Les soeurs Livanos Paperback – Big Book, 31 Oct. 2018

Larger than life characters brought to life as in a Greek tragedy, and after all that's exactly what those people's lifes were. Well written, well researched. A very good book.

Just what exactly is this book? A biography? A novel? Or….. perhaps even a defamatory tract? The title refers to two women who actually existed and whose lives are being related. That would be the definition of a biography. However this is not a biography. It is a fantasy that is a work of fiction, so it could be a novel. But how can it be a novel if you are telling, supposedly, the story of two women who actually lived, complete with conversations the writer could have no idea of and is obviously concocting (as would be the case in a novel only we are supposed to believe that these actual women really said these things and thought the other and had ulterior motives or whatever). The writer even goes so far as to describes the whole scene of Eugenie Niarchos’ suicide as if she knew every detail when nobody does. And the details she concocts are not flattering and in fact detrimental to this lady’s memory.Again, how can it be a biography when so many details are completely wrong and the text has many anachronisms. For instance Onassis dancing Greek dances and smashing plates at his wedding to Tina in 1947! Niarchos, she says, had offices in London in 1947 and he commuted to them from New York. Totally untrue. The London office was not established till 1950 and he certainly did not commute to it from New York since he only established it in London as he had become unable to stay in the US over a matter concerning the acquisition of Liberty ships. Also back in the early 50’s Niarchos is depicted deep in conversation with Lord Snowden. Now who is this Lord in the early fifties when Anthony Armstrong Jones was made the first Earl of Snowden after he married Princess Margaret in 1960? And many many more such inconsistencies, which would not matter had this been a roman a clef with different names to the characters.And then there is a certain degree of character assassination. Perhaps not deliberate but more out of ignorance of the subjects she has chosen to write about. At some point Eugenie is made to say that Christina was so ugly that she knew her own daughter would not want to play with her. This is completely wrong. Eugenie gave support and love to her niece and would never have even thought something like that. Also she goes on and on about how ugly Christina was. She may not have been a ravishing beauty but she was not nearly as ugly as the writer makes out. Furthermore the only one to “dislike” her because of how she looked as a little girl was her mother (she got that right) but nobody else. Onassis certainly did not despise her and most certainly not Eugenie. In general she appears to have very little idea of what Eugenie was like.She also chooses to describe the famous cruise of the yacht Christina (never referred to as the Christina O by the way) where Churchill and Maria Callas were guests. Again this is mostly a work of fiction but again using the names of real people. Maria Callas never just sang some area or other like that in social surroundings. She had too much respect for her art. She is also given the character assassination treatment.So the book appears to be nothing more than a vehicle for heavy name dropping, long and tedious lists of opulence and the trappings of riches. Unending enumerations of these people’s art collections and little more. Overall it is a superficial, misleading and empty book. It has misrepresented the characters she has chosen to write about, reducing them to two dimensional caricatures, and it is a complete trivialisation of a very complex story and even more complex characters.Again, had she chosen to write this book as a roman a clef it could have made light reading. But I find it in extremely bad taste and disrespectful to the deceased to use their names and portray them not only in unflattering ways but in ways totally alien to what they were really like (or even what they actually did or did not do). I believe it is not honourable, to say the least, to opt for cheap thrills through the use of real people who are no longer alive.

Badly written, very short sentences, feels like you run a marathon! all based on gossip news and sex. Very disappointed.