Book Review: THE LAST QUEEN by C.W. Gortner

I encourage any one who loves historical fiction to read this absorbing novel. I realize that I read this novel before I started my blog and had not posted a review on it. I need to bring it to light for my readers because it is one of my most favorite novels in historical fiction. It left a lasting impression on me, and it is an unforgettable read.

Juana is the daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Together her parents laid the foundation for the political unification of Spain. Joanna of Castile was more commonly referred to as Juana the Mad, Queen of Castile, Leon, and Queen of Aragon. She was the older sister of Catherine of Aragon who married the notorious king Henry VIII which we all know what that led to.

Since this was my first read on Spain I had no idea what to expect. I instantly became absorbed in the world C.W. painted. Portraying what it was like for a child to be born into a time of war. Not to mention her mothers unwavering faith was kind of creepy considering I have heard that she believed she was god's messenger. Upon conquering the Moor's they made triumphant entry to Granada. The harems women knew there was no salvation for them and jumped to their deaths on the rocks below was only the beginning of worse to come. The Alhambra was a place that offered peace and tranquility for Juana in her younger years. A safe haven that was more beautiful than imaginable.

Looking back on this which I find myself doing quite frequently. Empathy is the underlining emotion. She was never expected to be queen. Fate played a cruel joke on Juana. After starting a new life abroad with her husband Philip the fair. She was called back home to be queen after the loss of her two elder siblings and later her mother. She was a loving woman to her husband and her family. But the bloody lust for a crown could devourer any willing soul including her own husband. After her mothers death she became vulnerable. Her father and husband took advantage of it and would ultimately place her in perilous situations that would have broken any other weaker minded person.

The question C.W. logically purposes is what if she was not the mad queen but the queen no body wanted? Was she really mad or would they try and break her? Claiming mental illness leaving the crown vacant for themselves. Or was it duress from her circumstances?

5/5 Muses and if I had six muses it would be 6 instead. Highly recommended reading. C.W. gave logic and reasoning in what others might claim is madness. I can usually judge how much I love the book by how long it takes me to finish it. This goes with Signora Da Vinci, a two day read where it is so good that you do not want to sleep. Thank you C.W. for the novel, like I said "Someone would have to pry it from my cold dead hand before I would ever give it up". It means that much to me.

A Talk with C.W. Gortner Author of The Last Queen

How did the idea for THE LAST QUEEN originate?
I’m often asked how I became interested in Juana la Loca. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. I was raised in Spain (I am half Spanish by birth and fully bilingual). My maternal grandfather, Tomás Blanco, was a famous film actor in Spain whose career spanned from the early 40s well into the 70s; and my grandmother Pilar Gomez del Real was a well-known theater actress who portrayed Juana on stage. I lived near a castle that had belonged to Juana’s parents, Isabella and Ferdinand. Clambering to its highest tower, I knew Juana had touched these same stones, perhaps marveled, as I did, at the landscape’s beauty.

During a school trip to Granada, where Juana is buried, I found myself entranced by the marble effigy of this woman, whose face is turned away from the figure of her dead husband beside her. Most school children in Spain know the tale of Juana la Loca; she is legendary. But I immediately wanted to know more. What was she like in real life? Did she really pull her husband’s bier behind her throughout the country, venerating his corpse? What happened to her to plunge her into such despair?

Love is madness. And Juana la Loca is famous for both. But what if her legend only told half the tale? My vision of this vibrant princess who became the last queen of Spanish blood to inherit the throne was at odds with the bereft queen of legend. THE LAST QUEEN is the first novel about Juana written in English in twenty years. I felt she deserved a chance to tell her side of the story.

How long did it take you to write, and what special research was involved?
It took five years for me to write THE LAST QUEEN. As far as special research is concerned, I took two separate trips to Spain, including one in which I undertook the very journey Juana made from Burgos to her last home in Tordesillas. I visited the Alhambra and the castles associated with her, and read every contemporary account about her that I could find, including letters from her custodians to Charles V, which are currently archived in Simancas.

It is interesting to note that during General Franco’s dictatorship (the last years of which I experienced as a child), some of the documents in the Simancas were restricted to scholars who required special permission to access them. The documents pertaining to Juana were included in these restrictions. I found it particularly fascinating that hundreds of years after her death the government still found it necessary to “hide” certain evidence about her. However, by the time I was researching, the documents were available and they provided an invaluable, if at times chilling, framework for the novel in terms of which parts of her life I wanted to focus on.

Why are you drawn to historical fiction?
Since childhood, I’ve loved historical fiction and I’m very happy that the genre has become so popular again. The truth is, it’s one of the oldest and finest traditions in fiction. Many of today’s novelists bring fresh, exciting perspectives but the basic structure of conjuring history and the people who lived it hasn’t changed. Historical fiction at its best helps us see where we are by revealing where we’ve been. I believe such classic writers as Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini turned to historical fiction because history exerts such a powerful influence on us. I write historical fiction because I want to immerse myself in a different time and still make sense of the world I inhabit today.

How do you strike a balance between history and fiction? Do you think accuracy remains a primary obligation of all historical fiction?
The balance between fact and fiction in an historical novel like mine is often a delicate one. It can even become tenuous, in particular when you are confronting issues of religion, race, sexuality, and gender. I write about people in the 16th century; I do not share their beliefs. The Renaissance was a brutal, quixotic, and complex time in history: As much as I strive to bring it to life for readers, the truth is we can never truly understand what it was to actually live in the 16th century. The best even a very gifted historical novelist can achieve is a close approximation.

That said, I do consider historical accuracy a primary obligation—in that the writer should not deliberately alter or distort known facts or have characters behave in overtly modernized way, just to suit a particular publishing fad or temperament. To have my lead character march at the head of an army like Joan of Arc, for example, would fly in the face of every known fact about her.

However, facts are only a small part of a life filled with moments, and in the final say, I write fiction. My books are novels; their principal function is to entertain. I hope my readers will become immersed in the story, that they will feel it on a sensory level. I also hope, as a secondary objective, to awaken interest in the time itself. If someone reads my book and thinks, “I want to know more about Spain in the 16th century,” then I’ve done what I set out to do. Likewise, if someone reads my book and writes to me, as they have, saying, “I couldn’t wait to turn the page,” that, too, accomplishes my goal as a novelist.

THE LAST QUEEN is told in the first person by a woman. Did you find it difficult to write?
I actually enjoyed the challenge of telling Juana’s story in the first person. My first drafts were in third person and something elusive was missing. It was only after I allowed myself to slip into Juana’s skin, so to speak, that I began to experience her emotional complexity. There’s a general fallacy that men cannot write women as well as women can. I disagree, just as I disagree that women cannot write from the male perspective. Writers must inhabit their characters in order to bring them to life. We are not limited by gender or appearance. We are invisible. There are no limits other than our imagination.

What do you hope readers take away from your work?
I seek to reveal secret histories. Whether it’s Juana of Castile’s alleged madness or Catherine de Medici’s reputation for evil, I strive first and foremost to entertain. I also hope readers will come away from my work with the experience that they’ve been on an emotional journey. I want them to feel the way these people lived, their hardships and joys, and differences and similarities with us. Though a Renaissance queen faced issues we don’t, love, hatred, power, intolerance, passion, and the quest for personal liberty are universal themes.

What is your latest project?
I am currently working on a historical novel about Catherine de Medici, tracing her life from her tumultuous childhood in Florence to her rise to power as queen-regent of France and mother of the last Valois kings. Catherine has been widely maligned and, I believe, misunderstood. Her leadership and tenacity forestalled the end of the monarchy in France by two hundred years. Without her, the history of Europe and France in particular would be very different. As a contemporary of Elizabeth I and mother-in-law to Mary, Queen of Scots, she is one of a triptych of powerful women ruling in the 16th century.

The Last Queen Excerpt by C.W. Gortner

Excerpt from Chapter One "The Last Queen" by C.W. Gortner
Ballantine Books copyright 2008

We entered Granada in resplendent procession, the battered crucifix sent by His Holiness to consecrate heretic mosques carried aloft before us, followed by the nobility and clergy. Discordant wailing sundered the air. The Jewish warehouses were being impounded. Gorged with fragrant spices, yards of silk and velvet, and crates of medicinal herbs, the market represented Granada’s true wealth, and my mother had ordered the wares secured against looting. Later, she would have them inventoried, tallied and sold to replenish Castile’s treasury. Riding with my sisters and our ladies, I gazed in disbelief upon the ravaged city. Shattered buildings stood empty, seared by flame. Our catapults had leveled entire walls, and the stench of rotting flesh wafted from the mounds of broken stone. I saw an emaciated child standing motionless beside some dead rotting animal bound to a spit; as we passed, gaunt women knelt in the ruins. I met their impenetrable stares. I saw no hatred or fear, no remorse, as if the very life had been drained from them. Then we started to ascend the road to the Alhambra—that legendary palace built by the Moors in their flush of glory. I couldn’t resist rising in my saddle to peer through the gusts of dust kicked up the horses, hoping to be the first to see its fabled walls. Someone cried out. Around me the women pulled their mounts to a halt. I looked about in bewilderment before returning my gaze to the road ahead. I froze. A high tower thrust into the sky like a mirage. On its parapet I could see a tiny group of figures, the wind snatching at their veils and flimsy wraps, light sparkling on the metallic threads woven through their gowns.

Behind me Dona Ana hissed, “Quick, cover the child’s face. She must not see this.” I swiveled in my saddle to look at Catalina. My sister’s eyes met mine in fearful confusion before one of the ladies pulled the veil over her face. I clenched at my reins, turning back around. A cry of warning hurtled up my throat as I saw, in paralyzing horror, the figures seeming to step out over the parapet, like birds about to take flight. Around me, the ladies gasped in unison. The figures floated for an impossible moment in the air, weightless, shedding veils. Then they plummeted downward like stones. I closed my eyes. I willed myself to breathe. “See?” chortled Dona Ana. “Boabdil’s harem. They refused to leave the palace. Now, we know why. Those heathen whores will burn in hell for all eternity.” All eternity The words echoed in my head, a terrible punishment I could not imagine. Why had they done it? How could they have done it? I kept seeing those fragile forms in the pin-pricked darkness behind my eyelids, and as we rode under the Alhambra’s gateway, I did not point and laugh with the other women at the broken bodies strewn on the rocks below. My parents, Juan and Isabella swept ahead with the nobility. Maria, Catalina and I remained behind with our women. Taking Catalina by the hand and hushing her anxious questions (for she knew something terrible had happened) I gazed at the citadel. With the afternoon light turning to vermilion on its tiled facade, it appeared blood-soaked, a place of death and destruction. And still I was overwhelmed by its exotic splendor.

The Alhambra was unlike any palace I’d ever seen. In Castile, royal residences doubled as fortresses, encircled by moats and enclosed by thick walls. The Moorish palace had the mountain gorge for protection, and so it sprawled like a lion on its plateau, sheltered by cypress and pine. Dona Ana motioned to Maria; together with our ladies-in-waiting, we marched into the audience hall. With Catalina’s hand still clutching mine, I took in everything at once, my heart beating fast as I began to see just how magnificent the Moor’s world was.

COPYRIGHT 2008/ THE LAST QUEEN BY C.W. GORTNER. BALLANTINE BOOKS, RANDOM HOUSE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. UNAUTHORIZED DUPLICATION IS PUNISHABLE BY LAW.

Guest Post C.W. Gortner The Last Queen

Spectacular author C.W. Gortner has paid a visit to Historically Obsessed with a wonderful guest post. I know I am late on all the hype for "The Last Queen" so forgive us if you have read this before but I just could not resist. I am extremely excited about the upcoming release of "Confessions of Catherine De Medici" which is not due to hit bookstores until May 25th, 2010. It is going to be a hard long wait for it. This will just have to hold me over for now. Thank you C.W. we bloggers love you!

Power and Intrigue: Being a Queen of Spain Is Never Easy

In 1538, John Knox issued his pamphlet, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, in which he denounced the rule of women as “unnatural”. The pamphlet is a classic example of 16th century misogyny; like many men of his era, Knox believed women had no place on the throne and he saw the ascendancy of such queens as Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I as a sign of corruption in the moral fabric of society.

Of course, history has proven him wrong. Elizabeth I brought glory to her island kingdom; Catherine de Medici steered France through one of history’s most savage religious conflicts and though her life was disastrous, Mary Stuart left behind a lasting legacy through her son James I. But they were not the first women to wear crowns in their own right; before them was Isabel of Spain, who overcame significant odds to become queen of Castile. Like Elizabeth I, Isabel was a female monarch of the Renaissance; in her lifetime she held more power and ruled a larger portion of Spain than her husband Ferdinand of Aragon. And she bequeathed all her power to her second eldest daughter, Juana of Castile, the central character of THE LAST QUEEN.

The kingdom Juana inherited had only recently been united under her parents. Isabel and Ferdinand’s marriage brought Castile and Aragon under one rule, ending centuries of rivalry. Their union also allowed them to fulfill the ambition of every Christian monarch of Spain: to banish the Moors and unite the entire country. By the time Isabel and Ferdinand accomplished this, France’s centuries-old centralized monarchical power menaced Spanish interests in the Mediterranean, while England had survived years of civil tumult to be ruled by the new Tudor dynasty. The Renaissance, flourishing in Italy since the 1400s, was about to sweep north, and Isabel of Castile was determined to place Spain at its forefront. She curtailed her nobles’ lawlessness; initiated strict new laws of adherence to the throne; and wrestled a feudal court into modernity. She, in fact, managed to achieve what no king in Spain before her had.

Why, then, did her daughter Juana experience such terrible difficulties when the time came to assume her throne? First of all, it is important to note that none of Isabel’s daughters were expected to rule; though all four reaped an enviable education, their anticipated roles in life were as queen-consorts. Though she had achieved the throne, Isabel apparently never paused to consider that her realm might fall to one of her daughters; it was only through misfortune that Juana suddenly found herself heiress to Castile and to her father’s realm of Aragón, which at the time did not sanction female succession.

Misogyny of the type promulgated by Knox was a major obstacle and source of conflict for Juana. Her husband Philip of Habsburg actively campaigned against her because he could not accept the lesser role of king-consort that accepting her as queen entailed, and Castile itself had a fractious yet powerful nobility, which had flourished during the long medieval age of divisiveness. They’d chaffed under the strict rule of Ferdinand and Isabel, who stripped them of their affluent holdings to support the Crown, their intrigues and zealous self-aggrandizement curbed by monarchs with no tolerance for anything that did not put Spain first. Isabel was definitely a queen to be reckoned with; but it cannot be overstated enough that she also had her husband’s support, something Juana lacked. Ferdinand may have held the lesser power on paper, but at court Isabel set him at her side as her equal and she never let her nobles forget it. With her demise and Ferdinand’s banishment (he had no further right to call himself king of Castile after his wife’s death) the nobility surged up against Juana, flocking to the bribery offered by her husband, Philip. They had determined that under no circumstances would another queen rule over them and they plunged Castile into chaos to prevent it.

Being a queen of Spain had never been easy. Only a handful of women had held power in Castile and all faced the machinations of the nobility, prejudices of their male counterparts, and, at times, the lethal ambitions and envy of husbands or sons. Juana of Castile stepped into the formidable shadow cast by a warrior-queen mother with only her bravura, her determination, and her blood right to do battle with. Unlike Isabel she lacked the support of her spouse and her nobles; she did not even have the ability to raise an army. Yet like Isabel before her, she never conceded defeat.

C.W. Gortner holds an MFA in Writing, with an emphasis in Renaissance Studies. He is the author of THE LAST QUEEN and THE SECRET LION. His novel about Catherine de Medici will be published by Ballantine Books in 2010. He enjoys interacting with his readers and is always available for reader group chats. Please visit him at: www.cwgotner.com

Today in History, Joanna of Castile the "Mad Queen"

On April 12, 1555 Isabella passed from this realm to the next. The daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Together her parents laid the foundation for the political unification of Spain. Joanna of Castile more commonly referred to as Juana the Mad, Queen of Castile, Leon, and Queen of Aragon. She was the older sister of Catherine of Aragon who married the notorious king Henry VIII. In the end she was locked up by her son who later became Charles V The holy roman emperor. Held in a windowless room in the castle of Tordesillas. She died at the ripe age of 75 on good Sunday. Many believed she suffered from schizophrenia or manic depression.

It was only that easy to dismiss a sick queen and have legitimate reasoning for her life long imprisonment. First by her husband, then by her father, and later on by her own son. However she only showed signs of manic behavior and clinical depression when she was in under duress by her treatment from her husband and father. The men in her life just wanted her out of the way so they could take her rightful crown.

Joanna was married to the Archduke Philip the Handsome. Joanna and Philip's marriage was filled with obsessive jealousy and later they had separated when Philip left her in Spain to go home with out her. She was in Spain to be become sworn heir to the Castile kingdom. After Philips death it is rumored that Joanna went mad some accounts claim that she took her husband's corpse with her to Tordesillas to keep it close to her.

She gave birth to six children two emporers and four queens. Her youngest Catherine became Queen of Portugal. Catherine was kept with her mother in her prison cell during her grandfather's time as regent. Nobody would dare take Catherine off her mad mother so Catherine stayed with Joanna. She remained with her disturbed mother until the arrival in Spain of her eldest siblings Eleanor and Charles.One key point is that whether it was the rebels or her family after her, she never signed away her rights to her queenship, she would live as regent queen until her death.

I am very passionate about Joanna because of a recommended read to me by my absolute favorite author Robin Maxwell. C.W. Gortner's The Last Queen is one of the best books I have ever read. It is a really eye opening point of view, with complete raw emotions of a vivid what if real life novel. A doomed Queen. Never allowed to rule.

"Juana of Castile, the last queen of Spanish blood to inherit her country’s throne, is an enigmatic figure, shrouded in lurid myth. Was she the bereft widow of legend who was driven mad by her loss, or has history misjudged a woman who was ahead of her time?"