Expert, Elegant Satire Gently Exposes Media Elite
For her fourth novel, The Emperor’s Children, Claire Messud has put aside her customary sobriety and composed a suspenseful, dark, pitch-perfect comedy of manners and morals about a small collection of individuals who aspire to—or might have stepped from—the “Intelligencer” section of New York magazine or the “Off the Record” column of this publication.



