Villa America: A Novel

Klaussmann, Liza

ISBN 10: 161113059X ISBN 13: 9781611130591

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company, 2015

Synopsis

A dazzling novel set in the French Riviera based on the real-life inspirations for F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is The Night.

When Sara Wiborg and Gerald Murphy met and married, they set forth to create a beautiful world together-one that they couldn't find within the confines of society life in New York City. They packed up their children and moved to the South of France, where they immediately fell in with a group of expats, including Hemingway, Picasso, and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald.

On the coast of Antibes they built Villa America, a fragrant paradise where they invented summer on the Riviera for a group of bohemian artists and writers who became deeply entwined in each other's affairs. There, in their oasis by the sea, the Murphys regaled their guests and their children with flamboyant beach parties, fiery debates over the newest ideas, and dinners beneath the stars.

It was, for a while, a charmed life, but these were people who kept secrets, and who beneath the sparkling veneer were heartbreakingly human. When a tragic accident brings Owen, a young American aviator who fought in the Great War, to the south of France, he finds himself drawn into this flamboyant circle, and the Murphys find their world irrevocably, unexpectedly transformed.

A handsome, private man, Owen intrigues and unsettles the Murphys, testing the strength of their union and encouraging a hidden side of Gerald to emerge. Suddenly a life in which everything has been considered and exquisitely planned becomes volatile, its safeties breached, the stakes incalculably high. Nothing will remain as it once was.

Liza Klaussman expertly evokes the 1920s cultural scene of the so-called "Lost Generation." Ravishing and affecting, and written with infinite tenderness, VILLA AMERICA is at once the poignant story of a marriage and of a golden age that could not last.

About this title

About the Author

Liza Klaussmann is the author of Tigers in Red Weather, an international bestseller for which she won a British National Book Award, the Elle Grand Prix for Fiction and was named Amazon UK's Rising Star of the Year in 2012. A former journalist, Klaussmann was born Brooklyn, New York and spent ten years living in Paris. She currently lives in North London. VILLA AMERICA is her second novel.

Review

"Klaussmann is a nimble, clever writer who has managed to deliver a weighty story about art, love and the terrible fragility of dreams." —The Globe and Mail

"A luscious, jazz-era read about the real-life, art-commune couple who were the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic Tender Is the Night." ―Toronto Star

"Another sensitive fictional portrait of a complicated marriage from the author of Tigers in Red Weather. . . . Beautifully written and surprisingly fresh."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"[Klaussmann] entwines her fact and fiction with a smooth, near seamless stitch, and the end result makes for exhilarating and moving reading."
―The Observer (UK)

"Brilliant . . . In [Klaussmann's] skilful hands what could have been a clichéd love triangle becomes something much more complex, subtle and moving. . . . How vividly and freshly she renders even the most familiar stories, especially when it comes to the Fitzgeralds. . . . Her Scott and Zelda feel like real people, not jazz age caricatures. . . . A deeply moving portrait of a marriage and of a world." ―Irish Times (Ireland)

"An enticing world, with its jazz-age parties, avant-garde bathing costumes and sexual freedom. . . . Klaussmann's compelling book does justice to this material."
―The Guardian (UK)

"Villa America ranks as one of the summer's loveliest reads." —New York Daily News

"[An] empathetic, beautifully written novel." —The Washington Post

"As a direct descendant of Herman Melville, Liza Klaussmann has classic American literature in her blood. . . . Klaussmann's jazz age repartee is as fizzy as the cocktails and the Murphys' tragic denouement is affecting."
—The Independent (UK)
From the Hardcover edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 161113059X
• ISBN 13: 9781611130591
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English