Elegance

USA Today

Through vivid descriptions, lively mishaps and devastating details, Tessaro serves up a witty, original, fast-moving debut. Louise's story lightheartedly reveals the frailties and the possibilities in all of us. She takes a clever, sometimes funny, sometimes mortifying look at familial relationships, the bonds of friendship, sexuality and self-identity. — Kelly DiNardo

Publishers Weekly

A frumpy, depressed woman is reborn as an assertive diva in Tessaro's debut novel, thanks to a 40-year-old style manual she discovers in a second-hand bookstore. Louise Canova is an American woman from Pittsburgh who lives in London with her chilly actor husband. Louise once dabbled in acting herself, but now works at a theater box office. She's overweight, badly dressed, has purely platonic relations with her husband and is surrounded by more-glamorous-than-thou types-her friend Nicki, a former model; her mother-in-law, a former model and a socialite-who condescend to her. Everything changes, however, when Louise discovers Elegance, a fashion guide from 1964 written by Genevieve Dariaux, a legendary (and fictional) Coco Chanel-like arbiter of taste. Quoting liberally from the guidebook, Tessaro writes a lighthearted contemporary version of Pygmalion. In this case, Louise is her own Professor Higgins, and using Dariaux's amusingly anachronistic (is anyone wearing veils these days?) yet timeless advice ("being beautiful is no guarantee of happiness in this world"), she changes her appearance, her self-image and her entire life. The author introduces each chapter with a relevant excerpt from the manual. This structure sometimes seems a bit forced, especially when Louise's husband turns out to be gay (there is no worthwhile advice from Madam Dariaux on that situation), but on the whole the book is a lively, irresistible read. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Louise Canova has never realized how classy and fashionable she isn't until she wanders into a secondhand London bookstore and accidentally discovers a remarkable volume about how to be elegant. Empowered by the advice of Madame Genevieve Antoine Dariaux, a sophisticated French expert on grace and style, Louise does exactly what the book says to do. Ironically, in her imitation of elegance, she somehow manages to find her true self. Fans of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary will love this unique Pygmalion tale, an impressive debut novel. Each chapter begins with a quote from Madame Dariaux's manual. The contrast between Louise's earthy, Pittsburgh vocabulary and the cool, aloof text on elegance is almost as startling as that between the depressed, insecure Louise at the beginning of the book and the confident Louise at the end. Published in 1964, Elegance is an actual handbook written by the real Madame Dariaux, now a chic and sophisticated 88-year-old. Tessaro, an expatriate American, lives in London. Recommended for fiction collections of all sizes. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/03.]-Shelley Mosley, Glendale P.L., AZ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Dowdy wife gets dolled up. Louise Canova is dimly aware that her marriage has grown cold--her husband Colin, a successful but dull actor, calls her Pumpkin, or, less kindly, Ouise (pronounced "Wheeze"). He doesn’t even care when his mother-in-law, a still-glamorous former model, is icily condescending toward his unhappy wife. Oh, what can this little brown wren do? (She has no idea.) Then, dawdling in a secondhand bookstore in London, Louise comes across a slim, jasmine-scented volume from 1964, penned by the ineffably soignée directress of a French couture house, and she experiences an epiphany. In A to Z format, the very grand and deeply conservative Madame Genevieve Antoine Dariaux offers advice on all aspects of dress and fashion, which Louise takes quite seriously. Fur-trimmed suits with gloves for afternoon? Six-acre peignoirs for those intimate evenings? Maybe her husband, if only she could afford such sartorial splendor, would notice her. But Colin seems, well, embarrassed that she would even want to change. And he knows perfectly well there’s nothing at all wrong with their relationship. On the other hand, if Louise wants to see a marriage counselor by herself, he sees nothing wrong with that. Now, if she would just listen to his remarkable plan for organizing the kitchen garbage: big bits of rubbish in the big bin, small bits in the small bin . . . . Louise’s thoughts are understandably elsewhere as she remembers ill-fated shopping excursions with her mother in Pittsburgh. Her mother was a little brown wren, too, a scientist who cut her own hair and wore frumpy clothes (never mind her intellect or education: this trite tale never questions why appearance is so important--it justis). Perhaps, muses Louise, that’s why she never thought about taking care of herself, remaining now unlovely and unloved. It’s all very sad--until other men begin to notice her. Oh, dear: Should she let Oliver take her out for a drink? Should she spurn the attention of the much younger Eddie? Familiar fare, and stale indeed. Agent: Johnny Geller/Curtis Brown