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Visceral and thought provoking, powerful and emotional, haunting and heartbreaking, The Dictator's Wife will hold you in its grip until its gut-wrenching conclusion. At times the book was claustrophobic and gave the reader a truly dark restricted atmosphere that really added an extra layer of slightly experiencing the opression and horror of a dictator regime. It was both completely terrifying and captivating in equal measure. Assad appears to have almost a cast a spell on the profile writer, Berry observes. “Personal magnetism and charm is very hard to fight against. You look over here and you don’t look at the extrajudicial killings over there.” Our client was a hypnotic blend of Joan of Arc and Imelda Marcos; both goddess and she-devil, princess and tyrant, martyr and uber-b*tch." Her interest in chemistry arose when she was briefly employed in a laboratory. In her free time, she attended meetings of the Youth Communists' League, where she met her soon-to-be husband Nicolae. She failed nearly every subject that was taught in Romanian schools.
Elena Ceausescu receiving a honorary doctorate from the University of Buenos Aires in 1974. Source: Online Photo Library of Romanian Communism The tension is palpable throughout, and the pacing of the story is well executed. Laura is afraid, but it seems she isn't even sure what she is/should be afraid of, other than the obvious of losing the trial.In 1993 A team of lawyers from England fly in to represent Popa's widow, Marija. The revolution has happened and the people want to know if she knew what her husband was doing for her to steal her wealth from the people. She's facing the death penalty. Laura (one of the lawyers) and her parents fled Yanussia so this is a personal case for her, once she gets to know Marija it becomes even more so... The book doesn’t reach any great heights as a mystery or thriller but as a personal fictional and historical tale, there is some brilliance here. She says she is not the person they say, she is not her husband, she is innocent but do we, the reader believe her and can Laura find out the truth? I don’t know where to start with this book, it took my breath away and I feel bereft that it has finished.
This is a brilliant novel, in my opinion, and anyone who has an interest in reading novels about the Cold War, post Cold War, and life in Eastern Europe when it was part of the USSR, should seek this one out. The author may have used a fictious country as her setting, but the experiences and circumstances have been based on actual former Eastern Bloc countries and the people who lived there. Outstanding. The name conjured a glimmering swarm of contradictions. A sumptuous banquet crawling with maggots.’ The Dictator’s Wife, Marija Popa, faces the death penalty for the crimes of her husband, who can’t stand trial himself, as he was brutally murdered. Set in the fictional country Yanussia, Marija hires defence lawyers from London to help her fight her case. In comes Laura - who is a Yanussia born lawyer along with her boss to try and save Marija from the noose. The plot twists were strong and the entire read felt like whirlwind. I can't lie, I did read in one sitting because I couldn't bare to put the book down. The emotional trauma of the protagonist, the manipulation of the accused and the deep-rooted betrayal could easily be taken out of the book and applied to so many external, real-world scenarios. I love a good historical fiction. I definitely recommend.Did Berry develop sympathy for dictators’ wives in writing Popa’s character? “How do you make your way in a man’s world? If you can’t have power yourself, you have to go adjacent to it . These women are playing for the highest stakes. If they lose power, sometimes they’re executed. It’s this bitter tooth-and-nail fight for survival while also maintaining serene perfection and femininity,” she says. Almost thriller-like, a mystery, 20th century dystopia, with dark humour (a Communist version of Monopoly raises a wry smile) and it has a lot to say for itself. Imelda’s quite hard not to like, no matter what you think of her pretty dubious politics. So I did feel an unnerving amount of sympathy, which you have to as a novelist: you can’t just go in with that hardheaded, judgmental approach. I wanted my character, Marija, to be ambiguous, this enchanting spider at the novel’s heart. I wanted you to be a bit seduced by Marija at the same time as being probably a bit repelled or afraid of her.” A captivating story of women’s power, love and secrets. As timely and profound as it is unforgettable. The ending left me breathless’ LARA PRESCOTT, New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets We Kept
As the novel’s cover suggests, this is a boldly visual novel. I won’t be surprised to see it turned into a film or Netflix series. I, for one, can easily imagine Cate Blanchett as the Dictator’s Wife. Laura travels to Yanussia accompanied by two senior associates, Cristian Pavel and Jude Greenwood. It soon transpires that it wasn’t a coincidence that Laura was sent there. It seems that Marija personally requested Laura’s presence. Marija is clearly glamorous, powerful, and very charismatic, but throughout she refers to herself as 'only a woman'. Here, the typical narrative is flipped on its head as we never get to hear from the dictator Constantin himself, as he has already died (under pretty gruesome circumstances). Through her work as a financial and political journalist, Freya Berry was inspired by watching the wives of dictators and strongmen – particularly Melania Trump during the US election in 2016. These women often carry with them an air of detachment, an aloofness that can come across as cold and indifferent, sometimes even calculating. Marija, the dictator’s wife of the title, certainly seems to be all of these things, though she’s so much more – as Laura soon discovers. Marija has a magnetic allure that Laura can’t resist, even though she knows she’s being lured into the spider’s trap. There’s a power play going on between these two women and whilst for much of the novel it feels as if Marija is the one in control, Laura has an innate tenacity that makes her willing to do whatever it takes to dig out the truth – even if it hurts her irrevocably in the process.We then revisit this period, when Laura is part of the team of lawyers returning to her home country of Yanussia to defend Popa, accused of being party to widespread fraud and other dictator-friendly crimes. Laura's parents left Yanussia when she was young, she is prepared to meet a manipulative serpent... but instead finds herself falling for the older woman's intense intelligence and magnetism. Will the evidence show innocence? Acquiescence? Co-operation or collaboration? I know the phrase “will have you reading long into the night” gets thrown about an awful lot, but it is completely true for this book. Marija stands accused of human rights abuses, money laundering, and as an accomplice to numerous crimes committed by Constantin, but was she complicit, and is she guilty?
I loved Laura's connection to her birth country and we learn a lot about her. She's desperate to find out why her mum doesn't seem to love her and through retrospective memories we see Laura's tragic memories with her. She thinks the key is to find discover what happened in her past during her work for Marija but when she realises Marija might be the key they create a truly interesting and thrilling dynamic in their relationship. Elena began attending night-school courses in chemistry at the Bucharest Municipal Adult Education Institute. She was soon expelled because she cheated on an exam and never received a bachelor's degree. In fact, the teacher who oversaw the infamous exam "lived in fear of his life for decades afterward" (Behr 140). Berry read about another striking example in the Middle East: Asma al-Assad, wife of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, now widely considered a war criminal. In 2011 she was featured on the cover of Vogue magazine with the headline “A Rose in the Desert”, and a fawning profile that began: “Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young and very chic – the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.”An unconventional legal thriller and absorbing debut that is as satisfyingly complex in both its plotting and moral conclusions’ EXPRESS A fascinating exploration of absolute power, female agency and the complexities of complicity. Atmospheric, claustrophobic and so elegantly written -- ELLERY LLOYD The mesmerised narrator wonders aloud about the impact of these women, raising issues not too detached from ones we might ask about our own, real-life dictators’ wives. Why does the media fawn over their closets and philanthropic habits? And does the fixation on the glamour help disguise the darkness of their husbands’ deeds?
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