that of Peter. Historians know that Catherine was astute and played this role very well in her rise to empress.

Reyn tells the story of two women. The plot is thin and the characters narrow, stereotyped, players in rarefied worlds. It was not an easy read; the dialogue generally stiff and plodding, the images fleeting, the crises irrelevant to the average working stiff. It did not emote and, in the end, no one cared.