THE GIRL AT THE LION DOR
by Sebastian Faulks
Condition: Good. Light surface wear to cover, interior age toning to pages. Spine uncreased.
About the Book
Set in a small coastal town in France during the mid-1930s, this elegant, melancholic novel traces the emotional awakening of Anne Louvet, a young woman scarred by family betrayal and the moral ambiguities of interwar France. Taking work as a waitress at the seedy Hôtel du Lion dOr, she becomes involved with Hartmann, an older, married lawyer their affair unfolding against a backdrop of political tension and the slow collapse of idealism.
With Faulkss characteristic restraint and precision, the novel explores how the private wounds of love and conscience mirror the broader disquiet of a Europe on the brink of catastrophe. Every gesture and silence carries the weight of what cannot be said a theme that runs through Faulkss later works, culminating in Birdsong and Charlotte Gray.
Comparisons with The French Lieutenants Woman and Anna Karenina are not misplaced: this is a story of passion, dignity, and loss, written with a modern moral intelligence and a classical poise.
About the Author
Sebastian Faulks (b. 1953) is a British novelist celebrated for his explorations of memory, identity, and the persistence of love under the pressures of history. His acclaimed French trilogy The Girl at the Lion dOr, Birdsong, and Charlotte Gray examines the fractures of twentieth-century Europe through deeply human stories. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Faulks has also written contemporary satires and essays on Englishness and literature.
