L'Affaire

by Diane Johnson

"Johnson is more droll than Henry James, to whom she's been compared, and she's as witty as a modern-day Voltaire. Vraiment, L'Affaire , c'est irresistible!” — Publishers Weekly

Amy Hawkins, a Palo Alto girl who made herself a dot-com fortune, goes to France to get a sheen of sophistication and, perhaps, to have an affair that will ruffle her all-too-steady heart. She starts her quest in a glamorous resort in the French Alps, amid an assortment of aristocrats and ski enthusiasts. But when two of the hotel’s guests are swept away by an avalanche, Adrian’s children—young, old, legitimate, illegitimate—assemble to protect their interests, feuding under the competing laws of the British, American, and French systems.
Amy, already suspect because she is American, steps in to assist, and unintentionally sets in motion a series of events that spotlight ancient national differences, customs, and laws. Filled with love, sex, death, and travel, L’Affaire is National Book Award finalist Diane Johnson at her very best.

Genres: Fiction, France, Chick Lit, Romance, Novels, Contemporary, Travel

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Diane Johnson is an American novelist and essayist whose satirical novels often feature American heroines living in contemporary France. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Persian Nights in 1988.
In addition to her literary works, she is also known for writing the screenplay of the 1980 film The Shining together with its director and producer Stanley Kubrick.

Reviews

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this book had no plot! Aside from being full of anti American snarky remarks, I could find no plot. At first I thought the moral of the story was no good deed goes unpunished. Nope, not it. Then maybe there's no place like home or home is where the heart is. Nope. Basically a story about a poor little rich girl on her quest to better herself, to find culture in France. Just a bunch of vapid self centered lunatics arguing over a dead man's estate. Though the difference in inheritance laws between England & France was fascinating. Here is the best quote from the book. "The French are a docile race, despite their revolution. No doubt the energy,the spark, was guillotined away, no wonder they didn't resist the German occupation." There, I just saved you $25. You're welcome.

[george ross]

I enjoyed Le Divorce, and even Le Mariage, but somehow L'Affaire left me cold. Maybe it's because Johnson's insights into cultural misunderstandings are getting a little stale; maybe it's because she insists on writing the same book over and over. But in fact, I think it's because her characterizations of the nationalities involved have become broader and less kind since her first book.[return][return]In le Divorce, everyone had their little foibles and prejudices, but they were all basically likeable and believable people. In L'Affaire, all the Americans are culturally illiterate morons, and all the French people are cruel and selfish snobs. Is it accurate? Maybe, but it's not pleasant.[return][return]But it might just be my perception. Maybe living in France and in poverty has made stories of the wealthy and titled seem a bit frivolous to me.

[Stevie Holcomb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm.

This is the third Diane Johnson book I read and I really had trouble keeping my mind from wandering during it. Not that it was bad, it just didn't hold my attention the way L'Marriage and L'Divorce did, and it was mostly about who got what inheritance. I found the testament laws of France and England interesting, as I work Estate and Trust law, but I wonder if someone who didn't work in that field would find about the pages and pages of fighting over who got what.

Affairs? Yes, there are some, but L'Affaire means "the business" in French, so I'm sure she held double meaning in her title. I found the first part of the book, set in the ski lodge, much more interesting than the second part, when it moved to Paris. Some characters could have been cut out, there were way too many.

I'm not sad I read it, I just feel a little let down at what could have been.

[Cris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't get the point of this book. I read Le Divorce and liked it (granted, a while ago...maybe I didn't like it as much as I remember?) so I figured I'd like this book by Diane Johnson. But with a title as steamy as L'Affaire, you'd think it would be more interesting, not just a drawn-out, boring look at American and European cultures/people. It wasn't even so much about English and French inheritance laws like the jacket says. I thought it would at least be a funny look at these cultural differences but I didn't find it very humorous. And I found it extremely annoying that the POV changed from one character to another in a matter of sentences. Unfortunately, I can't stop reading a book once I've started.

[Melissa]

So I never, NEVER EVER stop reading a book. Once I start reading I have the compulsive need to finish it. But I'm trying to allow myself more freedom in my reading habits and choices. I loved the movie, "Le Divorce," so thought this book would be a great read. 24 pages in and there's nothing to keep me reading. Also, all the negative reviews...I'm gonna follow my instincts early on and let this one go.

Do I feel weird inside? Yes. But it's just a feeling and there's way better out there to read!

[Becky Clayton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Le Divorce, because the author did such a good job sympathetically portraying a vapid, insecure, poorly educated woman. That woman appears as different characters in, it seems, all of Diane Johnson's work. I liked everything after Le Divorce less and less and feel sure I won't read Diane Johnson again.

[Drianne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bad chick lit. Not fun. Meh. Not enough Parisianity, stupid "plot," and man, were the characters vacuous, irritating, self-absorbed, stupid... I really have nothing against "chick lit," but this? Yick. Maybe if it had more French in it. That wouldn't have fixed her *abysmal* prose, however, her constant switchings of POV (in the same paragraph, even). L'avoid!

[Karima · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Pulitzer Prize contender?!?!?!
You've got to be kidding!!!!!
This was a silly cluster of cliches and predictability. I only picked it up to recover from reading DISGRACE by J.M. Coetze.
I needed something light, but not stupid!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was somewhat entertaining, and it was fun reading some of the perceptions of the main character, a young American in Europe for the first time. But the characters didn't really come to life for me, and so I didn't care much about them.

[Aubrey Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a tough book to get through. It was just boring. There was very little happening, and the characters were all stereotypical. Nothing made this book unique or special or interesting. I wouldn't recommend it.

[Helynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this third Diane Johnson novel about Americans in France just as worthy as Le Divorce and Le Mariage in terms of its humorous and serious look at the struggle for French and American people to comprehend and accept each others' cultural issues. Central in L'Affaire (2003) is Amy Hawkins, a newly wealthy dot.com executive from Palo Alto, who wishes to broaden her sophistication by living in Paris. The story begins, however, in the ski town of Valmari in the French Alps, where Amy becomes involved in the drama of an English-American couple who were injured in an avalanche. Amy’s ill-advised, but well-meaning choice to finance the elaborate medical care necessary to fly the elderly husband to England where he dies, is symbolic of typical good-hearted, but bumbling American judgment in all realms
Throughout the course of the story, Amy acquires some skills through her French cooking classes, but she cannot buy culture. “No amount of effort will ever make Amy sound French." Complicating Amy's struggle is French-Tunisian snob Emile, a self-proclaimed anti-American. "He everywhere found examples of the detestability of Americans—brash, arrogant, loud-talking, and loud-dressing bullies with no understanding of other cultures, a complete lack of interest in things beyond themselves, and concerned only with American hegemony. He would not voluntarily make the acquaintance of one, and didn’t anticipate that he’d had to" (118-19).
Later, Amy asks Emile if, for all his assumed expertise on Americans, he has ever visited the United States. “Certainly, not,” he says (322). The eventual brief affair between these two characters indeed seems doomed from the outset. At her good-bye party, given for her French friends on the eve of her return to Palo Alto, Amy serves typical California fare such as enchiladas, nachos, quesadillas, prawns marinated in lime juice, and margaritas. Her friend Géraldine intervenes, however, to make sure there are some French-style hors d’oeuvres and two versions of the chili. “For those—almost every French person—who weren’t fond of spices, it would be chili without chili powder, more of a boeuf bourguignon with beans” (333).
Johnson’s novels all end with an ultimately pessimistic view of Anglo-French romances. Most of the English or American pairings with French peoples fail or do not seem destined to last. But the romp through the cultural differences seems to have been an enlightening, if often aggravating, one for all involved. Differences in cultural practices and preferences have scarcely been resolved, disagreements as to which culture is the most sophisticated—or the least irritating—is still a matter of opinion on both sides.

[Susan Bogart · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting book! A newly wealthy Californian gets involved with a party of French, German and English visitors to a ski resort in the French Alps. An avalanche buries two, and Amy becomes increasing involved with the survivors, who are not entirely pleased with her do-good attempts to rectify some situations with the money she doesn't quite know what to do with. Returning to Paris for French lessons, culture, and developing a compelling need to buy a run-down chateau, Amy becomes even more involved when one of the survivors sues her.
The ending was a little weak, but the entire story is much more introspective than it would seem at first glance. The author has taken the sensibilities of a Jane Austen novel and applied it to a contemporary setting, with brief liaisons flaring up here and there.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting enough to keep me reading, but I kept wondering when something was going to happen. Enjoyed the commentary on cultural differences between Americans, British and the French, but at the same time felt like those differences were being trivialized by an elitist voice. I think the book was supposed to be humorous and satirical... making fun of the characters and their shallow desires. I realized midway that I had no sympathy for any of them!

[Farha Hasan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diane Johnson's writing style is dry and dense. I had to force myself to finish this book. Hard to believe that it's a New York Times Bestseller. Most of the characters are not likable and the ones who do come off as decent are not very interesting. Totally, don't understand why everyone wants to sleep with Emile, or why a dot com millionaire is dependent on fax machines. I also did not like all the cultural stereotypes.

[Jenn · Rating 1 out of 5]

one of the only books i've never finished. it was boring and didn't seem like anything was happening.

[Liz Wrobel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I actually only got through half of this before becoming too unmotivated to pick it up and finish it...enough said.

[Coleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main character, in the novel is Amy Hawkins who sold her dot.com in California for a lot of bucks and went to Europe to see how to spend her money. There are many assorted folks in the book of diverse nationalities which, to me, was one of the best things in the story - the French who disliked Americans and the British and Germans who also did - but also those who liked Amy even if they criticized her. The location is mostly at a French ski resort - with avalanches! What could be more exciting.

Another plus for me in the book was that many of the characters' thoughts and feelings were divulged - put right out there: Amy, feeling 'this' or Posy thinking 'that'. The reader gets the inside story as well as the one that is obvious to the participants. The plot and action are good and moves right along.

But make no mistake that French men [and some of the other male nationalities as well] think all women want to have sex with them, married or single or whatever. And for the most part, that seems to be true in this book, particularly with the younger women, but basically all of them. The sex is not porno or descriptive though -- so the reader is NOT disgusted by sex scenes or boring drawn out step-by-step [oh good greif, just get it over with!].

I totally enjoyed the book and will read the author's prior book, Le Divorce, if I chance upon a copy.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Call me superficial but I am becoming a fan of Diane Johnson. This does not equal her first novel, Le Divorce, and Amy does not become a presence immediately, the way Isobel does - but then Amy is a very different sort of American girl. You will either like her or you won't - she sort of grew on me in the course of the book. She has a tabula rasa quality and a lust for self-improvement which is more interesting as she begins to interact with the people she meets in France and begins to change.

It is a kind of coming of age book, even though she's already 30 years old. However, the characters I love in this book are Posy, the perpetually pissed off yet passionate English girl who REALLY does not fit into the French society, and Kip, the snowboarding teenager from California who has to learn to take care of an 18-month-old baby and deal with the loss of his family all in one day.

We are treated along the way to even more of Johnson's mordant portraits of the rich French ladies who groom rich American ladies to find husbands and/or lovers by way of cooking and language classes. A world in itself, which I am content to never experience personally. GAH!

Three stars, because it's a slow starter, but as it progressed, I was impelled to give it four - nah, leave it at three - but it is fun and ends up being a bit more than fun, with some deeper interactions between the characters.

[Diane C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diane Johnson's books have a large cast of characters, interacting, flawed, falling down, getting up, and her plots don't usually follow the usual steady, predictable arc. Rather, they wind around and follow different characters. This can become tedious, and yet I still love her books and read them all to the end. Sometimes I put one down for a bit, read another author for a while, and then return to hers to find out what the characters are doing for the rest of the book. Thought provoking stories about human behavior and not neatly tied up at the end.

L'Affaire takes place mostly at a Swiss ski resort on the French border after a fatal avalanche, possibly caused by a U.S. fighter jet, a mysterious skier or a kid practicing yelling and making echoes.......or none of the above. A wealthy man and his young wife are critically injured and hospitalized, leaving an array of family and friends to grieve, plot, form alliances and discover French and British estate law and it's consequences.

[Paulah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another delightful read from Diane Johnson. If you want to steep yourself in Franco-American culture clash, enter the world of Diane Johnson. Sharp, clear writing, memorable, well-defined characters, bizarre situations. I don't know why Hollywood has missed this series. Maybe anti-French sentiment? Her characters would say so.
L"Affaird is set in this decades at a ski resort in the French Alps, where a rich, young, attractive American woman trips over a very sticky situation a complex, dysfunctional, extended family spanning the continent and beyond. The situation quickly spins out of control emphasizing the gulf between French culture and just about all others when it comes to important basic values. The story contains intrigue, natural disaster, legal maneuvering, sickness and health, life and death. Plus a little hanky panky. What more could you want in a novel? If Le Mariage was the perfect beach book, this is the perfect snowstorm livre.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't put down. Kept wondering what would happen to all these characters. Nice resolution for some. Loved that my predictions for others didn't come to fruition. Also, now on a quest to find perfume I can dab on my "temples, wrists, behind ears, and between 4th and 5th fingers," without repelling my husband, causing myself a migraine, and/or annoying the bulk of my fellow pew friends on Sundays.

Biggest love in this book is the idea that maybe my benevolent impulses to save someone/ something, in spite of an annoying blindness to my own defects, issues, etc., is an American trait and suffered en masse by more than just a few...say, a whole host of different administrations!

[Norma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diane Johnson does tell a good story. Some years ago I read her two preceding novels about marriage and divorce, and my recollection was that they were entertaining, but not entirely satisfying as literature. Same thing with this one -- a complex story, but ultimately, because the women are "beautiful", the men are "handsome", and they so predictably end up coupling without much thought, a trifle shallow. I did appreciate the discourse on French inheritance laws as compared to those of England. Nearing the end, though, I wanted the book to end sooner rather than later. Perhaps a good "beach" book?

[Sommer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say L'Affaire was as good as LeDivorce, by any stretch of the imagination but I was pleasantly surprised. It's basic Diane Johnson, American girl making her way among Europeans. At times, I got annoyed at the leaps in plot that Johnson made but her single girl observations on domestic women vs. non-domestic women kept me laughing and yearning to turn the page. A good passive weekend read for anyone wanting a laugh or two. Plus, the ending sheds light on the idea that traditional romance isn't were the real fun is!

[Bernadette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very entertaining and astute novel about cultural differences, mainly French and American. Amy Hawkins, a newly minted wealthy dot.com executive, travels to France to improve herself and obtain some European cultural polish. At the ski resort where she is staying, a couple is caught in an avalanche. The English husband dies but his American wife lives, leading to an extended struggle between the French and English inheritance laws and the families involved. Since I enjoy all things French, this was a fun read for me.

[Starla · Rating 1 out of 5]

At page 206 I had to call it quits. I did try to understand these characters and get into the story, but it just didn't happen. The characters seemed superficial and the storyline seemed to drag on, and on, and on. Kip was the only character I felt was "real".
I don't think I'll pick up another Diane Johnson book, and that may be my loss, but after trying to read this one, I'll take that chance.

[Wendy Hollister · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have enjoyed other books by Diane Johnson (Le Divorce). I love the integration of French language into the story. Amy, the American who has made her money from the dot com industry finds herself embroiled in difficult life situations for which she is a suspect. I am curious to see how Diane manipulates the story.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not one to give up easily, but I really couldn't finish this book. The story plodded along, I couldn't connect with the characters and the whole thing just felt very disconnected from reality - yet not interesting enough to be considered quirky. I was expecting more witty banter and wry observations but unfortunately I was disappointed.

[Kristin Dow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Admire Diane Johnson's writing and of course loved the European setting and pathos. Interesting flawed characters and relationships. But this was not a page-turner and I had a hard time staying engrossed. In the end, I wanted more intensity and action. Thought the story had more potential than was realized.

[Amanda (Mandy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good light read for the beach (or more relevantly by the fire at a ski chalet in the Alps). It's entertaining, and you learn a bit about French culture. It's by the same author that did Le Divorce, which was turned into a major motion picture with Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts.

[Hazel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was engaging and kept me interested, though it seems like something that would be turned into a Lifetime Movie. If you are interested in getting a sense of life in Paris, this is an decent read.