The Commoner - Hardcover

Schwartz, John Burnham

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385515715 ISBN 13: 9780385515719

Publisher: Nan a Talese, 2008

Synopsis

It is 1959 when Haruko, a young woman of good family, marries the Crown Prince of Japan, the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. She is the first non-aristocratic woman to enter the longest-running, almost hermetically sealed, and mysterious monarchy in the world. Met with cruelty and suspicion by the Empress and her minions, Haruko is controlled at every turn. The only interest the court has in her is her ability to produce an heir. After finally giving birth to a son, Haruko suffers a nervous breakdown and loses her voice. However, determined not to be crushed by the imperial bureaucrats, she perseveres. Thirty years later, now Empress herself, she plays a crucial role in persuading another young woman—a rising star in the foreign ministry—to accept the marriage proposal of her son, the Crown Prince. The consequences are tragic and dramatic.

Told in the voice of Haruko, meticulously researched and superbly imagined, The Commoner is the mesmerizing, moving, and surprising story of a brutally rarified and controlled existence at once hidden and exposed, and of a complex relationship between two isolated women who, despite being visible to all, are truly understood only by each other. With the unerring skill of a master storyteller, John Burnham Schwartz has written his finest novel yet.

About this title

Review:

Praise for RESERVATION ROAD"
""A dark and irresistible miracle: a heartbreaking thriller."
-"Los Angeles Times
""Haunting...a powerful and affecting novel."
-"The" "New York Times
""Thrums with suspense and moral ambiguity...This is one of those rare-very rare-novels that you don't so much read as inhabit and that makes everyday life seem altogether mysterious and fragile, and infinitely perilous."
-"Entertainment Weekly
""A triumph...character-driven as it is, it reads like a thriller, swift and complete."
-"The New York Times Book Review"

"Schwartz pulls of a grand feat in giving readers a moving dramatization of a cloistered world."
-"Publishers Weekly "(starred review)
Praise for RESERVATION ROAD"
""A dark and irresistible miracle: a heartbreaking thriller."
-"Los Angeles Times
""Haunting...a powerful and affecting novel."
-"The" "New York Times
""Thrums with suspense and moral ambiguity...This is one of those rare-very rare-novels that you don't so much read as inhabit and that makes everyday life seem altogether mysterious and fragile, and infinitely perilous."
-"Entertainment Weekly
""A triumph...character-driven as it is, it reads like a thriller, swift and complete."
-"The New York Times Book Review"

Praise for THE COMMONER
"Schwartz pulls of a grand feat in giving readers a moving dramatization of a cloistered world."
-"Publishers Weekly "(starred review)
"Schwartz's renderings of the royal family are not only believable but absorbing.... well nuanced and tightly executed.... A moving portrait of women living the most interior of lives."
-"Bookpage"

Praise for RESERVATION ROAD"
""A dark and irresistible miracle: a heartbreaking thriller."
-"Los Angeles Times
""Haunting...a powerful and affecting novel."
-"The" "New York Times
""Thrums with suspense and moral ambiguity...This is one of those rare-very rare-novels that you don't so much read as inhabit and that makes everyday life seem altogether mysterious and fragile, and infinitely perilous."
-"Entertainment Weekly
""A triumph...character-driven as it is, it reads like a thriller, swift and complete."
-"The New York Times Book Review"

About the Author:

JOHN BURNHAM SCHWARTZ is the author of the novels Claire Marvel, Bicycle Days, and Reservation Road, which is being made into a film based on his screenplay, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Connelly. His work has been translated into fifteen languages, and has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times and The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nan a Talese
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0385515715
• ISBN 13: 9780385515719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 351