Dolce Vita - Hardcover

Teran, Iseult

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002257084 ISBN 13: 9780002257084

Publisher: Flamingo, 1999

Synopsis

The extraordinary and unconventional life of a modern teenage bohemian.

‘I am Cat Balou, I am Jeanne Moreau, I am Modigliani’s lover, but not the one who threw herself out of the window...’

Una is a sixteen year old sexual fantasist. In 1989 she is a kept woman in Paris who’s romantic ideas about the lifestyle of a mistress to an aging record producer don’t quite live up to the reality. She searches for an affair that corresponds to her dreams, but finds herself flitting from one romantic infatuation to another, obsessed by the idea of sex but careful of her virginity.
From her borrowed studio in Pigalle she explores a bohemian Paris full of unpredictable characters: her Caribbean neighbour Henri, who creeps in naked to use her shower when she’s out; her friends Ines the stripper and Marcus, who help her scrape an existence of Burger Kings and Gauloises. La Dolce Vita is hot on her heels, from the pretentious prince who woos her to the transvestite prostitute who chases her.
As Una drifts through a year in her life, she is carried from Paris to a wintry Prague on the verge of revolution, to her rambling family home in rural Italy and to a shocking pre-honeymoon in Brazil. Una’s voyage is a rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood. Like most journeys, it involves danger and discovery.
Dolce Vita, with its cocktail of fantasy, innocence and worldliness, introduces a strong and unusual new voice in British fiction.

About this title

Review:

‘Like a trunk full of exotic jewels... Dolce Vita is charming, seductive and somehow redolent of a more gracious age. Una, the sixteen-year-old heroine, is living it up in Paris at the end of the 1980s. The mistress of an ageing record producer, she is pursued at every turn by unsuitable sexual possiblities. On a permanent quest for romantic love and food, she finds little of either, living almost entirely on Gauloise cigarettes and Burger King meals while making lists of luxuries she can’t afford... Irresistible’
Marie Claire Book of the Month

‘Una is a striking heroine: a teenage nymphet who could out-flirt Lolita, living a life that is movie-star glamorous in a garret in Paris... Graceful, elegant and deeply seductive, Teran’s debut is as delicious and decadent as the film from which its name is taken’
The Times

From the Back Cover:

“I am a Cat Ballou, I am Jeanne Moreau, I am Modigliani's lover, but not the one who threw herself out of the window...”

Una is a sixteen-year-old fantasist in Paris, a kept woman who's romantic ideas about the lifestyle of mistress to an ageing record producer don't quite live up to the reality. Living from moment to moment, obsessed by sex, yet careful of her virginity, she soon means that 'no sex means no food', and scrapes an existence as a model, student and telephone porn operator, feeding herself Burger Kings and Gauloises. From her studio in Pigalle, she finds bohemian Paris under her feet, full of seedy and unpredictable characters: her black neighbour Henri who creeps in naked to use her shower when she's out, her friends Ines the stripper and Marcus the scrounger, transvestite Folie who chases her down the street, to the princely Lips, who entertains her, takes her in, introduces her to cocaine and asks her to have his babies.

As Una drifts through a year in her life, she is carried from Paris, to wintry Prague on the verge of democratic revolution, to her rambling family home in rural Italy and to a shocking prehoneymoon in Brazil and we are introduced to an extraordinary and mesmerizing character. Una is at once gauche and worldly, sexy and virginal, strong and vulnerable, glamorous and hilarious, a uniquely accurate portrait of the borderland between girlhood and womanhood. 'Dolce Vita' with its wit, irony, fantasy and drama, introduces a powerful and unusual new voice in British fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0002257084
• ISBN 13: 9780002257084
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160