Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

Publisher Marketing: A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itselfParis in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the club s loyal denizens, including the rising Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol, and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine. As the years pass, their fortunes and the world itself evolve. Lou falls desperately in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with startlingly vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting portrait of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis sparked by tumultuous events that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more." Review Citations: Library Journal Prepub Alert 12/01/2013 pg. 69 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 01/15/2014 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Booklist 02/01/2014 pg. 30 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Publishers Weekly 02/17/2014 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) Library Journal 03/01/2014 pg. 85 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 04/20/2014 pg. 1 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 04/27/2014 pg. 30 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) Shelf Awareness 04/29/2014 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) Entertainment Weekly 05/09/2014 pg. 69 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) New Yorker (The) 06/30/2014 pg. 75 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) Kirkus Best Fiction 11/15/2014 pg. 42 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/07/2014 pg. 27 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2015 pg. 11 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) BookPage 05/01/2014 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 05/31/2015 pg. 52 (EAN 9780061713781, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Prose, Francine Francine Prose is the author of twenty works of fiction. Her novel A Changed Man won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director's Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent book is Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. She lives in New York City.