Adam Gould - Couverture souple

The result is a novel notable for its frequent adjustments of tone as the author manoeuvres between clerical intrigue, family saga and fin-de-siècle French farce. It takes a while for the reader to relax with these variegations, and to recognise the strands of connection that make each element, including Maupassant and his sad circumstances, intrinsic to the overall progress of the narrative. But in full sail this becomes a vivid and absorbing story, fast-paced and confident of its strong historical flavourings. O Faolain s publicity material makes much of the fact that Adam Gould is her first novel in 17 years, but there isn t a trace of rustiness in its pages, and the long sabbatical from fiction seems to have done her no harm at all. --Eve Patten Irish Times 2nd May 2009 --Eve Patten Irish Times 2nd May 2009

'...the novel is witty and thoughtful, and even its peripheral figures, appearing for a line or two, are lively and finely drawn. Power, faith and insanity are often in dispute, but the practical business of living and dying goes on, underneath.' --Lidija Haas TLS 15th may 2009

A highly original work of fiction, urbane, elegant and full of esprit --Patricia Craig, Independent 9th June 2009

A vivid and absorbing story, fast-paced and confident of its strong historical flavourings --Irish Times

'Julia O'Faolain has Maupassant's gift for pacing a narrative, its heartbeat now slowing, now accelerating with dramatic suddenness. She also has his coolly ironic way of dissecting human passions and failings [...] a remarkable work, written in a style of steely distinction' --Literary Review

A vivid and absorbing story, fast-paced and confident of its strong historical flavourings --Irish Times

Paris in the 1890s. Adam Gould, whose Anglo-Irish father has disowned him, works in a lunatic asylum run by the celebrated Dr Blanche, some of whose patients once starred in France's social firmament and still, when sane, sit at table with distinguished guests. One such patient is Guy de Maupassant. Another is Belcastel, who has taken the blame for a monarchist plot against the Third Republic, then feigned insanity. Madness and uncertain identity drive Adam's story, fuelled by Maupassant's sparkling insights on the matter. Gould falls in love with a married connection of Belcastel's. And things are made no simpler on his return home, when he becomes entangled with a cousin who looks hauntingly like his dead mother...