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The Suitors: A Novel
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Published:
Other Press 2013
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Description
A comedy of manners that serves as an insightful look at the lives of those in the upper classes.
 
After two sisters, Laure and Marie, learn of their parents’ plan to sell the family’s summer retreat, L’Agapanthe, they devise a scheme for attracting a wealthy suitor who can afford to purchase the estate. Selling it would mean more than just losing a place to go during the summer—for the sisters, it’s become a necessary part of their character, their lifestyle, and their past.
 
L’Agapanthe, a place of charm and nostalgia, is the perfect venue to exercise proper etiquette and intellect, though not all its visitors are socially savvy, especially when it’s a matter of understanding the relationships between old money and the nouveau riche. The comedy of manners begins: with stock traders, yogis, fashion designers, models, swindlers, the Mafia, and a number of celebrity guests.
 
Laure—the witty, disarming, and poignant narrator—guides the reader through elegant dinners, midnight swims in the bay, and conversations about current events, literature, art, and cinema. The Suitors is an amusing insider’s look at the codes, manners, and morals of French high society.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
02/26/2013
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781590515747
ASIN:
B008C9M40K
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Cécile David-Weill. (2013). The Suitors: A Novel. Other Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Cécile David-Weill. 2013. The Suitors: A Novel. Other Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Cécile David-Weill, The Suitors: A Novel. Other Press, 2013.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Cécile David-Weill. The Suitors: A Novel. Other Press, 2013.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Updated:
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        Linda Coverdale has translated more than sixty books. A Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, she won the 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the 2006 Scott Moncrieff Prize, and the 1997 and 2008 French-American Foundation Translation Prize. She was a finalist for the 2008 French-American Foundation Translation Prize for Life Laid Bare (Other Press, 2007).
      • name: Cécile David-Weill
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title
The Suitors
fullDescription
A comedy of manners that serves as an insightful look at the lives of those in the upper classes.
 
After two sisters, Laure and Marie, learn of their parents’ plan to sell the family’s summer retreat, L’Agapanthe, they devise a scheme for attracting a wealthy suitor who can afford to purchase the estate. Selling it would mean more than just losing a place to go during the summer—for the sisters, it’s become a necessary part of their character, their lifestyle, and their past.
 
L’Agapanthe, a place of charm and nostalgia, is the perfect venue to exercise proper etiquette and intellect, though not all its visitors are socially savvy, especially when it’s a matter of understanding the relationships between old money and the nouveau riche. The comedy of manners begins: with stock traders, yogis, fashion designers, models, swindlers, the Mafia, and a number of celebrity guests.
 
Laure—the witty, disarming, and poignant narrator—guides the reader through elegant dinners, midnight swims in the bay, and conversations about current events, literature, art, and cinema. The Suitors is an amusing insider’s look at the codes, manners, and morals of French high society.
reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and TV
      • content: "A charming peek behind the curtain of French high society as only the ultimate insider can. Cécile David-Weill's novel is a delicious romp and I loved reading it!"
      • premium: False
      • source: Andrew Solomon, New York Times Book Review
      • content: "I loved Cécile David-Weill's 'Suitors,' a charming comedy of manners set at a country estate in the South of France, apparently one of the few places in the world where anyone still has enough manners to make a comedy about."
      • premium: False
      • source: Tatiana de Rosnay, author of The House I Loved, A Secret Kept, and Sarah's Key
      • content: "Cécile David-Weill's delightful novel of manners is a witty mix of wisdom and tongue-in-cheek humor touched with a decadent zest of Frenchiness. Irrésistible!"
      • premium: False
      • source: Oprah.com
      • content: "If you've ever wondered what Downton Abbey would be like if it were set in the South of France during our current century, then pick up this smart novel de charme immediately...The intimate, fascinating detail with which Cécile David-Weill describes this society--complete with seating charts and chauffer pick-up schedules--is what elevates this book from a mere romp through old-money families of France into an intelligent, engaging study of a society that seems as if it should be extinct by now."
      • premium: False
      • source: Wall Street Journal
      • content: "The Suitors sets out to be a farce and a frolic, but throughout there is an undertone of nostalgia and wistfulness for a disappearing way of life."
      • premium: False
      • source: Library Journal
      • content: "Deceptively charming and delightful, this novel by the French American David-Weill (Crush) portrays class issues and changing mores with the kind of intelligent taste that would make the Ettinguers proud."
      • premium: False
      • source: Ivana Lowell, author of Why Not Say What Happened?
      • content: "An entertaining and beautifully observed glimpse into the rarefied lives of the French one percent. Imagine Downton Abbey transported to a chic house in modern day south of France."
      • premium: False
      • source: Patricia Volk, author of Stuffed and Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me.
      • content: "A deliciously intimate look at the hijinks of the tres, tres rich on the Cote d'Azur. I laughed on every page, but don't be fooled. The Suitors is above all a meditation on the inevitability of change."
      • premium: False
      • source: The Daily Beast
      • content: "Laure is disarming and witty, and serves as a charming guide who takes us inside the world of the very rich--and the no longer so."
      • premium: False
      • source: Publishers Weekly
      • content: "[A] delightful rendering of L'Agapanthe, an old French family's summer estate on Cap d'Antibes dedicated to the art of gracious living...David-Weill draws readers in as graciously as any good hostess, but because of her personal background--she comes from an old-monied French family who vacation on Cap d'Antibes--readers may wonder if this is a roman à clef and will likely try to play a who's who guessing game."
      • premium: False
      • source: Linus's Blanket
      • content: "It's filled with the all the comforts (and the ridiculousness) of traditions and habits old and new. Sumptuous descriptions of the estate and their elaborate meals make for a charming read in more ways than one."
      • premium: False
      • source: Mary's Library
      • content: "The design of Suitors is delightful, with menus, schedules of arrivals of guests, seating arrangements, and other special pages that make is a lovely thing to hold in your hand."
      • premium: False
      • source: Christophe Ono-dit-Biot, Le Point
      • content: "The idea of this 'behind closed doors' among the ultra-rich is excellent and merciless in its charms...we can imagine seeing the film, and the realization is brilliant: it's Vanity Fair meets Rules of the Game. You laugh a lot, you try to guess who is who, and you learn useful things."
      • premium: False
      • source: Minneapolis Star Tribune
      • content: "Like a French Nancy Mitford, Cecil David-Weill (daughter of a former chairman of Lazard Freres) is at her most interesting when she's parsing the manners of the super-rich, explaining why offering a Jet Ski as a hostess gift is simply never done."
      • premium: False
      • source: Elle
      • content: "Like Downton Abbey but French, this confection of a novel is light as a macaron and just as sweet and nostalgic. "
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        December 3, 2012
        The paper-thin narrative of David-Weill’s third novel doesn’t diminish the book’s delightful rendering of L’Agapanthe, an old French family’s summer estate on Cap d’Antibes dedicated to the art of gracious living. Told in the first person by 30-year-old Laure, the story follows a scheme devised by an eccentric family friend that Laure and her sister set in motion to keep the estate in the family after their parents decide to sell. The sisters invite a series of wealthy men to L’Agapanthe hoping to seduce one into marriage, thereby keeping the estate in the family. Included are each weekend’s formal menus and room assignments, plus descriptions of the guests themselves; their occupations, backgrounds, and ability to fit into a rarefied atmosphere where one’s opinions on culture are only somewhat more important than their level of bourgeois pretentions. Though the sisterly relationship is explored, the estate itself assumes center stage alongside the intricate set of mores and manners of the French elite. David-Weill (Crush) draws readers in as graciously as any good hostess, but because of her personal background—she comes from an old-monied French family who vacation on Cap d’Antibes—readers may wonder if this is a roman à clef and will likely try to play a who’s who guessing game.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        January 1, 2013

        Ah, L'Agapanthe, that beauteous summer home in the south of France where wealth is without question and the discreet, proper manners of another era predominate. Laure and Marie have summered there since childhood with their parents, Flokie and Edmond Ettinguer, enjoying carefully arranged weekends (no journalists) that are so legendary new guests need not be given the address. But times have changed, the parents are tired of managing the big house, and Laure learns to her dismay that L'Agapanthe is to be sold. Her cheeky friend Frederic suggests that she or Marie find a suitor willing to buy the place, and so begins a round of weekends during which the sisters entertain a string of gauche and hilariously inappropriate prospects. Each weekend is illustrated with placards showing who is coming and where they are sitting at dinner, a touch that adds both formality and fun to the proceedings. VERDICT Deceptively charming and delightful, this novel by the French American David-Weill (Crush) portrays class issues and changing mores with the kind of intelligent taste that would make the Ettinguers proud.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

        Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity
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shortDescription
A comedy of manners that serves as an insightful look at the lives of those in the upper classes.
 
After two sisters, Laure and Marie, learn of their parents’ plan to sell the family’s summer retreat, L’Agapanthe, they devise a scheme for attracting a wealthy suitor who can afford to purchase the estate. Selling it would mean more than just losing a place to go during the summer—for the sisters, it’s become a necessary part of their character, their lifestyle, and their past.
 
L’Agapanthe, a place of charm and nostalgia, is the perfect venue to exercise proper etiquette and intellect, though not all its visitors are socially savvy, especially when it’s a matter of understanding the relationships between old money and the nouveau riche. The comedy of manners begins: with stock traders, yogis, fashion designers, models, swindlers, the Mafia, and a number of celebrity guests.
 
Laure—the witty,...
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