The Woman in the Lobby

by Lee Tulloch

Violet Armengard never thinks of her extraordinary beauty as anything other than a nuisance.  That is until she ends up broke and alone in Paris.

Through a series of chance encounters in hotel lobbies, Violet finds herself an object of interest to men rich enough to know the price of everything, including the privilege of bedding supremely beautiful women.  As her addiction to grand hotels and haute couture takes hold, she convinces herself that she is only doing what women have done for millennia – trading sex for life's little luxuries.

But then she meets Florin, a man with an unknowable past, who leads her further into a world where human feeling is a negotiable commodity and sex is as much about power as it is pleasure.

Brilliantly observed and darkly erotic. The Woman in the Lobby is a provocative and compulsively readable novel about the intriguing possibilities of separating sex and love.

Genres: Book Club

441 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Lee Tulloch a Capricorn with Sagittarius rising and an Aries moon, if you believe in these things. (She's ambivalent.) Perhaps, however, her stars do explain a restless life lived on three continents. A graduate in English Literature from Melbourne University, she made an unexpected foray into federal politics as a researcher before she began writing about fashion and popular culture for Vogue Australia. Since then, she has written extensively on the subject for international publications such as Vogue, Elle, Jalouse, Harper's Bazaar and New York magazine. While still a child, she became the founding editor of Harper's Bazaar Australia but was dismissed after nine issues for being a little too creative.

In 1985 she moved from Sydney to New York, where she wrote her first novel, Fabulous Nobodies, which has been published in several countries and to much acclaim. With her photographer husband, Tony Amos, she chose a bohemian life, moving between Australia, New York and Paris for more than a decade with their young daughter, Lolita. In Paris, she began her second novel, Wraith, a gothic tale of a dead supermodel who comes back to haunt her personal assistant. She completed it in New York and it was published in 1999. In 2001 she published her third novel, Two Shanes, a comedy of errors about an Australian surfer on Manhattan.

On September 11 2001 she was evacuated from her Tribeca home and left her beloved Manhattan for the relative peace of a Sydney beach. Her fourth novel, The Cutting, a murder mystery set on the Australian coast, was published in 2003. She is a columnist on fashion, beauty and popular culture for The Australian Women's Weekly, the (sydney) magazine and the (melbourne) magazine. Her next work is a collection of her fashion essays, Perfect Pink Polish, and she is completing her fifth novel.

She would rather be a torch singer than a writer but she can't sing and that's how it goes.

Her favourite frock is a black Azzedine Alaia from 1984, which her daughter Lolita now wears.

Reviews

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ★s
The Woman In The Lobby is the fifth novel by Australian journalist and author, Lee Tulloch. Alternating between now and then, Violet Armengard is the woman in the lobby. Nowadays, forty-year-old Violet is in the lobby of any good hotel, almost anywhere in the world, looking for a suitable prospect while avoiding the manager’s attention. A prospect might wine and dine her, bed her and perhaps take her on vacation, allow her to live comfortably for a while. For Violet has no home.

Then, she was a nervous thirty-year-old, waiting in the lobby of her Melbourne hotel for her estranged husband Patrick, hoping to entice him back to the marriage bed. When that failed, once again she was in the lobby, getting thoroughly drunk, drunk enough to end up with an extremely athletic Ukrainian tennis player in her room, teaching her more about sex than Patrick had done in two years of marriage. She followed him to Paris and found, to her dismay, that he was gone. And so began her life as the woman in the lobby. Her technique was refined by an attractive Romanian who also captured her heart. A dark and rather provocative read.

[What to read next ....... · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Woman in the Lobby was an unexpected, dark and rather provocative , erotic read l could not put it down .

Violet Armengard a nervous 30 year old waiting in the lobby of her Melbourne hotel for her estranged husband Patrick hoping to entice him back to the marriage bed.

When that failed once again she was in the lobby , getting throughly drunk, drunk enough to end up with an extremely athletic Ukrainian tennis player , in her room teaching her more about sex then Patrick had done in two years of marriage.

She followed him to Paris and found to her dismay that he was gone.

Forty year old Violet is in the lobby of any good hotel, almost anywhere in the world, looking for a suitable prospect while avoiding the manager’s attention.

A prospect might wine and dine her , bed her and perhaps take her on a vacation, allow her to live comfortably for a while.
For Violet has no home.

So she begins her life as the Woman in the lobby.
Her technique was refined by an attractive Romanian who has captured her heart.

The Woman in the Lobby is brilliantly observed and intriguing of possibilities of separating sex and love .


Highly recommended, such a surprising read definitely a page turner!

[Amy Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this years ago, an unedited proof, and I thought it was fantastic. I don’t know what I’ve done with that proof, but I think I’ll rebuy a copy of this when I get the chance.

[Penelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this after finishing Sarah Dunant's "In The Company of a Courtesan" thinking it would make an interesting comparison. They do. Both lead characters are essentially high-end working girls, or companions to rich men. The first was set in 16th century Venice. This is set in the late 20th and early 21st century. "The Woman in the Lobby" follows Violet around the world, as she spends time with rich man after rich man, living it up in hotels and being kept in expensive clothes and jewellery. It was an easy read and I mostly enjoyed it, especially the descriptions of the different cities she found herself in. There were more descriptions of the actual sex in this too, compared with Dunant's novel, which is narrated by a male character. On the whole though, it was disappointing. Violet is a sad sort of character, not really knowing what she wants, and just sort of letting the next man in the next posh lobby carry her away. There's some discussion of how her excessive beauty is a burden, but I never quite bought it. 3 stars from me.

[Kari · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok but not great...

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating story. Had to put down. I hope Lee Tulloch writes more of these.