L'affaire [Hardcover]

Diane Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2004

A wickedly funny and observant novel about the delicate questions of love, death and money. Amy Hawkins, Californian millionairess, is travelling in Europe, to find her culture, her roots and a cause to which she might devote her considerable fortune. She lands at one of the finest small hotels in the French Alps a hotel noted for skiing and its famous cooking lessons and soon finds that Americans are not the flavour of the month in France. A few days into her trip, she narrowly survives an avalanche. Two of the hotel's other guests, English publisher Adrian Venn and his much younger wife Kerry, are not as fortunate and both lie comatose in a nearby hospital. Amy steps in as Adrian's children young and old, legitimate and illegitimate - assemble in Valmeri to protect their interests should he not pull through, and in her innocence sets in motion a series of events in France and England that threaten to topple carefully built family alliances once and for all. Add one or two small affaires and soon it is, as the French would say, a situation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Le Divorce and Le Mariage, Johnson polished her skill for sophisticated social comedy involving the cultural disconnections of Americans in France. Here, she perfects it in a deliciously entertaining story of a group of people drawn together-and divided by-the sharply different laws of succession in France and Britain. Amy Hawkins, a beautiful, naive, suddenly very rich Californian dot-com entrepreneur, comes to a posh ski resort in the French Alps as part of her plan for cultural self-improvement. When she generously pays for transporting the dying Adrian Venn, a publisher crushed in a landslide, back to his native England, her humanitarian gesture backfires with exquisite irony. Venn's two grown English children, his illegitimate French daughter, his new, much younger American wife and their toddler son become embroiled in a classic scenario of quarreling heirs, each seething with expectations at the expense of the others. Add a stuffy British solicitor who disdains French customs, his French counterpart who equally despises the English, an intellectual and TV personality who demonizes Americans, a lusty Austrian baron, a chic Parisienne hostess and other expertly drawn characters, and the comedy moves into high gear, but never at the expense of insights into human nature. Johnson's dexterity with plot builds astounding but credible complications, and she is adept at rendering a kind of fugal counterpoint in which each character misunderstands what each of the others thinks. Because love and money are never far apart in Johnson's oeuvre, four affairs take place, with mixed results. Johnson is more droll than Henry James, to whom she's been compared, and she's as witty as a modern-day Voltaire. Vraiment, L'Affaire, c'est irresistible!
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Like the wildly successful Le Divorce (1997) and Le Mariage (2000), Johnson's latest novel explores the strange alchemy that occurs when American and European social mores collide. On the cusp of her thirtieth birthday, Californian Amy Hawkins arrives at a posh ski resort in the French Alps just as a freak series of avalanches lands two of her fellow vacationers in the hospital. The victims are a wealthy British publisher and his latest wife, and before long the children of his previous marriages arrive to sort out his affairs. Amy, who had hoped to spend her vacation improving her skiing and acquiring the veneer of effortless sophistication she envies in Europeans, finds herself caught up in the tangle of medical and legal questions that surround the comatose couple: What will happen to their one-year-old son and his 14-year-old stepbrother, Kip? If the couple dies in France, will British or French inheritance laws prevail? Johnson's novel is exactly the kind of intricate, bittersweet comedy of manners her many fans have come to expect. Demand will be high, especially following the summer release of the Merchant Ivory film version of Le Divorce. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Michael Joseph (September 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0718147448
• ISBN-13: 978-0718147440
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,351,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Slow....., April 12, 2004

By 

"megs1234" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: L'Affaire (Hardcover)

This book was very slow-moving, and did very little to grasp my attention, and even less to hold it. The beginning started off alright- great setting, interesting descriptions which gave the reader an indication of upcoming conflicts...but wow did this book drag!!!

I read three other books in the time it took me to read this one. Even when I was down to the last ten pages, I couldn't sit still long enough to see how it ended, and just waited until I had enough energy to stay awake for the last chapter.

This book was a tedious read. I am a fan of Diane Johnson and was more than disappointed with this novel. The characters were either loathesome or poorly developed, and while the setting was ideal as the backdrop of a great story, the almost non-existent plot was dragged out for about 200 pages too many. Either this book needed to be one hundred pages long, or it needed a bit more excitement to keep me interested.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DELIGHTFUL AND DELICIOUS, October 13, 2003

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: L'Affaire (Hardcover)

Perceptive and witty, popular novelist Diane Johnson struck it rich with "Le Mariage" and "Le Divorce" (later made into a top box office draw by Merchant/Ivory Productions and Fox Searchlight). Now, with "L'Affaire" Ms. Johnson creates a protagonist who also has the Midas touch - Amy Ellen Hawkins, a young attractive American who has reaped a fortune as a dot.com
executive.

However, for Amy her vast wealth almost seems to bring more problems than pleasures. You see, Amy believes she must do some sort of payback for the blessings she has so unexpectedly and suddenly received. Thus, she first sets upon a course of self-improvement, "an almost superstitious way of placating the gods for her recent good fortune." Next, she hopes to find a cause, a sort of "mutual aid" to which she can devote a portion of her considerable assets.

She opts for a stay at the Hotel Croix St. Bernard in Valmeri, France where in a few weeks she intends to master French (the language and cuisine) in addition to absorbing other cultural niceties. She has gathered that this particular hotel is "the choice of diplomats taking a break from Geneva, the occasional adulterous couple, well-off families with young children who like an early, assorted Eurotrash eccentrics bored with the relentless pace found in the larger hotels." She is correct.

Among Amy's fellow guests are a portly Austrian baron whose business is real estate, a rather threadbare but erudite English poet, Robin Crumley, an impossibly attractive television reporter, Emile Abboud, and, for a while, an English brother and sister, Posy and Rupert Venn.

Unfortunately, Amy's idyll is interrupted by an avalanche which takes the life of Adrian Venn, and renders his much younger wife, Kerry, comatose. Kerry's infant son and teenage brother, Kip, are marooned at the hotel. Of course, Amy takes it upon herself to help the hapless and helpless young ones. She befriends Kip and makes arrangements for Adrian to be transported to England.

However, her disposition to be a do-gooder has unexpected results - when Adrian dies on English soil litigation of the most complicated nature ensues. Now, toss in romantic entanglements that have developed among the guests and you have, to put it mildly, some complications.

In the words of Ms. Johnson these complications make delightful, fun reading. The author, a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and three-time finalist for the National Book Award, once again proves her mettle.

"L'Affaire" is a bit of fluff laced with brandy - don't miss it!

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars L'Waste of Time, December 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: L'Affaire (Hardcover)

My reading group wanted something light for our January read so we selected this book based on a newspaper review in which Ms. Johnson is hailed as a Pulitzer Prize contender. I doubt this book is going to win her any literary awards! L'Affaire had unlikeable, boring characters about whom I was completely uninterested. The plot was silly and bordering on the absurd without being even slightly humorous. Don't waste your money or time on this one.