the accidental empress by allison pataki

I was told, use less big words, be more snarky.

“But it was get in, get out, boil the story down to 15 seconds or less. I thought that meant I should be a journalist,” she says. I love getting to the bottom of people’s stories. 'I love getting to the bottom of people’s stories.' Pataki began her career in journalism, mostly working for cable news. You get all the wonderful aspects of New York-great restaurants, great museums-but a slower pace. “Chicago is so wonderful because it’s so livable and friendly. “What I love about New York is the layer upon layer upon layer of history,” she says. The lifelong New Yorker is acclimating to her new home. George Pataki, grew up in New York and moved to Chicago for her husband’s residency. Pataki, the daughter of former New York Gov. She inspired mythology the way a Princess Diana or a Jackie Kennedy did.” ”Īnd, of course, you have Sisi, a woman Pataki calls “larger than life even in her own life. You have the characters of the most powerful man in Europe and Mad King Ludwig. “You have the stunning settings of the Alps and palaces and courts. “I didn’t know how much I could rely on the historical record, but the more I looked into it, the blueprint for the story was right there in the facts,” she says. (The first, The Accidental Empress, was published in 2015.) Pataki began researching and soon realized she had struck literary gold-enough for two books. I thought, this is a really intriguing woman. “Her smile looked a little mysterious, a little sad, like there was more behind it. “Everywhere I went, I saw images of this striking woman,” Pataki says during a call to her home in Chicago, where she lives with her husband-a resident in ortho-pedic surgery-and their newborn daughter. Pataki, whose own family roots trace to Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria, became intrigued with the empress during a trip to Austria a decade ago. Whispers start at Sisi’s frequent trips away from the Hofburg Palace and her close relationships with other men-namely the darkly handsome Count Andrássy, a key advisor to her husband. Sisi travels around Europe, often accompanied by her youngest daughter, Valerie, the only one of her three children she was allowed to raise without the interference of her mother-in-law, the Archduchess Sophie.

While her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, struggles to maintain the power of his monarchy, Sisi seeks refuge from the stifling halls of the royal court in late 19th-century Vienna, where her every move is watched and analyzed. So why has Sisi been largely lost to history?Īllison Pataki’s new novel, Sisi: Empress on Her Own covers the turbulent later life of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, known to her subjects as Sisi. She was the Princess Diana of her time, a storied beauty who longed for more than the trappings of royalty.

The accidental empress by allison pataki