Le Divorce

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST "If one were to cross Jane Austen and Henry James, the result would be Diane Johnson."— San Francisco Chronicle The national bestseller and inspiration for the major motion picture starring Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson! Called "stylish... refreshing... genuinely wise” by The New York Times Book Review, this delightful comedy of manners and morals, money, marriage, and murder follows smart, sexy, and impeccably dressed American Isabel Walker as she lands in Paris to visit her stepsister Roxy, a poet whose marriage to an aristocratic French painter has assured her a coveted place in Parisian society—until her husband leaves her for the wife of an American lawyer. Could "le divorce" be far behind? Can irrepressible Isabel keep her perspective (and her love life) intact as cultures and human passions collide? "Social comedy at its best" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ), Le Divorce is Diane Johnson at her most scintillating and sublime. In Le Divorce, Diane Johnson delightfully recounts the adventures of two sisters from California who make a modern pilgrimage to the City of Light. Pregnant and abandoned by her French husband, Roxeanne Walker de Persand turns to her younger sister, Isabel, for support, while the powerful Persand family exerts subtle but firm control over her decision whether or not to divorce. Complicating matters is the disposition of a family heirloom, a painting in Roxy's possession that is suddenly discovered to be worth millions. In the midst of a variety of schemes, the stakes are suddenly raised by a crime of passion, disrupting everyone's motives and plans. Not since Edith Wharton penned her brilliant portraits of Americans abroad has an American novelist so perfectly captured the possibilities and perils of succumbing to the allure of Paris "Follows this smart, sexy American abroad as she arrives in Paris to visit her stepsister Roxy, a poet whose marriage into an aristocratic French family has assured her of a coveted place in Parisian society. But all is not as it should be in the Persand household; Roxy's husband has just left her for the Czechoslovakian wife of an American lawyer."--Jacket