The Girl at the Lion d’Or

Product Description

“Beautifully written and–extraordinarily moving.”–
The Sunday Times (London)

From the author of the international bestseller
Birdsong, comes a haunting historical novel of passion, loss, and courage set in France between the two world wars. This Vintage Original edition marks its first appearance in the United States.

On a rainy night in the 1930s, Anne Louvet appears at the run-down Hotel du Lion d’Or in the village of Janvilliers.  She is seeking a job and a new life, one far removed from the awful injustices of her past. As Anne embarks on a torrential love affair with a married veteran of the Great War,
The Girl at the Lion d’Or fashions an unbreakable spell of narrative and atmosphere that evokes French masters from Flaubert to Renoir.      

“This moving and profound novel is perfectly constructed, and admirable in its configurations of place and period.”–
The Times (London)

“I would urge those who appreciated–
The French Lieutenant’s Woman to try this one–. They may well think it superior.”–
Sunday Telegraph (London)

Amazon.com Review

At the outset of Sebastian Faulks’s
The Girl at the Lion d’Or, lovely, abandoned Anne Louvet seems almost willing to retreat into the anonymous routines of her waitressing duties–until she meets Charles Hartmann. He, trapped in a loveless marriage and feeling increasingly adrift more than a decade after serving in the Great War, is as enchanted by Anne’s vulnerability as she is by his tender, almost paternal attentions. Their affair, and the cruel paradox of seeking a clandestine sufficiency, allow Faulks to pit the demands of desire against the necessities of duty, a task he pursues with tireless charm.
When Anne first arrives at the Hotel du Lion d’Or in the French town of Janvilliers, it is with the dual hope of escaping an unhappy past and discovering some degree of happiness. Undeniably beautiful and just bold enough to prod her own fate, she sees in the wealthy and restless Hartmann a soul that might redeem her own. “How was it possible, she wondered, to be awed by someone and yet to feel protective towards him too?” For his part, Hartmann senses in her the woman who, finally, might satisfy his need to offer refuge.
The secret of Anne’s past, which she fears will drive Hartmann from her, conspires along with his gnawing uncertainty about her ultimate contentment to place their romance at a crossroads. Faulks, with deft restraint, never allows matters to lapse into the maudlin. Assessing the apparent inappropriateness of his love for Anne, Hartmann reflects that “there was something wrong … in a society that could think of such generous feelings as unacceptable.” Faulks’s own generosity illuminates each page. –Ben Guterson

From Publishers Weekly

Reading Faulks’s second novel (written before Fool’s Alphabet, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray), one sees that his preoccupations and choice of genre have been clear from the beginning. Published in the U. K. in 1989, this is another postmodern historical romance, telling the story of a short-lived but intense love affair set in a France decimated by WWI. When Anne Louvet arrives in the village of Janvilliers on a rainy night in the 1930s, she hopes to leave behind a secret history of family disgrace. Her parents are long gone, their deaths shrouded in mystery, and the guardian with whom she lived in Paris has disappeared. In an attempt to make a new life for herself, she works as a waitress at the local hotel, soon finding escape from the watchful eye of manageress Madame Bouin in the arms of Charles Hartmann, a wealthy married veteran, lawyer and landowner. The ill-starred lovers’ affair mirrors the general turmoil of the nation. Hartmann is emotionally scarred by his brief service in the Great War. His efforts to rebuild his manor house are stymied by discontented workmen and greedy entrepreneurs, and a politician he tries to help falls victim to scandal. Finally, his betrayal of Anne coincides with