THE MARGOT AFFAIR

Margot Louve’s life changes forever when she and her mother, Anouk, a successful stage actress, see her father’s wife outside a cafe in Paris. Suddenly, Margot begins to question the secret life that her father, Bertrand Lapierre, the French Minister of Culture, and her formidable, unconventional mother have built together. Though Margot adores her father, who remains a frequent presence in her life, his identity must remain a secret to the rest of the world. When faced with the reality of his other, public life and family, Margot begins to yearn for her father to leave his wife and takes a reckless step to encourage him to do so. This debut novel by Lemoine, a French Japanese writer who currently lives in New York, explores Margot’s relationships not only with her parents, but also with Brigitte and David, two older, married journalists with whom she develops an ambiguous, sexually fraught relationship. Lemoine excels at teasing out the ambivalent contours of relationships between teenagers and adults. At 17, Margot teeters between childhood and adulthood: Both insightful and immature, she is eager to be treated like a grown-up. Frustrated by adults who treat her like a child, she is drawn to people who seem to take her seriously. But these relationships are not straightforward, and as the book progresses, Margot reevaluates her ideas about Brigitte, David, and her parents. Though the novel is largely concerned with Margot’s interior emotional state, it moves at a satisfyingly quick pace, and Lemoine’s prose is visually and emotionally precise: “If she abandoned me,” Margot thinks of Anouk, “I’d have a concrete reason to blame her, other than this confused feeling of unhappiness.”

Thanks for reading.
Please Share, Comment, Like the post And Follow, Subscribe CTS Store.

fromSource