Kitty & Virgil [Paperback]

Paul Bailey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2000

A love story set in Romania and England by the author of the Booker shortlisted bestseller, 'Gabriel's Lament'. Paul Bailey's most ambitious novel yet. Kitty Crozier wakes up in a hospital ward and finds a stranger looking down at her. Thus begins the most important, most demanding, most exhilarating relationship of Kitty's life. Her lover's name is Virgil Florescu, a poet who has escaped from Ceausescu's Romania. As their liaison deepens, more is revealed of their previous lives and of their different families. Both Kitty and Virgil have unusual fathers: Kitty's is a phenomenally accomplished philanderer, while Virgil's has changed his political allegiances from left to right and back again in order to ensure his survival. The book is rich in characters and despite its tragic theme -- which is not revealed until late in the narrative -- is often fiendishly funny. For all its concern with public issues of morality, it is very much about family life -- or rather, that of two distinct families with interesting histories and secrets, not all of them unhappy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bailey, whose first novel, At the Jerusalem, won several British awards and who has been twice shortlisted for the Booker since, is too little known here, as the arrival of the luminous book, his first in seven years, reminds us. It is at once a wistful and tender love story and a harrowing account of how people from two utterly different cultures and ways of looking at the world can find, then lose, each other. Kitty Crozier is a sweet 30-something Londoner who works as an indexer for publishers. Into her life one day comes Virgil Florescu, a refugee from the Romanian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu who had escaped his unhappy country by swimming the Danube at night, and later found work as an attendant in Green Park. Virgil is a superb creation, a poet who is at once funny and self-knowing, has a sly wit and an abiding gift for happiness. The problem in his life is the continuing existence of his father, who under the sway of bestial wartime nationalism has committed unspeakable acts-acts for which gentle Virgil feels he must atone. A cast of scintillating characters is mostly revealed in brilliant dialogue set pieces: Kitty's father, a vain, foppish man who had been a male model in America and has taken up with a mordantly witty butler in his dotage; Kitty's sister, Daisy, a terror in her youth, now unhappily waspish in middle age; even Virgil's landlady, a former opera singer succored by her unforgettable memories about life on the lower rungs of that art. Bailey's fertile invention and kindly humor spark them all to life, and the ultimate tribute to his book is that it manages to be unutterably sad without being in any way mawkish, and that it reminds one again and again of the sheer pleasures of a story told with empathy, elegance and an unfailing delight in the language. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

When Kitty Crozier meets dissident Romanian poet and compulsive storyteller Virgil Florescu in the hospital, love blooms immediately. Their tale is played out against a backdrop of repression and suffering during the Ceausescu regime, Kitty's reunion with her much-married father, and the crumbling marriage of Kitty's twin, Daisy. Virgil's is the sensitive and charming voice in which most of the story is told, and it is the unspeakable family secret that he carries that propels much of the narrative. Fittingly, this memorable and moving novel ends with five poems from Virgil to Kitty, which encapsulate much of what he has told her. Very funny yet deeply tragic, this is a good bet for all libraries, especially where Bailey's prize-winning earlier novels (At the Jerusalem) are known.
-Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll. Lib., Bronxville, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Fourth Estate Classic House (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857025687
• ISBN-13: 978-1857025682
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,560,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A love story, and much more., December 14, 2004

By 

algo41 "algo41" (philadelphia, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kitty and Virgil (Paperback)

This is a love story, and much more. Kitty leads a quiet life, yet is still something of a free spirit. Virgil has escaped from Communist Romania, and despite his fame in Romania as a poet, does manual work in England. For the first several chapters, I found the protagonists very likeable, but the novel amusing at best. As the story unfolds, the love story deepens and becomes more emotionally compelling. Bailey frequently switches between scenes from Virgil's childhood, Kitty's childhood, their time together, visits with Kitty's family, and Virgil's Romanian past as a persecuted poet. Bailey demonstrates technical brilliance in his handling of these changes of scene. The secondary characters are all well drawn and interesting in their own right, as is the depiction of Romanian political life under the deranged dictator Ceausescu. The novel is suffused with warm and quirky humor as well as deep sadness. I did have some problem with the ending (stop here if you have not read the book). The extended epilogue wherein Kitty tries to learn more of Virgil and meets his friends and family, balancing this against his long farewell letter, was moving and engrossing. What bothers me is that Virgil ascribes his setback in the battle against guilt and depression to the time he had the flu. It makes more sense to me to ascribe it to the release of the dictator's overthrow, which may be logically paradoxical, but makes psychological sense to me, squares better with the timeline of events, and better balances cause and effect.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ELOQUENT, MOVING, SIMPLY SUPERB, May 4, 2005

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kitty and Virgil (Hardcover)

Readers not familiar with the works of English author PaulBailey should treat themselves to a few hours with this perspicaciousand highly original writer. His first novel, At The Jerusalem,captured three British awards; he has been cited by the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1980 and 1986. Mr. Bailey's initial United States publication, Gabriel's Lament (1987), traces the life of a young man who is systematically abused by his father and winds up eventually exposing his father's misdeeds in a book.

Kitty And Virgil, the author's first novel in seven years, deals with misdeeds of another sort - those perpetrated under the Romanian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. Kitty Crozier is an identical twin whose sister, Daisy, was a bit of a hellion as a child but has now morphed into complaining adulthood. An employee of London publishers, Kitty first sees Virgil Florescu through sedative drowsed eyes from her hospital bed. She notices there is "a glint of something like silver in his smile."

They meet again in Green Park where Virgil is employed as a grounds keeper "picking up litter from the grass with a long spike." Eventually, she invites him to her home, and thus begins one of the most unique love affairs in literature. A tragicomic figure, a refugee and poet from Romania, Virgil escaped the tyranny of his home country by swimming the Danube, first to the border, then to Italy, where "he had slept in fields, washed in streams.

Virgil is surely one of the author's finest creations, imbued with self-knowledge, a splendid, effervescent joy, and brio. However, Virgil is plagued by thoughts of his father who committed heinous crimes during wartime - the barbarous slaying of Romanian Jews during World War II. Somehow Virgil feels he must make reparation for these acts.

On the other hand, Kitty's father is an aging, ridiculous dandy who once worked as a male model, married well several times, and now shares lodgings with an acerbic butler. Dialogue in the hands of Paul Bailey takes effervescent life, especially in the scenes during which Kitty takes Virgil to meet her father.

The comparison between Kitty's father and Virgil's is eloquence itself. Presenting pathos, parody and humor in one slim volume could not have been accomplished save by an author with Mr. Bailey's gifts. Kitty And Virgil heightens awareness, disturbs, and entertains. It is one more star in Paul Bailey's crown.

- Gail Cooke

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Past Casts a Mighty Shadow, August 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Kitty and Virgil (Hardcover)

Have you ever met someone and felt that you've known each other for a long time? That's how I felt about Kitty (this book's heroine). And like Kitty, I fell in love with Virgil and her quirky father. Just like Kitty, there is something mysterious about Virgil that I can't put my finger on. He's got a looming past in Romania, and Kitty has her dysfuntional family to deal with.

Anyway, at times this book will jerk a tear, or erupt a laugh. I enjoyed my time with Virgil and wish it could have gone on another 200 pages!