Sena Jeter Naslund
Writer Creates Women Who Find
Their Courage
By Kimberly Garts Crum
She's the kind of character that
inhabits your dreams. You imagine
the 14-year-old Austrian princess,
Maria Antonia, sent to France to
marry a prince, but not for love. The
princess weds to seal a peace treaty.
Duty requires her to discard all
things Austrian — her name, her
clothes, her language, even her
puppy. Maria Antonia’s rebirth as
Marie Antoinette begins with her first
words to the reader, “Like everyone,
I am born naked.” On an island
surrounded by the “arms of the
rushing Rhine (River)” she is
stripped naked, in both a literal and
a metaphorical sense. She must
produce a male heir with her new husband, the future King Louis XVI. There
are complications. For years, the future king lacks interest in consummating
the marriage, and what begins as a luxuriously abundant life ends at the
guillotine.
The last queen of France is the protagonist in Sena Jeter Naslund’s newest
novel, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette. Released for sale on October
3, the novel has received starred reviews by Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkuss
Reviews and Library Journal, and has been named an Editor’s Choice by the
Review of Historical Novels. Abundance teaches history while it entertains.
The prose is lyrical, and so descriptive you feel as though you walk beside
the queen in the gardens of Versailles as she strolls arm-in-arm with the
handsome Swedish count, exchanging words of mutual devotion.
The story of Marie Antoinette “terrified me as a child. It seemed like a reverse
fairy tale,” says the author. “Here was a person born to be a princess, and
she had a fall. What it meant to me is that no one is ever safe from adversity.”
Marie Antoinette continues to be a symbol of human frailty for the author. “Her
story has a moral meaning for me: We should all be kind to each other,
because we are all so vulnerable.”
Sena Jeter Naslund is a surprise when you first meet her. You expect an
author of three critically acclaimed novels to be bigger-than-life and outwardly
confident. But this author meets new people, especially her readers, with shy
warmth and humility. “I love meeting people who are interested in my books,”
she says. Humility is an achievement for a literary celebrity: the poet laureate
of Kentucky, a writer-in-residence at University of Louisville, and the founding
program director at Spalding’s MFA in Writing Program, which brings students
and published authors to Louisville biannually.
Though it seems she was born to write, young Sena Jeter was unaware of her
destiny until she had made a few false starts. “I was musical as a child, but
had reached a plateau,” she says, describing how she turned down a
scholarship to play cello at the University of Alabama. Instead, she wanted to
be a medical missionary. “But I failed chemistry three times.” She decided to
major in English because she earned excellent grades in the subject. The
author attributes her success in the language arts to a childhood enriched by
literature. “Reading has been a great joy,” she says. “I am a writer because I
love to read.”
Naslund’s youthful interest in Marie Antoinette was rekindled when, during a
book tour, she found a 1933 biography abandoned on a bookshelf of a bed-
and-breakfast. The biography, by Stefan Zwieg, was titled, Marie Antoinette:
Portrait of an Average Woman. It portrayed the queen as “simple-minded,”
she says. “I had the impulse to rescue her from that kind of interpretation.” At
the time the biography was written, Marie Antoinette had been slandered by
an erroneous legend that painted her as indifferent to the suffering of the
French peasants. The “Let them eat cake” myth was debunked by a 2001
biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, by Antonia Fraser.
Naslund believes Marie Antoinette is a “tragic heroine” whose downfall
resulted from a variety of factors, a major one being her foreign birth.
Because the queen is a tragic protagonist, Naslund divided Abundance into
five acts, a dramatic structure borrowed from Shakespeare. “The aspect of
the book that pleases me most is the development of Marie Antoinette as a
person…She rises above her naiveté and her limitations to have a sense of
her self worth,” says Naslund. “She had greatness within her and she was
also flawed. She went through a period of mad frivolity when the marriage had
not been consummated. She partied, she gambled at high stakes…She loved
art, music, and flowers. She was a very bright conversationalist.” Marie
Antoinette was an attentive mother who loved her children. She was a loyal
wife to the king, which was quite an accomplishment when you consider his
hooded eyes, gluttony and indifference to sex. Her royal lifestyle — however
luxurious — does not insulate Marie Antoinette from loss or grief. “She
learned from suffering, and she ended her life with a nobility of character,”
says the author.
Research for Abundance required Naslund to walk in the slipper-steps of
Marie Antoinette. She traveled to Vienna’s Hofburg Palace where the princess
was born, and to Schönbrunn, the royal family’s country palace. She listened
to 18th century music by Mozart and Gustave Gluck. She spent one month in
an apartment in the town of Versailles and made daily visits to what she refers
to as “my house and gardens” at the Palace.
Recreating a real person as a protagonist in a novel requires historical facts
as well as empathy. “I try to give myself to my characters as completely as
possible,” Naslund says. “I try to imagine them from the inside out, look
literally through their eyes.” She recalls an emotional visit to the Conciergerie,
the prison in the middle of the Seine River where Marie Antoinette was kept. “I
looked out from that prison and thought, ‘Why do I want to write this novel? It
is so depressing.’” The author’s mood was rescued by a visit to Versailles. “I
watched the fountains play on a Sunday afternoon and thought, ‘This
exuberance, this joy, this grandeur is also part of the story.’
“I did not want to present her life in the shadow of the guillotine. I wanted to
include the gaiety of her life as well,” the author says, explaining why the story
is told in present tense. “When she lived her life, every moment had its own
reality. She didn’t know her fate.” The effect of being in-the-moment with the
character helps the reader get a sense of her world, and an awareness of the
thought processes that led Marie Antoinette to wise and unwise decisions.
Abundance follows two other Naslund novels. The first was Ahab’s Wife, an
epic novel about the woman who becomes the wife of Moby Dick’s tragic hero.
The second book is Four Spirits, a novel of the civil rights movement loosely
connected to the author’s life in native Birmingham, Alabama. “Marie
Antoinette is a woman who, like all my women characters, learns to look to her
heart for her own courage,” says Naslund. “She comes to create her identity
and to know who she is. All of these women learn courage, to some extent,
from their mothers. My own mother used to say ‘Be brave’ and that is a refrain
that runs through my books.” Sena Jeter Naslund seems to care deeply about
each of her protagonists. Though she is the mid-wife to the birth of each of
these memorable characters, it seems they have also nurtured her. “Being
acquainted with fictional characters has given me options for creating
myself.”
Kimberly Garts Crum is a graduate of the Spaulding MFA In Writing Program
and a regular contributor to Today's Woman.
Writer Creates Women Who Find
Their Courage
By Kimberly Garts Crum
She's the kind of character that
inhabits your dreams. You imagine
the 14-year-old Austrian princess,
Maria Antonia, sent to France to
marry a prince, but not for love. The
princess weds to seal a peace treaty.
Duty requires her to discard all
things Austrian — her name, her
clothes, her language, even her
puppy. Maria Antonia’s rebirth as
Marie Antoinette begins with her first
words to the reader, “Like everyone,
I am born naked.” On an island
surrounded by the “arms of the
rushing Rhine (River)” she is
stripped naked, in both a literal and
a metaphorical sense. She must
produce a male heir with her new husband, the future King Louis XVI. There
are complications. For years, the future king lacks interest in consummating
the marriage, and what begins as a luxuriously abundant life ends at the
guillotine.
The last queen of France is the protagonist in Sena Jeter Naslund’s newest
novel, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette. Released for sale on October
3, the novel has received starred reviews by Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkuss
Reviews and Library Journal, and has been named an Editor’s Choice by the
Review of Historical Novels. Abundance teaches history while it entertains.
The prose is lyrical, and so descriptive you feel as though you walk beside
the queen in the gardens of Versailles as she strolls arm-in-arm with the
handsome Swedish count, exchanging words of mutual devotion.
The story of Marie Antoinette “terrified me as a child. It seemed like a reverse
fairy tale,” says the author. “Here was a person born to be a princess, and
she had a fall. What it meant to me is that no one is ever safe from adversity.”
Marie Antoinette continues to be a symbol of human frailty for the author. “Her
story has a moral meaning for me: We should all be kind to each other,
because we are all so vulnerable.”
Sena Jeter Naslund is a surprise when you first meet her. You expect an
author of three critically acclaimed novels to be bigger-than-life and outwardly
confident. But this author meets new people, especially her readers, with shy
warmth and humility. “I love meeting people who are interested in my books,”
she says. Humility is an achievement for a literary celebrity: the poet laureate
of Kentucky, a writer-in-residence at University of Louisville, and the founding
program director at Spalding’s MFA in Writing Program, which brings students
and published authors to Louisville biannually.
Though it seems she was born to write, young Sena Jeter was unaware of her
destiny until she had made a few false starts. “I was musical as a child, but
had reached a plateau,” she says, describing how she turned down a
scholarship to play cello at the University of Alabama. Instead, she wanted to
be a medical missionary. “But I failed chemistry three times.” She decided to
major in English because she earned excellent grades in the subject. The
author attributes her success in the language arts to a childhood enriched by
literature. “Reading has been a great joy,” she says. “I am a writer because I
love to read.”
Naslund’s youthful interest in Marie Antoinette was rekindled when, during a
book tour, she found a 1933 biography abandoned on a bookshelf of a bed-
and-breakfast. The biography, by Stefan Zwieg, was titled, Marie Antoinette:
Portrait of an Average Woman. It portrayed the queen as “simple-minded,”
she says. “I had the impulse to rescue her from that kind of interpretation.” At
the time the biography was written, Marie Antoinette had been slandered by
an erroneous legend that painted her as indifferent to the suffering of the
French peasants. The “Let them eat cake” myth was debunked by a 2001
biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, by Antonia Fraser.
Naslund believes Marie Antoinette is a “tragic heroine” whose downfall
resulted from a variety of factors, a major one being her foreign birth.
Because the queen is a tragic protagonist, Naslund divided Abundance into
five acts, a dramatic structure borrowed from Shakespeare. “The aspect of
the book that pleases me most is the development of Marie Antoinette as a
person…She rises above her naiveté and her limitations to have a sense of
her self worth,” says Naslund. “She had greatness within her and she was
also flawed. She went through a period of mad frivolity when the marriage had
not been consummated. She partied, she gambled at high stakes…She loved
art, music, and flowers. She was a very bright conversationalist.” Marie
Antoinette was an attentive mother who loved her children. She was a loyal
wife to the king, which was quite an accomplishment when you consider his
hooded eyes, gluttony and indifference to sex. Her royal lifestyle — however
luxurious — does not insulate Marie Antoinette from loss or grief. “She
learned from suffering, and she ended her life with a nobility of character,”
says the author.
Research for Abundance required Naslund to walk in the slipper-steps of
Marie Antoinette. She traveled to Vienna’s Hofburg Palace where the princess
was born, and to Schönbrunn, the royal family’s country palace. She listened
to 18th century music by Mozart and Gustave Gluck. She spent one month in
an apartment in the town of Versailles and made daily visits to what she refers
to as “my house and gardens” at the Palace.
Recreating a real person as a protagonist in a novel requires historical facts
as well as empathy. “I try to give myself to my characters as completely as
possible,” Naslund says. “I try to imagine them from the inside out, look
literally through their eyes.” She recalls an emotional visit to the Conciergerie,
the prison in the middle of the Seine River where Marie Antoinette was kept. “I
looked out from that prison and thought, ‘Why do I want to write this novel? It
is so depressing.’” The author’s mood was rescued by a visit to Versailles. “I
watched the fountains play on a Sunday afternoon and thought, ‘This
exuberance, this joy, this grandeur is also part of the story.’
“I did not want to present her life in the shadow of the guillotine. I wanted to
include the gaiety of her life as well,” the author says, explaining why the story
is told in present tense. “When she lived her life, every moment had its own
reality. She didn’t know her fate.” The effect of being in-the-moment with the
character helps the reader get a sense of her world, and an awareness of the
thought processes that led Marie Antoinette to wise and unwise decisions.
Abundance follows two other Naslund novels. The first was Ahab’s Wife, an
epic novel about the woman who becomes the wife of Moby Dick’s tragic hero.
The second book is Four Spirits, a novel of the civil rights movement loosely
connected to the author’s life in native Birmingham, Alabama. “Marie
Antoinette is a woman who, like all my women characters, learns to look to her
heart for her own courage,” says Naslund. “She comes to create her identity
and to know who she is. All of these women learn courage, to some extent,
from their mothers. My own mother used to say ‘Be brave’ and that is a refrain
that runs through my books.” Sena Jeter Naslund seems to care deeply about
each of her protagonists. Though she is the mid-wife to the birth of each of
these memorable characters, it seems they have also nurtured her. “Being
acquainted with fictional characters has given me options for creating
myself.”
Kimberly Garts Crum is a graduate of the Spaulding MFA In Writing Program
and a regular contributor to Today's Woman.