Reviews
"A masterly comedy of manners. . . . Splendid." -The New York Times Book Review "A great achievement. . . . Intelligent and unsparing . . .The Emperor's Childrenis likely to be one of the most talked-about novels. . . . Buy two copies; give one to a friend." -The Economist "Engaging. . . . The characters take on intriguing nuances as Messud satirizes and challenges perceived notions of culture, class and social mobility. Her vivid, juicy writing ensures an exhilarating read throughout." -USA Today "Ambitious, glamorous, and gutsy. . . . A marvel of bold momentum and kinetic imagination." -Elle "A robust, canny and surprisingly searching novel [told] with a light-handed irony that is, by turns, as measured as Edith Wharton's and as cutting as Tom Wolfe's. . . . Dazzling." -Los Angeles Times, "A subtly nuanced, vividly imagined . . . multilayered work of satiric comedy. Set predominantly in Manhattan in the months leading up to, and following, September 11,The Emperor's Childrenis Messud's first American-set novel, as it is her first work of fiction to rapidly shift perspective from chapter to chapter, leaping about, with authorial freedom, among a number of interlocked characters . . . The classic European novel whichThe Emperor's Childrenmost resembles is Flaubert'sL'Éducation sentimentale, considered his masterpiece . . . . The Emperor's Children['s] prevailing tone of crisp, bemused irony [also] suggests the less savage comedies of manners of Alison Lurie, Diane Johnson, and Iris Murdoch . . . How skillful, and how funny, Messud is as a satirist! . . . . Even as she unmasks them, Messud can't resist evoking sympathy for her mostly foolish, self-deluded characters . . . Bootie is an ideal comic creation. Messud has demonstrated a remarkable imaginative capacity . . . . [This] singular author would seem to exhibit, perhaps more convincingly than James Joyce himself did, those ideal attributes of the artist set forth in Stephan Dedalus's credo inA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. . . . [The Emperor's Childrenis] a mirror of our foundering times." Joyce Carol Oates,The New York Review of Books "Superb . . . . Within several chapters, the spell of Messud's unerring, lissome prose is cast . . . . [The] story's power lies not in what happens to [the characters] but rather, as the book's epigraph from Anthony Powell avers, in 'what they think happens to them,' in the revelation of their carefully nurtured personal myths and what each has at stake in preserving them. With Murray [Thwaite], perhaps the novel's most marbled character, Messud renders this contradiction with exceptional nuance . . . Thisthe characters' consistency in getting themselves wrongis what makesThe Emperor's Childrenso richly tragicomic. It's also what puts Messud's narrative gifts brilliantly on display. [Messud] writes with the archness of a Muriel Spark, only more subtly and sympathetically wielded . . . Ultimately, most impressive is the way Messud relates 9/11 to her characters' lives: The public tragedy doesn't eclipse but rather seeps into and amplifies their private sorrows." Kate Levin,The Nation "Hilarious . . . That Messud's book is coming out at this moment suggests that the planets may be aligning to loosen the MFA stranglehold on fiction . . .The Emperor's Childrenis a disturbingly credible tableau of the sort of people who develop in a cocoon of ambition, entitlement, and pride. Messud has curiosity in spades: Her portraits are done not from photographs, but from life. She is observant and honest . . . [We] have Evelyn Waugh, and, happily, we also have Claire Messud." Stefan Beck,The New Criterion "In March 2001, while Americans were innocent of greater horrors, uninfected by the virus of fear, a trio of clever, beautiful Brown graduates attempts to conquer Manhattan . . . True to their generation, the friends, now 30, are as economically and professionally arrested as they are culturally blasé. Such is the premise of Claire Messud'sThe Emperor's Children, an exquisite, fully realized novel, which should establish her as one of our finest writers, granting her the audience she richly deserves . . . . Messud is brave enough to make her ch, "A masterly comedy of manners. . . . Splendid." - The New York Times Book Review "A great achievement. . . . Intelligent and unsparing . . . The Emperor's Children is likely to be one of the most talked-about novels. . . . Buy two copies; give one to a friend." - The Economist "Engaging. . . . The characters take on intriguing nuances as Messud satirizes and challenges perceived notions of culture, class and social mobility. Her vivid, juicy writing ensures an exhilarating read throughout."- USA Today "Ambitious, glamorous, and gutsy. . . . A marvel of bold momentum and kinetic imagination." - Elle "A robust, canny and surprisingly searching novel [told] with a light-handed irony that is, by turns, as measured as Edith Wharton's and as cutting as Tom Wolfe's. . . . Dazzling." - Los Angeles Times
