The Four Corners of the Heart
An Unfinished Novel
Published on 20. June 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
174 pages
978-1-5420-2587-4 (ISBN)
Description
From the internationally bestselling author of Bonjour Tristesse comes the surprise publication of a novel she never finished-and a story that evokes her greatest works.
French literary star Franc?oise Sagan was just eighteen when she published her first bestseller, Bonjour Tristesse, in 1954. Decades later, this short novel surfaced: an unfinished manuscript that wittily dissects the romantic lives of its bourgeois characters.
The glamorous Marie-Laure never expected her wealthy older husband to survive a devastating car accident that left him in a fragile mental and physical condition. But three years later, Ludovic Cresson returns home to the family estate and finds himself in the throes of a tumultuous marriage.
Overseeing this tense dynamic is Henri, the patriarch, who wants to see his son recover but detests various members of his own family. When Marie-Laure's mother visits the estate, the family equilibrium falters spectacularly. As Ludovic's virility returns, he cannot resist the charms of his mother-in-law-and neither can his father.
The story ends abruptly, but it offers a vivid, if open ended, look into some of Sagan's final undiscovered characters.
French literary star Franc?oise Sagan was just eighteen when she published her first bestseller, Bonjour Tristesse, in 1954. Decades later, this short novel surfaced: an unfinished manuscript that wittily dissects the romantic lives of its bourgeois characters.
The glamorous Marie-Laure never expected her wealthy older husband to survive a devastating car accident that left him in a fragile mental and physical condition. But three years later, Ludovic Cresson returns home to the family estate and finds himself in the throes of a tumultuous marriage.
Overseeing this tense dynamic is Henri, the patriarch, who wants to see his son recover but detests various members of his own family. When Marie-Laure's mother visits the estate, the family equilibrium falters spectacularly. As Ludovic's virility returns, he cannot resist the charms of his mother-in-law-and neither can his father.
The story ends abruptly, but it offers a vivid, if open ended, look into some of Sagan's final undiscovered characters.
Reviews / Votes
"Despite being unfinished, Sagan's razor-sharp portrayal of the upper classes is on full display in this fine novel." -Library Journal"There's a romantic charm, innocence and otherworldliness to this book of a kind unlikely to be found in a contemporary novel...a curiously pleasing reminder of what a one-off Francoise Sagan was." -The Spectator
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Seattle
United States
Publishing group
Amazon Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 178 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
136 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5420-2587-4 (9781542025874)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Born in 1935 in Cajarc, a commune in the Lot department in France, Francoise Sagan spent her childhood in Paris and the years of the German occupation moving between Lyon and the Dauphine region of the French Alps, where her father owned factories. She returned to Paris after the war to complete her schooling, after which she went on to study at the Sorbonne. It was there, over the summer of 1953, that she wrote Bonjour Tristesse. From the moment of its publication, the novel was a dazzling success. In 1956, her second novel, Un certain sourire (A Certain Smile), confirmed her status as a serious writer; this book, too, was a great success.
Sagan is generally described as having adopted a scandalous lifestyle; this fed into an image she struggled to escape thereafter-that of a habitue of casinos and nightclubs reveling in drink and fast cars. After a serious car accident in 1957, Sagan was left addicted to opioids following her recuperation. Sagan published more than thirty books, including novels and short story collections, as well as nine plays (notably Chateau en Suede-Chateau in Sweden). She also cowrote a number of screenplays. In 1985 she was awarded Le Prix Litteraire for her lifetime's work. Financially and physically depleted, Sagan died in September 2004 in her house in Honfleur but was buried in the cemetery nearest to her native Cajarc.
Sagan wrote her own epitaph-her sense of her own style being, in her view, the mark of the true writer:
Made her entrance in 1954 with a slim novel, Bonjour Tristesse, which scandalized readers the world over. Her exit, after a life and oeuvre as pleasant and as botched as each other, was a scandal for none beside herself.
Despite her outstanding debts, Denis Westhoff, Sagan's son from her second marriage, took on her estate and has chosen to fight for the posterity of her life's work. In 2020, he had her unfinished novel Les quatre coins du coeur (The Four Corners of the Heart) published and saw the foreign rights sold to fifteen countries. Francoise Sagan has thus been restored to her status as an icon and a key point of reference in French literature.
Sagan is generally described as having adopted a scandalous lifestyle; this fed into an image she struggled to escape thereafter-that of a habitue of casinos and nightclubs reveling in drink and fast cars. After a serious car accident in 1957, Sagan was left addicted to opioids following her recuperation. Sagan published more than thirty books, including novels and short story collections, as well as nine plays (notably Chateau en Suede-Chateau in Sweden). She also cowrote a number of screenplays. In 1985 she was awarded Le Prix Litteraire for her lifetime's work. Financially and physically depleted, Sagan died in September 2004 in her house in Honfleur but was buried in the cemetery nearest to her native Cajarc.
Sagan wrote her own epitaph-her sense of her own style being, in her view, the mark of the true writer:
Made her entrance in 1954 with a slim novel, Bonjour Tristesse, which scandalized readers the world over. Her exit, after a life and oeuvre as pleasant and as botched as each other, was a scandal for none beside herself.
Despite her outstanding debts, Denis Westhoff, Sagan's son from her second marriage, took on her estate and has chosen to fight for the posterity of her life's work. In 2020, he had her unfinished novel Les quatre coins du coeur (The Four Corners of the Heart) published and saw the foreign rights sold to fifteen countries. Francoise Sagan has thus been restored to her status as an icon and a key point of reference in French literature.