In the late 1950s
Stanford Powers, a procurement official for many of the United States'
international aid efforts, is based in the US embassy in Paris. Now in his
sixties, he enjoys the cultured life of the French capital, fraternizing with
people of all nations who collect in that melting pot.
Recommended to him by
his English son-in-law, Prytania Scott Obee is a young mixed-race woman from
New Orleans who arrives hoping for a job. Stanford is fascinated by her - she
seems quite unaccountably mesmerizing, beyond her undoubted beauty. Quickly it
is obvious that not only Stanford is intrigued by Prytania. One of his friends,
the endlessly subtle, contrary and sage-like Madame de Verbois, has a very
young English nephew who is clearly smitten, and a hesitant relationship
begins.
Stanford and his wife
frequent the theatre scene, and are friends particularly with a group of mime
artists. Jean-Claude Bastien, the protege of the mercurial master-mime Yves
Adam, is the up-and-coming powerhouse of the medium, and all but the hard to
please Yves are entranced by his phenomenal talent. Prytania also becomes
captivated, and her interest is returned. Jean-Claude and his Spanish wife
Elena have an open marriage, so another affair succeeds the first.
But soon Prytania's small
turbulence begins to engender more noticeable effects. Her first beau finds it
hard to take no for an answer, struggling to control his resigned anger; a
troubled artist, who has secretly adored her, kills himself - and then Elena
discloses that she is pregnant. Will Jean-Claude be able, or indeed feel the
need, to choose between Prytania and Elena? And what of Stanford himself? Is he
more entangled than his unperturbed worldliness would indicate? In the end, passions
are inflamed, everyone must learn a lesson or two, and some are altered permanently.
In her highly subtle second
novel, first published in 1965, Janet Burroway explores the privileged domain
of the sophisticated and cosmopolitan individuals whose modes announced the
coming era of 60s freedom and openness. With complexity and finesse she portrays
this cats' cradle of varying intents and egos with enormous skill, uniquely powered
by an arrow-sharp, apposite sourness.
