Love and Terror - Hardcover

Jolis, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871137151 ISBN 13: 9780871137159

Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

Joseph Fouche, chief of Robespierre's personal police, is a cold-blooded revolutionary whose loyalty to the regime has come into question: he is unwittingly falling in love with Nenette, a former prisoner he saved from the guillotine. Because of her uncanny resemblance to Marie Antoinette, Fouche had planned to use her to entrap other royalists, but now passion is eating away at his hard heart. When Marie Antoinette escapes from prison on the eve of her trial, Fouche, who had been charged with her safekeeping and execution, covers up her absence in the only way he can: he substitutes Nenette for the queen. If the real queen is not found by morning, Nenette will go to the guillotine in her place, to save the Revolution and Fouche's own neck. "Love and Terror" offers a mesmerizing and meticulously researched portrayal of Parisian life during this strange and violent era - where anyone might be an informant and the most cunning maneuverings are required simply to survive.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Reviews
"The Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine stood during the Terror of 1793, is the central image in this black comedy from Jolis (SPEAK SUNLIGHT). Known then as the Place de la Revolution, the execution site is a barbaric vortex, capturing not only its victim but also the imaginations of the mesmerized victimizers, especially Robespierre's enforcer, Joseph Fouche... As the hunt unfolds, the souls of the two opponents-the powerful zealot tortured by feelings of jealous inadequacy and the otherworldly aristocrat blind with love for the Queen-are revealed. Written in white-hot heat of remarkable clarity... A sophisticated account of the erotic dimensions of one of modern history's recurring nightmares." --Publisher's Weekly

"Jolis's new novel is a fast-paced historical... Fouche's character is particularly well-drawn, showing him to be unlovable and always on guard for betrayal. Other historic characters add believability, and historic details mak! e this a vivid picture of the times... Recommended for public and academic libraries." --Ann Irvine, Montgomery County Public Library, Silver Spring, MD.Library Journal

"Jolis does a masterful job of showing how blind allegiance to an ideal-even a noble one-can corrupt the heart and soul of society." --Jane Bosveld, Notorious Magazine

Comments by other novelists:

"The hair rises on the back of the neck in recognition of the self. This novel is terrifying and exhilarating in equal parts." --Fay Weldon, author of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil,Worst Fears, and Splitting

"This novel is a choreographed telegram to posterity, full of long overarching rhythms, the fetid sweep of history and the incessant prickle of private living, mo-ment to moment. A novelist could achieve this fascinating contrast only if he/she had a vision, and this Alan Jolis has: He is a Tacitus buried in a Carlyle, convincing us that ideas and their propagation a! re as much a product of human idiosyncrasy and eccentricity! as logic. Mr. Jolis is one of the few novelists alive today who can render so many saliences with a broad interpretive brush." --Paul West, author of Ratman of Paris, The Women of White Chapel

"In this tale of sentimental and political passions, Alan Jolis does justice both to the dramatic events surrounding Marie Antoinette's final days and to the underlying forces fuelling the French revolution. This is a compelling novel, which combines headlong narrative momentum with astute insights into the mechanisms of terror and the psychology of radical belief." --Eva Hoffman, author of Lost in Translation, Exit into History, Shtetl

In LOVE AND TERROR, Alan Jolis brings alive the world of revolutionary France -- a world of portable guillotines, stinking prisons and superannuated courtesans, in which the real verges gracefully into the invented. The result is that rare thing: a truly audacious historical novel." David Leavitt, author of Kansas, The Page ! Turner, The Lost Language of Cranes

"Vivid, bright, as sharp as a guillotine, packed with wonderful info, deftly plotted and a hair-raising story-Fouche cracks the heart's case. Jolis has never been better. A marvelous book."--Charlie Smith, author of Shine Hawk, Chimney Rock

Synopsis:

Joseph Fouche, Paris police commissioner during the Reign of Terror, has fallen in love with Nenette, a woman who resembles Marie Antoinette, but when the former queen manages to escape shortly before her execution, Fouche must find her if Nenette is to escape taking her place at the guillotine.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0871137151
• ISBN 13: 9780871137159
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 337