The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

The Emperor’s Children, by Claire Messud, is the story of three almost 30 year-old friends, alumni of Brown who are struggling to reconcile the gap between their current circumstances and the promise of their college days. One of the three, stunningly beautiful Marina Thwaite, is the daughter of celebrated liberal journalist and intellectual, Murray Thwaite, who has a powerful effect on all of the major characters, including his nephew, an initially idealistic, then bitter, college drop-out who arrives on his doorstep determined to horn his way into the New York intelligentsia. “Messud, in her fourth novel, remains wickedly observant of pretensions: intellectual, sexual, class and gender. Her writing is so fluid, and her plot so cleverly constructed, that events seem inevitable, yet the narrative is ultimately surprising and masterful as a contemporary comedy of manners,” Publishers Weekly, vol. 253, issue 19. - JEP