Left Bank

People

Engaging.

USA Today

There's plenty to love in Muir's wickedly funny, spot-on tale.

Entertainment Weekly

A delicious comedy of manners. A sharp debut.

Publishers Weekly

London Times columnist Muir's impressive fiction debut, an atmospheric tour of Paris, follows the contretemps of "the Great Mind and the Great Body of the Left Bank": Olivier Malin, descendant of an old-line French family (Victorieux Touts is the family motto) and author of Chechnya: Beyond Philosophy, is the telegenic intellectual pere de famille with an insatiable appetite for fine cheeses and slender young mistresses, while his wife, Texas-born "sub-pornographic art-house" film star Madison, is too old for nude scenes, but too young to retire. The discomfiture underlying their marriage ignites when their seven-year-old daughter, Sabine, disappears in a theme park. As Olivier and Madison search for Sabine, the family's circle of servants and supporters, knowingly or not, pulls the couple apart. Paul, a museum curator, has an unrequited passion for Madison; Anna, the English nanny, consummates Olivier's passion for her at the Hotel Select; and Madame Canovas, the nosy concierge, keeps the gossip circulating. Muir's book is filled with sensations, insights and barbs ("She was exquisitely polite but rather formal, with the reserved expression of the recently Botoxed") and is enriched by perceptions about culture, politics and the doomed love affair between America and France. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Parisian celebs Olivier -Malin, who sounds a lot like Bernard-Henri Levy, and American actress wife Madison are smugly content until their daughter disappears at a theme park. A big debut for (London) Times columnist Muir. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Times of London columnist Muir (The Insider's Guide to Paris, 1999, etc.), in her U.S. debut, delivers a sharp, quietly feminist novel of manners. To the world at large, 40-something Olivier and Madison Malin, the "Great Mind" and "Great Body," respectively, of the Left Bank, have it all: intellect, beauty, health, riches. But their perfect life together takes a hairpin turn when their seven-year-old daughter disappears on a rare family excursion to PlayWorld Paris. From that moment, the shiny veneer of their bliss reveals itself to be as brittle as the caramelized gloss on a creme brulee. Olivier, a popular French philosopher and philandering gourmand, and Madison (nee Ramswagger), a transplanted Texan model-turned-actress, for years have lived the public fantasy of reifying Sartre and de Beauvoir's open partnership. When Olivier begins to dally with his daughter's British nanny, however, the reality of how this plays out in private can no longer be ignored. Muir's prose abounds with irony as she deftly explores the psychological dimensions of the powerful, self-absorbed parents' relationship with their child. In a typically witty passage, Olivier fears his family will "win the Tolstoy prize for most varied and complicated unhappiness." In another, a cheese purveyor is described with enough gastronomic acumen to set foodies salivating: "Barthelemy prided himself on timing his cheeses to go off, like a gooey bomb, at the exact point of consumption." Sex and the City fans and francophiles alike will devour this feast of identity politics and character development. Deliciously wry.