L'Affaire

I have read her other two books, Le Divorce and Le Marriage and must say that out of the three this is the most depressing read I've had in quite some time. It's so tiresome to read that Europeans are so anti-American (I now don't think it would be worth my while to even visit France, Switzerland or now even England thanks to what I've read). And the heirs (with the exception of the baby of course) have nothing likable about them. In addition, she keeps bringing Antoine de Persand back for each book and in each story he turns out to be an even bigger jerk than in the last...I couldn't even get behind the main character of Amy, who's so worried about fitting in that she forgets to be herself and not care what these other infinitely flawed people think of her or anyone else in the book for that matter. The story also lacks clear direction.

The series of "L" books L'Divorse, L' Marraige, are delightful but not frivilous accounts of men and women from various backgrounds, cultures and countries coming together in high and low levels of "French Farce." I love them for the pure escape and entertainment. But, don't misread this to mean they are "fluff". These books are well written filled with literary,artistic and historical references. The characters are outragious and funny and sensitive. I love Johnson's fairness in her love hate relationship with all things American and Frence. These are a wonderful curl-up read.

It sounded like fun, but after awhile I couldn't tell what the point of this book is. The story gets unnecessarily complicated, the ugly American jokes get tiresome (though personal experience in Europe proves they have a ring of truth), and you start wondering who she'll have gratuitous sex with next. And you basically don't care. Author should have had a story board and stuck with it.

I fell in love with Diane Johnson when I saw the movie ' The Divorce' and realized it was based on her book Le Divorce. ever since then I've been reading her writing. this one is another good read from Diane in the same fashion as Le Marriage and Le Divorce. a girl, love, tough choices, and France. While Le Marriage and Le Divorce are better reads this one is still a good fun book for your vacation.

The insights into the cultural differences between the English, French & American characters are the strongest feature of the book.Amy, the American, is Puritanical, and do-goody. Great comment when her French friend, Geraldine, concludes that Amy thinks she is Joan of Arc. However, in the end, Amy has an epiphany, and realizes that she doesn't need to "rescue" every single one of her acquaintances and friends with her new-found wealth.However, Geraldine's fondness for her promiscuous Arab son-in-law, Emile, seems unlikely; no matter how promising his future. Plus, he doesn't seem special enough to be the love of Amy's life, or for her to even imagine that he is. She moves all the way to Paris just to settle for an America-hating Arab, whom she could easily have met anywhere in the US.Does Ms. Johnson believe that Emile is truly French? After all, culture runs a lot deeper than just holding national documents. Amy is really more French than Emile, because she has European blood.The plot has a few twists; at one point, Amy seems destined to lose her great fortune in a possible lawsuit over her funding the moving of a dying man from a French hospital to an English one. At another point, she could have lost everything in a lawsuit over supposedly causing an avalanche. She demonstrates sound decision-making ability in these crises, which just blow over, as they so often do in real life.However, since the threatened disasters just blow over, the dramatic tension is weakened.Historical perspective is incomplete or deliberately avoided:[Amy, in response to Emile criticizing US culture says] "We saved you twice!""There is the fault," smiled Emile. "That is what we cannot forgive."Amy is unaware that the anti-American feeling that many American travelers sense among Europeans is due the vicious bombing campaigns which the US launched against northern France and Germany during WW2. Is Ms. Johnson aware of this fact?But Emile's anti-American feeling is likely rooted in our similar vicious bombing campaigns and wars in the Mideast.Also, Amy's perception of France as a nation of great culture may be largely due to US post-WW2 propaganda. The US public was so horrified at the destruction of so many European cities as a result of the hugely unpopular war that the US government pushed this idea of the France as being the very epitome of world culture to try to justify our involvement in the unnecessary war.Amy has two adulterous affairs in this novel. In the first affair, she cruelly flaunts her intentions in the wife's face. In the second, with Emile, she doesn't feel any compunction about the fact that Geraldine and her family have been very kind to her. In contrast to her talk about "mutual aid," she is quite psychologically violent towards other women.Amy is the quintessence of the attitude of the US towards foreign nations: ignorant, tactless, interfering, reckless, inconsiderate, cruel, violent. But the ending is confusing: she makes one realization that may improve her relationship with other people; that is, that she needs to be less meddlesome; but she also resolves to continue seeing Emile.

In Palo, Alto, California, Amy Hawkins made a fortune in the dot-com boom. Feeling she owes for her fortunate life, Amy decides to improve herself before doing good deed. She heads to the Alps ski resort Hotel Croix St. Bernard in Valmeri, France where she plans to learn everything French in two weeks.The good deed surfaces when she pays for the return of dying publisher Adrian Venn, injured in an avalanche to England. Venn's family gathers to carve up the estate with each expecting to trump the other. Amy finds herself in a loony bin as Venn's two adult children and his illegitimate French daughter expect to eliminate their father's young comatose (from the accident) American wife and their infant step-brother from the estate competition before the final battle royal between themselves. Even the solicitors from France and England are skirmishing over who does what to whom arguing which country takes precedence. Finally there are also the outside straphangers ready to take a slice. With all that and bed hopping, romance, and affairs while everyone disparages those damn Yankees Amy Hawkins has learned a valuable lesson that no good deed goes unpunished.The key to this humorous coffin romp is the ensemble cast mourning their loss or celebrating their gain seem genuine as Diane Johnson provides a deep look at values. The story line is a comedy of errors with everyone misinterpreting the actions and motivations of everyone else because they constantly impose their values on how others will behave. Fans will appreciate this intelligent amusing but dark avarice bedroom manners Rape of the Lock.Harriet Klausner

A novel which gives itself some distinctive airs, L'Affaire concerns Amy, who is a dotcom millionaire. Like many a rich American she decides to spend a few weeks skiing in the French Alps while an apartment is furnished for her in Paris. It is not that I doubt that there are people who prefer not to choose their own furnishings and don't trust their own taste - indeed it's quite endearing that she readily admits her flaws in that regard, but she rather blunders in when it comes to any matter of choice. Being young, single, rich and naïve, leads Amy into some awkward relationships. Not that you get many interesting details. It's fairly frothy, even given that it deals with a death caused by avalanche and the legal ramifications for a group of unlikeable English people, with an estranged French daughter turning up. Then Amy is embroiled in the avalanche's aftermath when she offers to help. I wasn't impressed by the characterisation (Americans are chiefly good; English people are not so good and and have poor hygiene; the French are sly and rude unless they are making money out of you). What it must be to live in such a polarised world. Although it promised an affair in the title Amy didn't have one. An affair is not the same thing as a couple of one-night stands.

The reviewer who considered this 'a waste of a prodigious talent' does seem out of sorts. I wholly agree that Johnson's is a prodigious talent, and I heartily wish she were better known. I see nothing at all wrong with the slightly lighter approach in this novel: there's nothing that says novelists have to be serrious all the time, as if Johnson's two previous French/American novels were exactly that. This is not chick-lit, but a tongue-in-cheek, perfectly observed comedy of errors. To call her characters 'stereotypes' does little justice to the rounded and detailed nature of many of them. Amy, the central American character, is far from stereotypical, and possesses many delightful unusual thougts and feelings. It is, after all, Johnson's great skill in these three books that she develops the contrasts between the Americans and the French so well, and a certain amount of national characterization has to be present in order to achieve that. If her Americans seemed like anything but Americans, or her French anything but French, it would undermine her grand project of saying witty and often wise things about both nationalities. In the present case, her perception of English mores and habits is acute and well observed. Her prose style is somewhat freer here than in, say, Le Divorce (which is not to say there was anything wrong with the sheer elegance of diction in the latter), and that may, perhaps, suggest greater lightness than is really there. The plot lines, the interweaving of characters, even the introduction of characters from previous novels are all, as ever, clever and adroitly handled. If you enjoyed either Le Divorce or L'Affaire, you will love this, yet another tour de force from a writer who has rapidly become one of my own favourites. A novelist myself, I wish I could write half as well as she does. She's a treasure in a world of badly-written, tawdry, intellectually deficient pot-boilers. I remain impatient for the next.

Loved this book - wonderful play between the French and the Americans within a beautifully plotted novel