During the Reign of the Queen of Persia is the first novel by American writer Joan Chase. On its publication in 1983 it won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. [1]
The story is told from the perspective of the four granddaughters of the "Queen of Persia", an Ohio farmwife, during the 1950s. The narration takes place in the first person plural, an effect that Margaret Atwood believed evoked the collective female unconscious. [2] The plot casts backwards and forwards through time, being divided into three main sections: the first has the narrating sisters in their teens, the second regresses back to their childhood, and the third see the sale of the family farm and the dispersal of the family. [3]
The book drew comparisons to the works of Anne Tyler, Marilynne Robinson, Douglas Unger and Susan Engberg. [4] [2]
After falling out of print the book was republished in 2014 by New York Review Books. [5]
In Ohio four cousins Celia and Jenny (who are sisters) and Anne and Katie (who are sisters) grow up on the farm of their maternal grandmother, whom they jokingly have nicknamed the Queen of Persia. The granddaughters are relatively close in age and act nearly as one body until their slightly older cousin Celia hits puberty and begins to attract male attention, much to the distress of her mother, Aunt Libby. As Celia begins to date, she and Aunt Libby constantly fight. Eventually Celia finds a responsible older boyfriend, Phillip, who wants to marry Celia and whom Aunt Libby approves of. The family eventually learns that Phillip has impregnated another woman. Though Phillip still wants to marry Celia she refuses him and becomes friends with Louanne, the woman he impregnated. Celia eventually settles down with Jimmy, one of her previous suitors, and much to her grandmother's distress, becomes fixated on motherhood.
When they are children the girls learns the family history of how their grandmother came to be a wealthy woman. Forced into domestic labour at an early age, Lil married a man she loved, Jacob, who quickly turned abusive. She gave birth to seven children; two sons who died in infancy and five daughters: May, Elinor, Grace, Libby and Rachel. At a family reunion she encounters her rich uncle Burl who, as she is the daughter of his favorite sister, decides to help her financially. Endowed with his gifts, Lil becomes an independent woman buying farmland, educating her daughters and ensuring that they always have a home to stay in as they struggle through their marriages and motherhood.
Grace has a tempestuous on again and off again marriage with a handsome athlete turned salesman and wannabe writer named Neil. Even after they marry Grace continues to return to her mother's home with her daughters for long periods. When Neil drops by to bring her home she declines to return with him. He defers his anger onto the cousins for acting up and tries to whip his daughters only to give up and end up revealing instead that their mother is dying.
Grace's illness brings her the attention of her sister Elinor, a rich ad executive living in New York City. She is a Christian Scientist and persuades her sister and nieces that the religion will save Grace. Though Grace manages to outlive the time frame her doctor's had promised she does die and Elinor misses her death by a matter of hours. To everyone's surprise Grace leaves "Neil's" house in Illinois to her daughters asking that it be sold and the proceeds remain in trust for them. Neil destroys Grace's will, but Lil owns the loan for the house and calls it in, determined he will get nothing. Shortly after Anne climbs a tree to its highest point and falls and injures herself trying to swing down off it. Neil comes back to tend to her and retrieve his children and in the aftermath Lil decides to let him keep the house.
The girls grow up with Anne and Katie living with Neil but spending summers on the farm. After Celia's marriage Lil decides to sell the land to a development that wants to turn the area into a mall. The family is devastated but Lil throws out nearly everything left in the house. They receive news from Texas that Celia is pregnant; later Aunt Libby gets a call from a doctor informing her that Celia tried to commit suicide and lost the baby. She will be returning home into the care of her mother.
Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone was a member of the British royal family. She was one of the longest-lived British royals. Princess Alice was the chatelaine of Rideau Hall in Ottawa from 1940 until 1946, while her husband Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, served as Governor General of Canada.
Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, then Princess Louis of Battenberg, later Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, was the eldest daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Something to Talk About is a 1995 American comedy-drama film directed by Lasse Hallström, from a screenplay written by Callie Khouri. It stars Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid as an estranged couple, Kyra Sedgwick as Roberts' sister, and Robert Duvall and Gena Rowlands as their parents.
Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans was Duchess of Modena and Reggio by marriage to Francesco III d'Este. She was the third daughter of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and his wife, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon. She was born a princesse du sang, and had ten children, including Ercole III d'Este, Duke of Modena.
The Royal Family Order of Elizabeth II is an honour which was bestowed on female members of the British royal family by Queen Elizabeth II. The order is worn by recipients on formal occasions.
Elizabeth Carew was an English courtier and reputed mistress of King Henry VIII.
Los Serrano is a Spanish television drama comedy which premiered on 22 April 2003 and aired on Telecinco. It tells the story of the Serrano family, who lives in Round Santa Justa No 133, located in the fictional neighborhood of Santa Justa, in the Ribera del Manzanares, in Madrid. It was produced by Globomedia for Telecinco.
Louise Adélaïde d'Orléans was the second daughter of Philippe d'Orléans and Françoise Marie de Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of Louis XIV of France and his mistress, Madame de Montespan. She was an Abbess of Chelles.
Queen Victoria, the British monarch from 1837 to 1901, and Prince Albert had 9 children, 42 grandchildren, and 87 great-grandchildren. Victoria was called the "grandmother of Europe".
Marie Anne de Bourbon was Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine to the French queen Maria Leszczyńska. She was the daughter of Louis III, Prince of Condé. Her father was the grandson of le Grand Condé and her mother, Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Nantes, was the eldest surviving daughter of Louis XIV of France and his maîtresse-en-titre, Madame de Montespan. She was known as Mademoiselle de Clermont.
Charlotte de Rohan was a French aristocrat who married into the House of Condé, a cadet branch of the ruling House of Bourbon, during the Ancien Régime. She was Princess of Condé by her marriage. She has no known descendants today as her grandson, heir to the Condé family, died without children and her daughter remained childless. Charlotte was praised for being a cultured and attractive princess of her age.
Elizabeth FitzHugh also known as Lady Elizabeth Parr. She was an English noblewoman and lady-in-waiting to her cousin, Anne Neville, queen consort of King Richard III. She was grandmother of Catherine Parr, sixth queen consort to King Henry VIII, and her siblings Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, and William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton.
The wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten took place on Thursday 20 November 1947 at Westminster Abbey in London, United Kingdom. The bride was the elder daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth as well as the heir presumptive to the British throne. Although Philip was born a prince of Greece and Denmark, he stopped using these foreign titles on his adoption of British nationality four months before the announcement of their marriage. On the morning of the wedding, he was made Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich.
Queen Inhyeon, of the Yeoheung Min clan, was the second wife of King Sukjong, the 19th Joseon monarch. She was queen of Joseon from 1681 until her deposition in 1688, and from her reinstatement in 1694 until her death in 1701. She is one of the best known queens in Korean history and her life has been portrayed in many historical dramas.
Nerissa Jane Irene Bowes-Lyon and Katherine Juliet Bowes-Lyon were two of the daughters of John Herbert Bowes-Lyon and his wife Fenella. John was the brother of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, thus his two daughters were the maternal first cousins of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, sharing one pair of grandparents, Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne.
Princess Gyeonghye, also known before as Princess Pyeongchang before her marriage, was a Joseon princess and the eldest child of Munjong of Joseon. She served as guardian for her only younger brother, Danjong of Joseon, when he ascended the throne underage.
Anne Denman was born in Olde Hall, Retford, Nottinghamshire. Through a second marriage with Thomas Aylesbury, she became the grandmother of Lady Anne Hyde, Duchess of York and great-grandmother of Queen Mary II and Queen Anne.
The wedding of Princess Alexandra of Kent and The Honourable Angus Ogilvy took place on Wednesday, 24 April 1963 at Westminster Abbey. Princess Alexandra was the only daughter and second child of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, while Ogilvy was the second son and fifth child of the 12th Earl of Airlie and Lady Alexandra Coke.
The wedding of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones took place on Friday, 6 May 1960 at Westminster Abbey in London. Princess Margaret was the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, while Antony Armstrong-Jones was a noted society photographer.