The Wide World
An epic novel of family fortune, twisted secrets and love - the first volume in THE GLORIOUS YEARS series
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
ONE OF THE TIMES' FAVOURITE NOVELS OF 2023
The first epic novel in THE GLORIOUS YEARS series from the two times winner of the prestigious Prix-Goncourt
'You have the ingredients Balzac would have cooked with. And it is exactly those great 19th century novels that Lemaitre will remind you of' Sunday Times
The Pelletiers are a prominent French family living in Beirut, dominated by Louis, who has built a hugely successful business manufacturing artisanal soaps. Louis has three sons, but none seems to have the aptitude for commerce he desires.
There's Jean, the eldest, a feckless man who is both lazy and weak. When his ambitious wife suggests a move to France, he jumps at the chance for escape - for Jean has a secret that no-one must ever uncover.
Etienne is the youngest son, who travels to Saigon looking for love, and there uncovers financial corruption and violence linked to the very highest officials - evidence that presents a real threat to his own life.
François, the middle Pelletier brother, leaves for Paris and becomes a journalist. When he reports a shocking and brutal murder, he realises he's uncovered the work of a dangerous serial killer, one who may be very close to home.
Absorbing, colourful and rich with no-holds-barred detail, THE WIDE WORLD is a terrific novel of greed, blackmail, and shocking crime.
'Literature with conviction; a furious talent' L'Obs
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lemaitre (Mirror of Our Sorrows) charts in his overlong latest the crimes and scandals of a French family spread across the globe in the years after WWII. It's 1946, and Jean Pelletier, the oldest of three brothers, is an abject failure, trapped in a loveless marriage and running his father's Beirut-based soap-making conglomerate into the ground. After he indiscriminately murders a young woman, he and his wife move to France, where he goes on to kill three more young women. When his brother François, a journalist in Paris, begins publishing a series of articles about one of Jean's victims, a French movie star, in 1948, his secret threatens to come to light. Meanwhile in Saigon, youngest brother Étienne is grieving his lover's untimely death and determined to expose a major currency trafficking scandal. Lemaitre's postwar historical narrative spans various family members across three continents, though he reserves his sharpest words and keenest emotions for Étienne's story ("Here in Indochina... murder is simply part of the grammar," remarks a character sardonically). Unfortunately, the meandering narrative doesn't quite have enough momentum to keep readers hanging on, and significant events are resolved in a less-than-satisfactory manner. This lengthy family saga ultimately fails to deliver on the promise of Lemaitre's interwar novels.
