The Imperial Wife: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
"The Imperial Wife is a smart, engaging novel that parallels two fascinating worlds and two singular women. Irina Reyn writes beautifully of immigrants, art and the vagaries of love".
—Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Beautiful Ruins
Two women's lives collide when a priceless Russian artifact comes to light.
Tanya Kagan, a rising specialist in Russian art at a top New York auction house, is trying to entice Russia's wealthy oligarchs to bid on the biggest sale of her career, The Order of Saint Catherine, while making sense of the sudden and unexplained departure of her husband.
As questions arise over the provenance of the Order and auction fever kicks in, Reyn takes us into the world of Catherine the Great, the infamous 18th-century empress who may have owned the priceless artifact, and who it turns out faced many of the same issues Tanya wrestles with in her own life.
Suspenseful and beautifully written, The Imperial Wife asks whether we view female ambition any differently today than we did in the past. Can a contemporary marriage withstand an "Imperial Wife"?
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Irina Reyn. (2016). The Imperial Wife: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Irina Reyn. 2016. The Imperial Wife: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Irina Reyn, The Imperial Wife: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2016.
MLA Citation (style guide)Irina Reyn. The Imperial Wife: A Novel. St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2016.
| Library | Owned | Available |
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- bioText: IRINA REYN is the author of What Happened to Anna K: A Novel. She teaches fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh and has reviewed books for L.A. Times, Publishers Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Hartford Courant, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Forward, and other publications. She was formerly the Books Editor for the online magazine, Killing the Buddha.
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"The Imperial Wife is a smart, engaging novel that parallels two fascinating worlds and two singular women. Irina Reyn writes beautifully of immigrants, art and the vagaries of love".
—Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Beautiful Ruins
Two women's lives collide when a priceless Russian artifact comes to light.
Tanya Kagan, a rising specialist in Russian art at a top New York auction house, is trying to entice Russia's wealthy oligarchs to bid on the biggest sale of her career, The Order of Saint Catherine, while making sense of the sudden and unexplained departure of her husband.
As questions arise over the provenance of the Order and auction fever kicks in, Reyn takes us into the world of Catherine the Great, the infamous 18th-century empress who may have owned the priceless artifact, and who it turns out faced many of the same issues Tanya wrestles with in her own life.
Suspenseful and beautifully written, The Imperial Wife asks whether we view female ambition any differently today than we did in the past. Can a contemporary marriage withstand an "Imperial Wife"?- reviews
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- source: Elin Hilderbrand, bestselling author of The Rumor
- content: "This intriguing novel carries the reader between modern day Manhattan and Russia in the age of Catherine the Great. Prepare to be absorbed and transported."
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- source: Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans, nominated for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize
- content: "Irina Reyn is a wonderful writer -- witty and compassionate, lyrical and sharp -- and The Imperial Wife is a deeply intelligent and expansive book that offers as many fascinating insights into love and ambition as it does about Catherine the Great and the contemporary art world. I loved it."
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- source: Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta
- content: "Irina Reyn writes splendidly about three worlds we might not know about: the high-end auction house, the high-worth oligarch, and The Empress Catherine. She brings the tension and uncertainty of the impecunious immigrant experience into startling alignment with that of Russians - and the German-born Catherine - who've moved into a world of unthinkable wealth and fearful instability. This book is full of brilliant observation and beautiful writing."
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- source: Phillip Lopate
- content: "A marvelously engaging, affecting and amusing novel."
- premium: False
- source: Carol Cassella, bestselling author of Oxygen and Gemni
- content: "An absorbing and ingeniously layered novel that seamlessly braids Russian royalty from queens to oligarchs with the darker truths of New York's sparkling art auctions. Irina Reyn's narrator is as mesmerizing as the story she tells, a woman whose intelligent strength becomes her singular flaw when her career and her marriage collide. Thoroughly researched and deftly spun--everything a great read should be--informative, insightful and enormously entertaining."
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June 1, 2016
The discovery of a historic Russian artifact kicks off a dual narrative of two women separated by centuries but united in grit and ambition.Tanya Kagan arrived in Queens as a child with her poor Russian immigrant parents but has fought her way to the role of specialist in Russian art at a tony New York auction house. As her career rises, her marriage--to Carl Vandermotter, the academic son of threadbare Upper East Side bluebloods--is faltering. Carl has written a bestselling novel about the early years of Catherine the Great, relating her life from her arrival in Russia from Prussia to marry the weak, impotent Peter to her ascent to the role of empress. Chapters from Carl's novel, Young Catherine, alternate with Tanya's story as Tanya prepares for a spectacular auction of The Order of St. Catherine, a medallion given to the young Catherine by the Empress Elizabeth in 1744. Author Reyn (What Happened to Anna K, 2008) juggles the dual narratives effectively, finding parallels in the stories of two young women in a foreign land with few allies and ineffectual husbands. Tanya is the more compelling character, full of fire and drive, scrappy and self-aware, prone to tart observations of the class divide, not only between herself and her WASP colleagues, but also between the Russia she left and the world of her new-money oligarch clientele: "This is the new Russia: technology and hair and the frisson of danger." Young Catherine is a more remote figure, both historically and by virtue of the fact that she is the creation of another character. A twist at the end pulls the stories together in a satisfying manner. The stories of two eras and two marriages are related in evocative language steeped in keenly observed details.COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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June 1, 2016
How do high-powered women navigate their world? What concessions should they make to achieve domestic harmony? Reyn (What Happened to Anna K., 2008) raises these important questions through the parallel tales of Tanya Kagan Vandermotter, head of Russian art at a New York auction house, and Catherine the Great, the intelligent German princess who deposed her ineffectual husband to claim Russia's throne for herself. Feeling obliged to compensate for her modest Russian Jewish immigrant background, Tanya is ultracompetent at her job, and coordinating an auction for a medallion that probably belonged to the empress would cement her career. However, her best-selling-writer husband chooses that moment to flee, seemingly threatened by her success. Readers are treated to fabulous set pieces as the plot moves from the glittering Saint Petersburg court in the eighteenth century to an opulent party in the company of Russian oligarchs along the modern Cote d'Azur. With its sharp characterizations and unexpected twists, Reyn's novel keeps readers on their toes. Both women elicit compassion due to their position as outsiders, and their stories intertwine in playful and profound ways.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)
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—Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Beautiful Ruins
Two women's lives collide when a priceless Russian artifact comes to light.
Tanya Kagan, a rising specialist in Russian art at a top New York auction house, is trying to entice Russia's wealthy oligarchs to bid on the biggest sale of her career, The Order of Saint Catherine, while making sense of the sudden and unexplained departure of her husband.
As questions arise over the provenance of the Order and auction fever kicks in, Reyn takes us into the world of Catherine the Great, the infamous 18th-century empress who may have owned the priceless artifact, and who it turns out faced many of the same issues Tanya wrestles with in her own life.
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