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The history of Marie Grosholtz (who is known to the world today as Madame Tussaud) is a fascinating and grisly one. Her perspective on the French Revolution is intriguing for many reasons: she survived, for one thing (this can't be a spoiler, folks; she's famous for surviving, and Moran's novel is in first person, so how can she not survive?). But more intriguing to me is how she survived. Was she a Royalist, whose salon was visited by the Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and who was tutor in wax modeling to the King's sister? Was she a Revolutionary who hung out with Marat, Robespierre, and the Duke of Orleans? Author Moran presents Marie as a cautious businesswoman who at first will do just about anything to make a sou and later to survive. Unfortunately, I don't think the narrative meets the standard of the material. While Moran manages to avoid being as awkward as some other recent writers are in first person present tense, I just feel it's a strange choice. I don't think she really uses it to get into Marie's head as much as I was hoping she would. And, as I mentioned earlier, it kind of kills some of the suspense that comes with Marie's brushes with the Committee of Safety and the insecure tyrant Robespierre. What a horror Paris must have been at the close of the 18th century. It's the historical gems and glimpses that make the read worthwhile: intimate conversations with Marie Antoinette and her sister-in-law, Madame Elisabeth; the surprising brattiness of Madame Royale, the only daughter of Louis XVI and his queen; the stunning, brash closed-mindedness of supposed patriots. Not to mention the fascinating choice of work of Marie herself: to create still lifes of current events as lifelike as possible, so that people could know what was going on in Paris and Versailles. Her salon was like the TMZ of its day, which is pretty amazing in and of itself. When I expected the book to get its darkest and most detailed — as the Reign of Terror takes full force in France and Marie finds herself being handed freshly mutilated heads to recreate in wax — it seems instead to take up speed. The book has more than 50 chapters, each assigned a date. There are longer, more expository chapters at the beginning that each represent a single day; as the story progresses, shorter chapters suddenly encompass several months. I think the prologue and epilogue both unnecessary, at least in the bookend fashion in which they are presented (then again, I'm never a fan of bookends, in novels or in films). Is this story one of business, or survival? How does Marie as a character change? Is she hardened by what she experiences? I couldn't tell you. I didn't feel a shift in her, and I felt the story deserved it. Did she ever doubt what she was doing? Did she ever decide, even for the smallest of moments, that her chosen profession was wrong? Unfortunately the Marie in this novel is sometimes quite passive in her reactions to things, like there is some kind of veil drawn — some kind of separation between the reader and the action. This wasn't always the case, but it seemed to happen more often than not for me. There are a few lovely moments, but these are drowned out by explanations of the history and politics that could be more organic within the storytelling. One example — Moran has a character make a comic reference to the biblical figure Methuselah, but kills the joke immediately afterward by explaining that Methuselah "lived to see his nine hundred and sixty-ninth birthday." If nothing else, the book's got me longing to revisit London and stop by the Madame Tussauds in Marlyebone Road, something I haven't done in nearly ten years.

A stream-of-conscience fever dream by a haunted fascist priest on his deathbed. Sentences stretch on for pages, focus veers, and often I found myself stranded and forced to backtrack several pages having been thrown forcefully from the car. I'm not sure I'm in possession of the attention span required to read writing like this. Quibbles aside, there are some fantastic passages in the book, reminiscent of the magnificence that is 2666 and The Savage Detective.