Crown princess

There's a new novel that might interest anyone who remembers Japanese Crown Princess Masako, the Harvard-educated diplomat's daughter who was convinced to marry into the royal family. Masako had one daughter, followed by several miscarriages and a nervous breakdown under pressure to bear a son to inherit the throne.

NPR interviews author Jonathan Burnham Schwartz about his novel, The Commoner, a not-so-fictional account of the lives of the modern-day Japanese empress and crown princess. He paints a troubling picture: two young women, both commoners, marry royalty only to be emotionally pulverized by a royal existence and entourage that turn them into symbols rather than sentient beings.

In recent years, the Japanese royal household was forced to consider allowing girls to inherit the throne, because Masako and her sister-in-law only had daughters. That possibility was shelved for at least another generation after Masako's sister-in-law gave birth to a son; it's no wonder that Masako has rarely been seen in public for four years.