BookBrowse Reviews The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

The Emperor's Children

by Claire Messud
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • First Published:
  • Aug 29, 2006, 448 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2007, 496 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


A novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way—and not—in New York City
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For access to our digital magazine, free books,and other benefits, become a member today.

The Emperor's Children is an exceptionally well written comedy of manners that successfully skewers a particular strata of New York literary life. As Ron Charles (writing for The Washington Post) so eloquently puts it, "We've all caught glimpses of them before, but Claire Messud has captured and pinned under glass members of a striking subspecies of the modern age: the smart, sophisticated, anxious young people who think of themselves as the cultural elite. Trained for greatness in the most prestigious universities, these shiny liberal arts graduates emerge with expensive tastes, the presumption of entitlement and no real economic prospects whatsoever. If you're one of them or if you can't resist the delicious pleasure of pitying them, you'll relish every page of The Emperor's Children."

Set in 2001, ending shortly after 9/11, the book title can be interpreted any number of ways. It could refer to the three almost 30-somethings who orbit around Thwaite patriarch, Murray (his daughter Marina, and her good friends from college Danielle and Julius) who, each in his or her own way, are waking up to the fact that the glorious life they imagined for themselves on leaving college is a crumbling facade behind which lurks the dull reality of earning a living wage.

It could also be applied to Murray's 19-year-old nephew, Bootie, who has worshiped Murray from afar as the epitome of an intellectual, but who once in the proximity of his "emperor" soon perceives that his uncle is not the man he took him to be and, in a fit of moral indignation, becomes determined to show the world that (to use the analogy of the old fairy tale about the Emperor's clothes) Murray's literary attire lacks substance.

Perhaps it is stretching interpretation too far, but I found myself thinking of the title as a reference to the USA as a whole, before the 9/11 reality check; and far from laughing at the pretensions of the protagonists, I found myself reflecting on my own life, being reminded that the mere fact that I have the time to worry about who I am and what my life "means" is an extraordinary luxury in itself!

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in September 2006, and has been updated for the July 2007 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Emperor's Children, try these:

We have 14 read-alikes for The Emperor's Children, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Claire Messud
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Broken Country (Reese's Book Club)
by Clare Leslie Hall
A love triangle reveals deadly secrets in this thriller for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Angelica
    by Molly Beer

    A women-centric view of revolution through the life of Angelica Schuyler Church, Alexander Hamilton's influential sister-in-law.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original
    by Nell Stevens

    In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

  • Book Jacket

    The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant
    by Liza Tully

    A great detective's young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.

Win This Book
Win These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas

"[An] atmospheric tale of unexpected hope." —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

W the C A the M W P

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.