Leon and Louise
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Summer 1918. The First World War is drawing to a close when Léon Le Gall, a French teenager from Cherbourg who has dropped out of school and left home, falls in love with Louise Janvier. Both are severely wounded by German artillery fire, are separated, and believe each other to be dead. Briefly reunited two decades later, the two lovers are torn apart again by Louise’s refusal to destroy Léon’s marriage and by the German invasion of France. In occupied Paris during the Second World War, where Léon struggles against the abhorrent tasks imposed upon him by the SS, and the wilds of Africa, where Louise confronts the hardships of her primitive environment, they battle the vicissitudes of history and the passage of time for the survival of their love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the summer of 1918, in the French village of Saint-Luc-sur-Marne, during WWI, L on Le Gall is experiencing love for the first time, falling for Louise Janvier when she passes by on her "old gentleman's" bicycle. The two grow close, but they are caught in artillery fire and separated, each presuming the other dead. Ten years later, L on is living in Paris, married to another woman, and raising a four-year-old child. Though he is committed to his new responsibilities, a glimpse of Louise at a train station one day creates a dilemma: to do what he should or to do what he wants? Swiss author Capus (A Matter of Time) is an apt storyteller who captures the complexities of love and the hardships of everyday life with a keen eye. On its surface, this is a story about enduring love. But it is also about the way that power can be abused, particularly in times of war, and the daily sacrifices people make to preserve what they hold most dear.
