Historic Horrors: A Review of The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

I’m finally off my mystery kick. I read through most of the mystery reads on my TBR pile leaving me with mainly horror reads. But as much as I’m ready for Spooky Season, I am holding off ever so slightly here on the blog. Though I could make an argument that today’s read is indeed a horror novel.

Please welcome to the stage The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell!

As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on this site then you will know I simply love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. This is your one and only warning. I also have a content and trigger warning to issue. The Marriage Portrait is all about an abusive relationship. That is the crux of the novel. If you are not in the right headspace for the topic then I highly suggest skipping this read. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.

Lucrezia de’ Medici, the third daughter of the Duke of Florence, is fine with being the forgotten middle child. Being overlooked allows her to focus on her art and exploring the corridors of her family’s palazzo. Then her oldest sister Maria dies.

Maria had been engaged to Alfonso d’Este, the future Duke of Ferrara. Upon Maria’s death, Lucrezia is forced to take Maria’s place. Not even sixteen, Lucrezia becomes a wife and duchess, and is expected to birth an heir within a year. Yikes. Like I said, this book is lowkey a horror novel. But it does take place in the 1500s so none of this is necessarily surprising. Just icky.

Anyway, Lucrezia, now married, finds herself far from everything and everyone she ever knew. Her new husband presents himself as a kind, courteous, and loving to her. But at times he seems to be a ruthless politician, an abuser to his sisters and servants, and in time, he becomes insanely controlling towards Lucrezia. As the marriage goes on, the worse Alfonso becomes, and the more Lucrezia fears for her life.

Alfonso, you are a walking red flag.

The Marriage Portrait is a haunting and transporting novel. Filled with rich details that chilled me to the bone, The Marriage Portrait boasts some of the most decadent prose I’ve had the pleasure of reading this year. Real, raw, compelling, immersive, eloquent, poignant; all words to perfectly describe The Marriage Portrait.

I will never get enough of Maggie O’Farrell’s beautiful prose and imagery. Not only is she a master writer, but she’s a master researcher, too. As with all historical fiction novels, some liberties were taken with Lucrezia’s character and some of the historical timeline in order to create the fictionalized story. But given how all the small historical details are there, the time and energy spent on making the novel as historically accurate and real as possible make the inaccuracies seem trivial.

Maggie O’Farrell creates such a fascinating and heartbreaking character in Lucrezia. I as a reader wanted to instantly protect her given her age. Her true story has long been neglected, and we will never know the truth behind her death. Illness? Murder? Who knows, it’s a mystery for the ages. Nor will we ever know her true character. At least I do know the fictionalized Lucrezia as she is a strong-willed artist with a love of animals. She is also a literal child thrust into marriage and forced to grow up well before she should; those two things being something both the real Lucrezia and fictional Lucrezia have in common. She’s such a sympathetic and likable character. And even though readers are clued into her fate in the first sentence of the novel, her story is an engrossing one.

Though, if I had to nitpick The Marriage Portrait, I would say some of the chapters are too long and slow the novel down. This is purely my personal preference. The Marriage Portrait is a slow read to begin with, and that’s perfectly fine, some chapters could have simply been shortened though. There were too many times where I had to stop reading in the middle of a chapter because it was late and I was falling asleep. I’m one of those people who hates having to stop in the middle of chapters. Lowkey the bane of my existence. These chapters don’t need to be as long as they are. They could have easily been broken up into two or more without having to sacrifice any of the narrative. As I said, this is me nitpicking. The chapter length is not a problem of the book’s, it’s just my personal preference.

The Marriage Portrait is a phenomenal read. Heartbreaking, evocative, stunning prose, vivid imagery; I can’t ask for anything more. This is one of the best novels I have read this year.  

This novel is perfection!

With that, I shall bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, Book Nerds. I hope you all enjoyed your time here. I will see you all again next week with another new review. If you can’t wait that long then I highly suggest giving Reading Has Ruined My Life a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). I post there almost daily so come back often to revel in literary goodness. You can also follow the blog on Twitter and BlueSky (@RHRMLBlog). If you want something not related to books then I highly suggest checking out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. The show stars me and two of my dearest friends. We talk about anything and everything on the show. Seriously, we have episodes on Disney, Scooby-Doo, Barbie, history, bad 90s wrestling, and so much more; there’s bound to be something that strikes your fancy. Nothing to See Hear can currently be found on Spotify and YouTube with new episodes releasing every Wednesday evening.

Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.

See y'all then, bye!