‘PRINCESS DAISY’ BY JUDITH KRANTZ

This week’s blog entry is dedicated yet again to the oeuvre of Judith Krantz, most specifically to PRINCESS DAISY, one of my favorite novels of hers. I was supposed to scrap anything regarding this author on account of the many homophobic references inserted in SCRUPLES. But the big trashy junkie that I am just couldn’t stay away. And truth be told, I’m glad I didn’t, for Judith Krantz is more than a bigot writer. She’s also one heck of a trashy storyteller. She knows how to lure her readers just the right way with her tales of the rich and the rotten, and PRINCESS DAISY is the perfect example. 

Princess Margaret Alexandrovna Valensky has it all: loving parents, a title preceding her name and money that grows on trees—until tragedy strikes. Before you can say, oh here we go again, Daisy's charmed life is turned upside down when she is forced to face a painful past and an unsure future. And what a future it is, filled with beautiful people, royal settings, designer clothes and plenty of sex.  Suffice to say, PRINCESS DAISY is one hot read. Krantz creates an exciting bunch of characters; unidimensional, perhaps, but fun as they go at it without any filter just to get a piece of the happy pie. Yes, the author may spread it thick on the over-the-top scale, but who cares. The novel works, and that’s what’s important. It is as grand and as sinful as those secrets her heroine so desperately wants to hide. So go on, do as I did, forget about SCRUPLES and indulge in this one, for PRINCESS DAISY sure is classy stuff in escapism fiction. 

As you can see, re-reading this novel wasn’t as strenuous as I thought it would be. Sure, one of the antagonists is a sick and twisted individual who of course has homosexual tendencies, but this offensive depiction didn’t bother me as I thought it would this time around. Maybe the trick is to develop a thicker skin. Or to simply realize that villains in over-the-top novels are just as harmless as their creators if you don’t take them too seriously. Besides, the novel is from another era. I’d like to believe that people, including writers like Judith Krantz, have slackened on some of their beliefs since then. But with the re-enforcing of backlash toward minorities since Trump has been elected the next president, however, I may just end up eating my words.

Until next post—Martin

US Hardcover