My Last Duchess: The unputdownable epic novel of an American Heiress - Softcover

Goodwin, Daisy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0755348079 ISBN 13: 9780755348077

Publisher: Headline Review, 2010

Synopsis

Cora Cash has grown up in a world in which money unlocks every door. Her coming-out ball promises to be the most opulent of the gilded 1890s, a fitting debut for New York's 'princess'. Yet her fortune cannot buy her the one thing she craves - the freedom to choose her own destiny.

For Cora's mother has her heart on a title for her daughter, and in England - where they are bound, to find Cora a husband - impoverished blue bloods are queuing up for introductions to American heiresses. But the aristocracy is a treacherous realm. When Cora loses her heart to a man she barely knows, she soon realises that she is playing a game she does not fully understand - and that her future happiness is the prize.

Daisy Goodwin's sparking debut brings the fin de siècle romance between England and America to exuberant life.

About this title

Review:

A Q&A with Daisy Goodwin

Q: How would you sum up your book in one line to a curious Amazon customer?

A: It's about love and money and whether you can ever separate the two--plus it gives you the skinny on country-house life at the end of the nineteenth century.

Q: What drew you to the period in which you have set My Last Duchess?

A: I studied history at university and I have always been fascinated by the fin de siècle period which has so many parallels with our own. I started writing the book at the height of the boom but 21st century billionaires are tame in comparison with the Americans of the Gilded Age--the Astors, the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies. The American super-rich lived like kings, if not better than kings. Consuelo Vanderbilt who married the Duke of Marlborough in 1895 couldn't get over how primitive the plumbing was at Windsor Castle. I had enormous fun researching this book--one of the most unusual things I discovered was the fashion for tattoos among British aristocrats male and female. 

Q: How did the character of Cora take shape for you?

A: There is quite a bit of me in Cora, although sadly I am not an heiress to vast wealth or a Duchess (yet), but I do understand what it is like to live with an overbearing parent. I was interested in writing about a character who can never be sure whether she is loved for herself or for her money. It is easier to write a novel where you are taking a character from one culture and putting them in another--Cora is an American princess but she doesn’t know how to navigate English high society. But she is not a passive heroine, I like the fact that she fights back.

Q: And what about that of the Duke?

A: The Duke is the ultimate in unreliable men. I think all men are shaped by their relationship with their mothers and Ivo has a particularly stormy one with the Double Duchess. I wanted to write about a man who is impatient with his own faults but doesn’t quite know how to overcome them. His relationship with Cora is about more than money – she is the one person in his life who is genuinely fearless.

Q: What can readers look forward to next from you?

A: I am writing another novel set in the nineteenth century. It is about a love triangle between a man, his fiancée and the Empress of Austria and is based on a true story.

Q: What do you enjoy reading?

A: Everything! Although having said that, when I judged the Orange Prize this year I found myself tiring of books with info dumps ('look here is my research!') or ones based on undigested personal tragedy. There are certain authors I return to again and again: Evelyn Waugh, Edith Wharton, Graham Greene, P.G. Wodehouse, Barbara Pym--I would give a great deal to be able to write like that. Living writers I admire include Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Lorrie Moore, Hilary Mantel  and Julian Barnes. I enjoy a really good crime novel--I  like C.J Sansom, Josephine Tey, Sophie Hannah and Jason Goodwin. And I read a lot of poetry--I don't have a favourite poet but I love Carol Ann Duffy, Wendy Cope, Robert Browning, Billy Collins and Byron to name but a few.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

A: I didn’t start writing properly until I was in my forties although I had always wanted to be a novelist. I think what stopped me was my own perfectionism. I think Winston Churchill said, 'Don't let perfection stand in the way of the good'. When I actually sat down to start writing, as opposed to fantasising about it, it was surprisingly easy. On a good day it feels like I am tapping into something subconscious; quite often I will read back what I have written and think, did I write that? I work full time running a TV production company so when I find the time to write I have to be really disciplined--I won't let myself get up until I have written a thousand words. I can write anywhere so long as I have my noise cancelling headphones, I always listen to music when I write--Mozart or Bach is the best music to write by.

Q: Tell us something unusual about yourself.

A: I failed my driving test thirteen times. I have now passed and am really quite a competent driver, so it just goes to show that persistence in life is everything.

Recommended Reading from Daisy Goodwin

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford:

Review:

'I was seduced by this book, rather as Cora is seduced by her duke: with great skill and confidence. Daisy Goodwin's first novel is intriguing, atmospheric and extremely stylish. I was still thinking about it long after I had reached the end' (Penny Vincenzi)

'A pleasure from start to finish' (Woman & Home)

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline Review
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0755348079
• ISBN 13: 9780755348077
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480