The Chateau

(Paperback)

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Description

Maxwell is the unsung hero of American literature. This is about the charms and disenchantments of travel. It is 1948 and a young American couple arrive in France for a holiday, full of anticipation and enthusiasm. But the countryside and people are war-battered, and their reception at the Chateau Beaumesnil is not all the open-hearted Americans could wish for.

Reviews

Not just a book of the year but now one of my desert island books. -- Adrian Turpin * Herald Scotland *
Delicious and dead-on... All the embarrassments and gratifications of European travel are preserved in the amber of Maxwell's much pondered, seemingly casual prose. * New Yorker *
As the voices of Austen, Turgenev and Tolstoy have survived, so will Maxwell's. There aren't many truly great writers among us. William Maxwell is one of them * The Times *
It's hard not to see it as a work of genius * Times Literary Supplement *
His gentle urbanity is a joy * Sunday Telegraph *
He combines educated intelligent and instinctive apprehension of human complexity in a way that would have earned Henry James' approval. William Maxwell is the very model of what a novelist should be * Independent on Sunday *
Reading 'The Chateau' is like meeting a very old friend with whom the conversation is always spontaneous, intimate, restorative and unpredictable... Maxwell is that rare thing, a kind writer... But what has made him so influential is his habit of interspersing his subtle accounts of character with sharp observations about human nature. * Independent *
The novel successfully depicts misunderstandings, isolation and disappointment: are they sensitive to local traditions Are they laughing at the right jokes Are they tipping too much * Guardian *
Perennially endearing * Spectator *
Maxwell's achievement is to show how human relationships work in spite of the confines of history, language and nationality * Daily Telegraph *

Author Bio

William Maxwell was born in Illinois in 1908. He was the author of a distinguished body of work- six novels, three short story collections, an autobiographical memoir and a collection of literary essays and reviews. A New Yorker editor for forty years, he helped to shape the prose and careers of John Updike, John Cheever, John O'Hara and Eudora Welty. So Long, See You Tomorrow won the American Book Award, and he received the PEN/Malamud Award. He died in New York in 2000.