The Love Germ: A Novel

by Jill Neville

Place: Latin Quarter, Paris. Date: May 1968. Cast: Polly, Giorgio, Jane, Anna, Arthur and a thousand rioting students. Plot: Polly accepts that it takes love to make a revolution, even if it arrives in the shambolic form of Giorgio, an Italian anarchist with a pimply back and a mean line in rebel rousing. Giorgio discovers that the sunglasses everyone is wearing on the street are also de rigeur in the waiting room of the clap clinic. Anna finds that with her old friend Gottlieb, one plus one, far from making two, or ideally three, makes only zero. And Jane decides that as she is constantly being accused of adultery, she might as well give it a go ... Meanwhile, over at the Sorbonne, a crowd debates late into the night urgent questions of romance and revolt, and how they intertwine.

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Jessie Hartley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in Uni and very much enjoyed it, being, like Polly, very much in love with a mysterious anarchist. It's very witty and the characters are well thought out.

[Jean Rafferty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was enjoyable and entertaining, like all Neville's books. The characters are clearly drawn, the events interesting and the historical setting evocative. But as with all the books I've read by this writer, there's ultimately something not quite satisfying there. It may be because she sometimes tries too hard stylistically so that it doesn't sound totally natural. (And in this book is a little too influenced by DH Lawrence.) Or it may be that she often tells rather than showing.
But the books are all definitely worth reading.