The Destiny of Nathalie X
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This new collection of eleven stories by the author of The Blue Afternoon takes readers back in time from a contemporary Hollywood film shoot to World War I in Vienna, introducing an unforgettable cast of characters. Artful, witty, moving, The Destiny of Nathalie X is a confirmation of Boyd's standing as a master storyteller. 208 pp. Author tour. 15,000 print.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the long title story of Boyd's accomplished new collection, a young African filmmaker finds himself catapulted by an obscure French prize out of his native village into Hollywood and an unwanted movie deal. In the book's shortest piece-a fictional, two-page obituary-a Vietnamese writer wins fame in Paris, falls into obscurity during the Occupation and dies after being struck by a bicycle. Other stories feature a British student in Marseilles; a latter-day Walter Mitty, misplaced in London, whose real life unfolds in dreams of Brazil; and a German architect who builds diners in 1950s Los Angeles. Like Boyd's popular novels A Good Man in Africa and Brazzaville Beach, all are tales of expatriate life or spiritual exile. In this collection, Boyd's style is polished and elegant, and he has developed a mature point of view that takes the bitterness out of his satire and makes his use of even conventional themes and situations subtly unsettling. His observations, whether of a landscape, an accent or an attitude, are consistently open to surprise and delight. His expats are, like their author, nomad exquisites: through their fresh eyes nothing looks banal, and the world-past or present, Old or New-is an entertaining, unfailingly exotic destination.