Le Mariage

Like Jane Austen Johnson delights in the worldly rituals surrounding courtship and marriage... she is a philosopher as much as a novelist.The New YorkerFrom the author of the acclaimed bestseller and National Book Award finalistLe Divorcea sparkling comedy of manners once again set in the world of Americans in ParisAnne-Sophie is a young Frenchwoman engaged to Tim Nolinger an American journalist hot on the trail of a breaking story: The theft of a valuable illuminated manuscript from a private collection in New York which may now be in the possession of a reclusive film director living on the outskirts of Paris. As Tim Anne-Sophie a pair of American antique dealers and one amorous member of the local gentry converge on the director''s chateau the director''s wifea former actressis accused of desecrating a national monument. Add to that a disappearing American; a hunting contretemps; a wrongful arrest; and murder and you have this sexy stylish delight of a novel that celebrates the paradoxes of marriage and morality as they are perceived on both sides of the Atlantic. Filled with the author''s pithy insights and hilarious asides Le Mariage is Diane Johnson at her very best.