The Balcony
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- 4,49 €
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- 4,49 €
Descrizione dell’editore
WINNER OF THE SUE KAUFMAN PRIZE FOR FIRST FICTION FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS
What if our homes could tell the stories of others who lived there before us?
To those who have ventured past it over the years, this small estate in a village outside Paris has always seemed calm and poised.
But should you open the gates and enter inside, you will find rooms which have become the silent witnesses to a century of human drama: from the young American au pair developing a crush on her brilliant employer to the ex-courtesan shocking the servants, and the Jewish couple in hiding from the Gestapo to the housewife who begins an affair while renovating her downstairs.
The stories of those who have lived within the estate have been many and varied. But as the years unfold, their lives inevitably come to haunt the same spaces and intertwine, creating a rich tapestry of the relationships, life-altering choices, and fleeting moments which have kept the house alive through the last hundred years. . .
'Sweeping, suspenseful, rich with surprises and eerie atmosphere' Jennifer Egan
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Delury's melancholy debut takes place between 1890 and 2009 and revolves around a manor house and servant's cottage in Benneville, a fictional French village. An American au pair takes care of young lodie as Olga, the girl's smothering mother and a concentration camp survivor, packs up the family to move to the United States; only later does the au pair learn of the child's leukemia. During WWII, after Olga had been sent to the camp, a woman looted the manor house to feed her daughter, Charlotte, more than bread and butter. Years later, Charlotte's husband suffers from cancer treatments and can keep down nothing but toast and tea. Another elderly woman's husband has a debilitating stroke that transforms him into an unrecognizable version of himself. Careful readers will note the connective tissue between Olga and Charlotte, but occasionally the author struggles in creating a link. The prose is tight and each stories are told well; this is a satisfying examination of the various and irrevocable ways lives intersect.
