Moran, Michelle. Madame Tussaud. New York: Crown Publishers, 2011. 448 pages.
"Smart and ambitious, Marie Tussaud has learned the secrets of wax sculpting by working alongside her uncle in their celebrated wax museum, the Salon de Cire. From her popular model of the American ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, to her tableau of the royal family at dinner, Marie's museum provides Parisians with the very latest news on fashion, gossip, and even politics....Will Marie be able to hold on to both the love of her life and her friendship with the royal family as France approaches civil war? And more important, will she be able to fulfill the demands of powerful revolutionaries who ask that she make the death masks of beheaded aristocrats, some of whom she knows? Spanning five years, from the budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax modeling saved her life and preserved the faces of a vanquished kingdom." (description from the book dust jacket)
Overall rating: **** (four stars)
Strengths:
- Main Character. Marie Grosholtz (later Tussaud) was a strong, single career woman back before such a thing really existed. Her story is compelling and provides and excellent platform for a book about the horrible tragedy that was the French Revolution.
- Other Historical Figures. Some of the most fascinating historical developments in the book relate to the more ancillary characters, such as Robespierre or Marat. We see the change in Robespierre from talkative commoner at a political salon to the architect of the Reign of Terror. And seeing Marat through Marie's eyes, it is less than sad when he is stabbed in his bath.
- French Culture. The presentation of the importance of the newspapers and Marie's Salon as venues for new is a fascinating insight into life very much before the information age.
Weaknesses:
- Historical Liberties. It is a historical novel and, as such, the writer has altered some bits of history in the narrative to make for a better story (which she addresses very well in her historical note at the end).
- Character Development. There are a few times near the beginning of the book when a character has a change of heart or does something without what seems like adequate motivation. These moments are rare and fade out, so they do not detract too much.
