A Woman of Singular Occupation

Gilliatt, Penelope

ISBN 10: 0684190729 / ISBN 13: 9780684190723

Published by Scribner, 1988

About this Item

Pages are clean and binding is tight.

Seller Inventory # 17192

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Woman of Singular Occupation
• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684190729
• ISBN 13: 9780684190723
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Mildly Edgeworn
• Dust Jacket Condition: Mildly edgeworn dust jacket
• Seller catalogs:
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About this title

Synopsis

Fleeing France and her diplomat husband to escape the Nazis, Catherine de Rochefauld travels to Turkey where she hopes to resume her mission, but her attraction to American banker Thomas Drake may end in disaster

Reviews

The ingredients of this elegantly mannered adventure set in Istanbul at the outbreak of WW II could hardly be more satisfyingly romantic, but the novel's weaknesses of plot, dialogue and characterization prevent it from cohering into a satisfying whole. Catherine de Rochefauld, wife of the French ambassador to Turkey, is not only stunningly beautiful but a brilliant composer in addition. Estranged from her husband by reason of politics--he supports Marshall Henri Petain, ruler of Vichy France--she sets up residence on the shores of the Bosphorus in a lovely old house that provides a perfect setting for her love affair with young American banker Thomas Drake. As headlong in love as Drake finds himself, he is increasingly disturbed by Catherine's mysterious preoccupaton with concealed activities that seem to place her in danger. Catherine makes an admirable heroine, but the story line loses its way, at times becoming downright implausible. New Yorker writer Gilliatt's dialogue strains at cultivated wit and sometimes sounds artificial. Not given well-rounded characterizations, the protagonists do not linger long in the imagination.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

English Catherine de Rochefauld and her French diplomat husband Jean-Pierre lead separate lives, and in 1939 politics separates them further. So when they leave France for neutral Turkey, he, a supporter of the Vichy government, goes to the embassy in Ankara, while she, a sympathizer of de Gaulle, settles in her house in Istanbul. There she composes music, has an affair with an American banker, and radios financial transactions in musical code to help support the French resistance. In her brisk, economical prose Gilliatt ( Sunday Bloody Sunday, Mortal Matters) adds a little political intrigue and diplomacy to a lot of arch dialogue between lovers. But lacking depth in characters and their relationships, the result is a skimming of surfaces that is as ultimately unsatisfying as it is deft.
- Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.