Le Divorce (William Abrahams Book) - Softcover

Johnson, Diane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452284481 ISBN 13: 9780452284487

Publisher: Plume, 2003

Synopsis

When Roxanne Walker de Persand's husband leaves her pregnant and alone for the wife of an American lawyer, she turns for help to her stepsister, Isabel, but the de Persand family subtly governs her choice for divorce, especially since she has a painting worth millions in her possession. Reissue. (A Merchant Ivory production, opening June 2003, starring Kate Hudson, Glenn Close, & Naomi Watts) (General Fiction)

About this title

Review:

"Stylish... refreshing... a genuinely wise and humane novel."--The New York Times Book Review

"A modern collision of French and American mores begins in near farce but ends in tragedy in Johnson's bright, unsparing novel... Johnson is especially good at catching the class-bound, cool, utter self- assurance of the French upper classes, and the determinedly frank, aggressive innocence of their American counterparts... A shrewd, carefully detailed portrait of the ways in which Americans and the French continue to romanticize, denigrate, and misapprehend each other, contained in a well-paced, believably dramatic narrative."--Kirkus Reviews

"Social comedy at its best."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"One savors each page... If one were to cross Jane Austen and Henry James, the result would be Diane Johnson."--San Francisco Chronicle

From the Back Cover:

Isabel Walker, a young, not-so-innocent American abroad, arrives in Paris to find that her sister's French husband ('the frog prince') has just walked out. While Isabel embarks on her own sentimental education - seduced by gourmet food, antiques, existentialism and an older man - her sister's marriage disintegrates into bitter Franco-American wrangles over money, titles and a mysterious painting. With a sharp tongue and an ironic eye for the foibles of the Parisian bourgeoisie, the French art world and American ex-patriots, Isabel is a collector of experience, even those she can't control.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0452284481
• ISBN 13: 9780452284487
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320