Empty Theatre

Empty theatre:

Or, the Lives of King Ludwig of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty Despite the Expectations Placed on Them Because of the Exceptional Good Fortune of Their Status as Beloved National Figures. With Speculation into the Mysterious Nature of Their Deaths.

MCD x FSG , February 21, 2023

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A wildly over-the-top social satire reimagining the mad misadventures of the iconic royal cousins King Ludwig and Empress Sisi, from the incomparable Jac Jemc.

History knows them as King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elizabeth of Austria, icons of the late nineteenth century who died young and left behind magnificent portraits and palaces. But to each other they were Ludwig and Sisi, cousins who shared a passion for beauty and a stubborn refusal to submit to the roles imposed upon them.

Ludwig, simultaneously spoiled and punished for his softness and unmanly interests, falls hard for the operas of Richard Wagner and neglects his state duties in the pursuit of art. Sisi, married at the age of sixteen to her beloved Franzl, bristles at the restrictions of her elevated position, the value placed on her beauty, and the simultaneous expectation that she ravage her body again and again in childbirth. Both absurdly vain, both traumatized by the demands of their roles, Sisi and Ludwig struggle against the ideals they are expected to embody, and resist through extravagance, petulance, performance, and frivolity.

A tragicomic tour de force, Empty Theatre immerses readers in Ludwig and Sisi's rarefied, ridiculous, restrictive world--where the aesthetics of excess belie the isolation of its inhabitants. With wit, pathos, and imagination, Jac Jemc takes us on an unforgettable journey through two extraordinary parallel lives and the complex, tenuous friendship that linked them.

ADVANCE Praise

"Jac Jemc’s dreamscape of a novel weaves history and imagination into a wonder world. Empty Theater is an ingenious and totally absorbing gambol through beauty, decadence, and the bizarre absurdities of lives spent in the dizzying clouds of royalty and pomp. Jemc is a writer of enviable talent and soulful intelligence."

―Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark

A brilliant, outrageous, page-turning social satire of two cousins, an emperor and empress, who are trapped in their castles playing an elaborate and tragic game of dress up their whole lives. The mad isolation and aesthetic bubble the royalty lives in becomes, through Jemc's glorious retelling, something so darling and vulnerable and at the same time monstrously idiotic. The courts of Austria and Bavaria are recreated so vividly, they dance and sparkle on the page. Jac Jemc has crafted an ornate, baroque world filled with exquisite detail and wonder that is equal to the courtly world she describes. Oh reader, you will follow the tragic paths of these monarchs as they chase melodies and butterflies to their graves, and feel yourself to be so much richer and freer afterwards.

― Heather O’Neill, author of When We Lost Our Heads

“Jac Jemc's EMPTY THEATRE is a brilliantly and sensitively crafted novel, both epic and intimate in scope. I was captivated from the very first line.”

— Morgan Thomas, author of Manywhere

"I feasted on this novel like it was the most colorful, immaculately arranged spread of delights. Each one of these short chapters is bursting with the macabre intrigue & humor we've come to love in Jac Jemc's work. Utterly delightful, entertaining, and riddled with fascinating historical embellishments and facts."

- Fernando A. Flores, author of Tears of the Truffle Pig and Valleyesque

"Jac Jemc’s latest novel slithers through history to bring us a gloriously re-imagined pair of hopeless, wounded dreamers, Empress Sisi and Ludwig II. Bitterly comic, amusingly tragic scenes are linked together in a narrative as brilliant and beguiling as any of the glorious baubles desired by Ludwig II himself. Brimming with wit, style, and grace, Empty Theatre is a satire ultimately as compassionate and sincere as this reader could wish. A tour-de-force."

- Maryse Meijer, author of The Seventh Mansion and Rag

Reviews

“Sensual, intricate, and filled with the verve of its own opulent language, Jemc’s retelling of these apocryphal lives delivers all the urgency of their time into our own without losing any of the fidelity it owes to their real legacies. This novel is a triumph.”

- Kirkus, starred review

“Jemc seldom lacks for brio in portraying these inscrutable figures weighed down by their crowns and visions. The originality on offer is well worth the price of admission.”

-Publishers Weekly, PW Picks Books of the Week 2/20/23

“Jemc's propulsive pacing, evocative concision, and the episodic structure make for quick reading. But the rapturous recounting of these fated characters' lives will buzz for some time in readers' minds.”

-Booklist, starred review, Review of the Day

“As a story of royals behaving badly and bemoaning their privilege, Empty Theatre has impeccable timing. Such stories have never gone out of fashion. They even used to be interesting.”

—4Columns