The Devil's Reward
A Novel
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Three generations of women untangle a complex family history that spans both world wars and reveals unexpected insights about marriage and fidelity.
Christiane, eighty-six years old with a vibrant sense of humor, lives alone in a large apartment in the heart of Paris. Her daughter, Catherine, could not be more different; sullen and uptight, she resents her unfaithful Milanese husband. After discovering yet another affair, Catherine takes refuge in Paris at her mother’s home, accompanied by her own daughter, Luna. Christiane, who in spite of occasional dalliances lived a beautiful love story with her late husband, uses all of her freethinking charm to try to wean Catherine of her rigid self-pity.
While listening to her mother and grandmother, Luna becomes increasingly curious about Christiane’s aristocratic Catholic background, prompting Christiane to tell the story of her father’s war experiences and the devastating love affair that brought chaos to the whole family. As memories resurface, the present takes on a different dimension.
With a keen, lighthearted wit, The Devil’s Reward shows that life may be complicated and often painful, but if conventional morals prevail, it becomes unbearable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
De Villepin's flawed English-language debut begins when 86-year-old Christiane, widowed and living alone in Paris, receives a distraught call from her daughter, Catherine, in Milan. Catherine confesses to her mother that her husband is having yet another affair. Christiane, slightly amused at her daughter's histrionics, invites Catherine and her daughter Luna to come to Paris, delighted at the prospect of their company in her lonely house. When Luna reveals that she is writing a thesis on Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, Christiane claims to know all about him. Though Catherine expresses skepticism about the veracity of her mother's memories, the older woman launches in and out of a lively, possibly unreliable, story of her father, Papyrus, his brothers, her elegant Aunt Bette, and their involvement with Steiner over the course of the two world wars. There is much discussion of Steiner's idiosyncratic philosophies, but the strength and charm of this author's story of bonding and healing among three generations of women reveling in their shared history is obscured by an overwrought translation: "my mother held a handkerchief over her face to prevent any grains of dust from fouling her mouth, which was about to receive the body of Christ. Since we were still laughing, she complained and ordered us to close our mouths with the aim of a similar Christian hygiene." Though the premise is intriguing, the prose keeps readers at arm's length.
