The Idea of Love - Hardcover

Dean, Louise

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151013853 ISBN 13: 9780151013852

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009

Synopsis

When a cluster of expatriate families converges on Provence, it seems as if sunshine, good wine, and an endless round of parties will make for a better life. Then Richard, a pharmaceutical salesman married to sexy Valérie, lands a plum assignment: introducing antidepressants into Africa, virgin territory for the drug industry and for the womanizing he has honed to a science. And idealistic Rachel finds herself Africa-bound too, in search of a little brother or sister for her daughter, Maud, and following some deeper longing she can’t seem to quell.

For both Richard and Rachel, the excursions will lead them into their own private heart of darkness, and will bring shock waves home to their little Eden, unsettling the very idea of love.

About this title

Review:

'Engaging...it is hard to stop turning the pages...arresting...fizzes with talent.' Sunday Times

In her dark and witty third novel, Louise Dean evokes the loveless marriages of two couples living in Provence. Richard is the head of sales in Africa for a pharmaceutical company. He spends most of his time away on business, sleeping with strange women and pushing psychiatric drugs on a developing market where hearing voices is considered "a manifestation of witchcraft". Back in Provence, he and his wife, Valérie, no longer share a bed, and his teenage son, Maxence, is hearing voices of his own. When Richard begins an affair with a neighbour, Rachel, he discovers that Valérie, too, is having an affair - with Rachel's husband, Jeff. With wry humour, Dean captures the gloom of existences imploding in incongruous surroundings.' The Observer

'Wonderfully complex and original novel about desire, disappointment and mental illness, largely set in ex-pat Provence...Louise Dean's lovely rendering of her awful people makes The Idea of Love an enormous delight.’ The Independent

'This dark novel is interesting and original, a study of love but not romance and a story with many morals.’ The Telegraph

‘An acute, cynical wit... An unforgettable study of the dark side of the mind.’ The Times.

‘In her third novel, Louise Dean regards with a sardonic eye a group of scalded lovers ricocheting between desire, despair and dipsomania.....Dean's portrayal of Maxence's madness and his mission to save souls is tender and funny, and lifts the novel far above the torrid soul-searching of its narcissistic lovers.’ The Guardian

'Louise Dean's third novel is a careful dissection of our search for love in its many forms – sexual, religious, parental, and brotherly....Dean has a deliciously wry eye for the convincing detail.’ Literary Review

'An unusual but fascinating story that examines the different ways in which people face the harsh realities of love gone wrong.’ Tatler

About the Author:

LOUISE DEAN is the author of Becoming Strangers, which won the Betty Trask Award and the 2006 Le Prince Maurice Prize and was long-listed for the 2004 Man Booker Prize and the Guardian First Novel Award, and This Human Season.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0151013853
• ISBN 13: 9780151013852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 318