Tante Brutus

Chris Stewart best-selling author of 'Driving over Lemons ' an exquisitely crafted novella -The main protagonist comes on stage immediately in the opening lines... Ana Anderssen Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck University of London.The tug-of-war continues in France at Champigny-sur-Veude a village in Indre-et-Loire some fifty kilometres from Tours the setting for the dramatic arrival of chain-smoking Ana Gilles' guest at the family chateau in order to do research on Chaïm Soutine who was givenrefuge in the area during WW2. For lovers of France this rural setting in the 1960s is a dream with a Citroen DS Camel cigarettes ashtrays with the Ricard motif.Alan Halliday is a brilliant raconteur who skilfully interweaves fact and fiction in a veryProustian manner espionage sexual encounters art history treachery malice Guy Burgess Anthony Blunt Lolly Trinity College Cambridge and the world of art dealers. Dialogue is forever witty sarcastic and authentic indeed hilarious with never a dull moment.This is a book within a book. Like Marcel Proust the Narrator is engaged in writing the bookthat he decides to publish at the end 'a novella called Tante Brutus' under the new name ofAlan Halliday!Cynthia GambleCover art Alan Halliday drawing of a woman in ink and gouache 1972