- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (Aug 31 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0452285631
- ISBN-13: 978-0452285637
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.5 x 1.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 295 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,760,959 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In Le Divorce and Le Mariage, Johnson polished her skill for sophisticated social comedy involving the cultural disconnections of Americans in France. Here, she perfects it in a deliciously entertaining story of a group of people drawn together-and divided by-the sharply different laws of succession in France and Britain. Amy Hawkins, a beautiful, naive, suddenly very rich Californian dot-com entrepreneur, comes to a posh ski resort in the French Alps as part of her plan for cultural self-improvement. When she generously pays for transporting the dying Adrian Venn, a publisher crushed in a landslide, back to his native England, her humanitarian gesture backfires with exquisite irony. Venn's two grown English children, his illegitimate French daughter, his new, much younger American wife and their toddler son become embroiled in a classic scenario of quarreling heirs, each seething with expectations at the expense of the others. Add a stuffy British solicitor who disdains French customs, his French counterpart who equally despises the English, an intellectual and TV personality who demonizes Americans, a lusty Austrian baron, a chic Parisienne hostess and other expertly drawn characters, and the comedy moves into high gear, but never at the expense of insights into human nature. Johnson's dexterity with plot builds astounding but credible complications, and she is adept at rendering a kind of fugal counterpoint in which each character misunderstands what each of the others thinks. Because love and money are never far apart in Johnson's oeuvre, four affairs take place, with mixed results. Johnson is more droll than Henry James, to whom she's been compared, and she's as witty as a modern-day Voltaire. Vraiment, L'Affaire, c'est irresistible!
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Like the wildly successful Le Divorce (1997) and Le Mariage (2000), Johnson's latest novel explores the strange alchemy that occurs when American and European social mores collide. On the cusp of her thirtieth birthday, Californian Amy Hawkins arrives at a posh ski resort in the French Alps just as a freak series of avalanches lands two of her fellow vacationers in the hospital. The victims are a wealthy British publisher and his latest wife, and before long the children of his previous marriages arrive to sort out his affairs. Amy, who had hoped to spend her vacation improving her skiing and acquiring the veneer of effortless sophistication she envies in Europeans, finds herself caught up in the tangle of medical and legal questions that surround the comatose couple: What will happen to their one-year-old son and his 14-year-old stepbrother, Kip? If the couple dies in France, will British or French inheritance laws prevail? Johnson's novel is exactly the kind of intricate, bittersweet comedy of manners her many fans have come to expect. Demand will be high, especially following the summer release of the Merchant Ivory film version of Le Divorce. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
All of Europe had been fascinated for the past few days by televised images of avalanches descending in the wake of storms on certain ski resorts and pretty villages in the Alps. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
All of Europe had been fascinated for the past few days by televised images of avalanches descending in the wake of storms on certain ski resorts and pretty villages in the Alps. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Boring and dull,
By Anita K "Be nice to everyone you meet, they m... (Vancouver BC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: L'Affaire (Paperback)
I never finished the book. I am not going to say i don't recommend this book because people have different tastes. As for me, it was utterly insipid. This was the only novel i have not completed.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very boring,
By A Customer
This review is from: Laffaire (Hardcover)
I found this book very tiresome. The writing was not especially witty or graceful, and the characters often seemed more like "types" than people. The book was neither as amusing as it might have been if the author had set out to write a comedy of manners, nor as intellectually and emotionally compelling as it might have been if the author had written about characters with depth and complexity. Use your money to buy a better book and your time to read something engaging.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A modern marterpiece,
By Driver9 (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Laffaire (Hardcover)
I have greatly enjoyed all of Diane Johnson's books especially since "Le Divorce." Her style is unique and fresh, and the subject matter engrossing and captivating. I believe she is one of the great new voices of American fiction, even if her subjects involve Americans lost and bewildered by alien surroundings and customs. I agree, none of her novels are "fast" reads, if that is what is important to you. But I was engrossed from the minute I began savoring this and her other novels.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
