Shotwell’s storytelling abilities are less apparent. It is evident, throughout, that the narrative has been composed by someone with an implicit understanding of music making, particularly from the perspective of singing. Shotwell’s background lends authenticity to the story’s frequent musicological commentary, including an explanation of opera buffa’s origins in commedia dell’arte. It is the debut novel for the Nova Scotia-raised Shotwell, an opera singer in her own right. Stachniak, a Polish-born writer who moved to Canada in 1981, gives us Catherine’s lifelong parade of lovers, whose difference in age from her grew steadily greater with time, but she also emphasizes Catherine’s stature as a progressive Enlightenment figure who opposed capital punishment and the use of torture to extract confessions, among other forward-thinking notions. Her hold on the popular imagination today is largely owed to a reputedly voracious sexual appetite that, according to implausibly apocryphal legend, caused her to meet her end on the underside of a horse. Even an empress sometimes soils the bed.Ĭatherine, arriving in Russia as a minor German duchess betrothed to the heir of the Romanov line, survived several setbacks to become one of the greatest rulers in Russian history. It is also steeped in themes of mortality, and the reality that all lives, no matter how exalted, are governed by elements that are “utterly and brutally banal.” Even an empress who rules over millions of subjects and the unfathomably vast dominion that was - and is - Russia, is prey to the humbling affront of corporeal decline.

The novel, based on Catherine’s memoirs, probes its protagonist’s struggle to assert her place in a world dominated by men. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.

Empress of the Night by Eva Stachniak