Magnificent Lives of MM Post
Allison Pataki
Allison Pataki
Octopus slaps fish
Biography
Allison Pataki was born in New York on Nov. 25, 1984 to former New York State Governor George Pataki and his wife Libby Rowland.
She attended Yale University, majoring in English, and met her husband, David Levy, during her sophomore year. They married in June 2012.
In 2015, she co-founded reConnect Hungary, an educational and social immersion program for young adults of Hungarian heritage, born in the United States or Canada, to gain a better understanding of their Hungarian heritage.
In addition to 6 historical novels, she's also written one nonfiction memoir, and two children’s books, Nelly Takes New York and Poppy Takes Paris.
An avid traveler and reader, Allison lives in New York with her husband, children, and rescue pup.
Biography (from her website)
I love books. I love reading them, I love discussing them, I love writing them. I love immersing myself into a great story and having the opportunity to see a new world through a fresh set of eyes. My 100-year-old grandmother once told me: “As long as I have a good book, I will never be lonely.” I feel the same way.
I guess I should have known from the beginning that I wanted to be a writer. I had the great fortune of growing up in upstate New York, in the Hudson River Valley. As the third of four kids, I would often wander off into the woods behind my backyard and spend hours, alone, totally absorbed in my own imaginings. I’d create characters and scenes and lots of drama. I still remember many of the characters and storylines I first imagined at around age nine. I’ve always been an avid reader, and I loved staging plays with my siblings and cousins. I recall the difficulty of trying to get my 7-year-old cousins to remember their lines from Romeo and Juliet.
At Yale I majored in English and I could not believe my good luck – suddenly I was able to spend hours doing nothing but reading, writing, and talking about books. I was supposed to spend hours on end in the library. And I got to pretend that it was work! After college, hoping to blend my love for English and History, I moved to New York City and pursued a career in journalism. Although I enjoyed so much of the work I was doing, I was sort of a misfit in the industry. I did want to study the major events unfolding in our world, and the way in which individuals reacted to and shaped these events – but the panic-inducing deadlines and the rapid-fire pace of the 24-hour news cycle were not for me.
Publications
Allison Pataki is a New York Times bestselling author with a passion for telling the stories of leading ladies lost in history. She has written six historical novels:
The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post (2022)
Finding Margaret Fuller (2024), a novel about the woman who was a friend to Ralph Waldo Emerson and the transcendentalists, a role model to a young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne, a friend to Henry David Thoreau and muse to Emerson. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and her restless soul needs new challenges and adventures.
The Traitor's Wife: The Woman Behind Benedict Arnold and the Plan to Betray America (2014) is an historical novel about Peggy Shippen Arnold, the cunning wife of Benedict Arnold and mastermind behind America’s most infamous act of treason. Everyone knows Benedict Arnold—the Revolutionary War General who betrayed America and fled to the British as history’s most notorious turncoat. Many know Arnold’s co-conspirator, Major John André, apprehended with Arnold’s documents in his boots and hanged at the orders of George Washington. But few know of the integral third character in the plot; a charming and cunning young woman, who not only contributed to the betrayal but orchestrated it.
Publications
She has written six historical novels:
The Accidental Empress (2015) is set in 1853, when the Habsburgs are Europe’s most powerful ruling family. With his empire stretching from Austria to Russia, from Germany to Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph is young, rich, and ready to marry. Fifteen-year-old Elisabeth, “Sisi,” Duchess of Bavaria, travels to the Habsburg court with her older sister, who is betrothed to the young emperor. But shortly after her arrival at court, Sisi finds herself in an unexpected dilemma: she has inadvertently fallen for and won the heart of her sister’s groom.
Sisi: Empress on Her Own (2016) tells the little-known story of Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, the Princess Diana of her time, married to Emperor Franz Joseph. She was fondly known as Sisi.
Where the Light Falls is a novel of the French Revolution, co-written with her brother Owen.
The Queen's Fortune (2020) is a novel about the extraordinary woman who captured Napoleon’s heart, created a dynasty, and changed the course of history--Desiree Clary.
Beauty in the Broken Places (2018) is her first memoir, also an article for The New York Times, detailing her family's experience with traumatic brain injury and recovery. In 2015, Pataki's husband, David Levy, suffered a near-fatal stroke while the couple were on board a flight to Seattle. This book chronicles that experience.
Cast of characters
C. W. Post—Marjorie's father
Marjorie Merriweather Post--One of the first women to serve on the board of a major American corporation in 1936. She retired as the Chairman of the Board of General Foods in 1958.
Husband #1--Edward Bennett Close, investment banker of Greenwich, Connecticut, with family heritage. They married in 1905, divorced in 1919. Together, they had two daughters:
Adelaide—married 3 times
Eleanor—married 6 times
Husband #2—E. F. Hutton, financier, gave up his own business to become chairman of the board of Postum Cereal Company, later General Foods. Married in 1920, divorced in 1935, one daughter, Dina Merrill
Husband #3—Joseph Davies, Washington D. C. lawyer, ambassador to Russia. Married in 1935, divorced in 1955
Husband #4—Herbert May, Pittsburgh businessman, married in 1958, divorced in 1964.
Cast of characters
Colby Chester—manager of Postum that Marjorie relied on
Betty Beale--Newspaper woman who ultimately became Marjorie's friend
Florenz Ziegfeld and Billie Burke
Alice Roosevelt
Videos
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Questions for discussion
What are the dominant characteristics of Marjorie's personality and character?
Would you like her for a friend?
Questions for discussion
When I was creating the Cast of Characters slide, I noticed that this novel contains very few fully developed secondary characters, other than Marjorie's various husbands. And even they have only a couple of notable characteristics, all focusing on their relationship to her.
The novels seems to focus on Marjorie's husbands rather than her children, or friends. Is that a fair statement?
Questions for discussion
Would it be fair to say that each of Marjorie's husbands contributed to her development? If so, what did each contribute?
Questions for discussion
This book is written in 1st person point of view, that is Marjorie is telling her own story and the details we get are therefore from her perspective or interpretation. How does that make a difference?
Questions for discussion
We've read several historical novels over the years in this course. Is this book like or unlike some others?
How would you describe the narrative style of this novel?
Questions for discussion
Of the many episodes or events described in this novel, what stuck with you? What will you remember?
Questions for discussion
Although born 22 years apart, Edith Wharton and Marjorie Merriweather Post grew up during the Gilded Age. Both were born into and lived a "high society" lifestyle. How are they similar and different?
Questions for discussion
Why was Mrs. Post so enraptured by beautiful art works—jewelry, paintings, furniture, houses, gardens?