Korean Crown Princess Hyegyong speaks from her 200-year-old grave
to reveal the true story of her life. Born in 1735, she was
pampered as a child to compensate for her destiny in the palace.
Her parents suffered depression; the Crown Princess knew at an
early age that play was pretend but sorrow was real. Her childhood
ended early when her parents entered her into the selection
ceremony as a royal bride. The mother of the Crown Prince, Lady
Sonhui, favored her and so she was chosen.

The little girl was horrified on her long visits to the palace,
where she was petted and fed strange foods, and painted with
cosmetics. At home, palace servants attended to her and her parents
deferred to her. She wanted to die. Sick with fear on her wedding
day, she was married at age ten to Prince Sado, also ten, who
called his wife his "little Red Queen" because of her prized red
silk skirt. The married children played together, with dolls,
kites, a toy horse, and the toy soldiers Sado loved. The marriage
was consummated five years later.

The Princess's first son died. Her father-in-law, King Yongjo, was
an odd man with many obsessions and insecurities who treated his
son, Sado, harshly. He decreed that the couple's second son,
Chongjo, was to be groomed to be king because Sado was becoming
mentally unstable. As the young mother worried over her beloved
son's fate, her husband became madder and madder. Prince Sado
blamed his mania on his father's lack of love toward him; his
actions were violent and terrifying. Complex court and family
maneuvering and catastrophes shaped the Princess's remaining
years.

After the princess narrates the balance of her tragic life, the
story switches to modern-day England, focusing on Dr. Barbara
Halliwell, who appears on the surface to be the opposite of the
powerless princess. Babs is puzzled to receive a book of the Korean
Crown Princess's memoirs anonymously. She reads the book during her
flight to Seoul to attend a conference. As she reads, Babs is
astounded at the number of connections and similarities to her own
life. Along with other parallels, her own first husband went mad
because of his relationship with his father, and her own first son
died in infancy. Babs cannot stop thinking about the memoirs.

In Seoul, Babs escapes her conference to search out the places the
Crown Princess experienced. Because of her fascination with the
Korean princess's life, Babs experiences a significant chapter in
her own life --- one that reverberates past her return to London
and changes her future drastically.

The surreal yet extremely satisfactory ending includes a surprise
appearance by Margaret Drabble herself. A short afterword
reinforces the conclusion's mood of circularity and completion. THE
RED QUEEN was a bit of a slow start for me (chalk it up to a few
too many beach books over the summer), but I was soon ensnared by
the haunting plot of this ambitious and unusual ghost story.