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 the
Hardcover
edition.
From AudioFile
Blair Brown's voice--a balance of earnest and amused--is just right for this tasty trifle. American innocent Amy Hawkins, having made millions in Silicon Valley, has gone abroad to acquire language and culture. During her stay at a Swiss ski resort, an avalanche leaves a wealthy Englishman and his young American wife hovering near death at a local hospital. The man's potential beneficiaries gather. When Hawkins leaps in to help the family, lust, greed, pride, and prejudice wreak havoc. Displaying an impressive array of accents, Brown moves smoothly among an enjoyably flawed cast of characters. It's all a bit Jane Austen with a Gallic flair! E.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--This text refers to the
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