Edmund White
The Married Man
An American living in Paris finds his life transformed by an unexpected love affair.
Austin Smith is pushing fifty, loveless and drifting, until one day he meets Julien, a much younger, married Frenchman. In the beginning, the lovers' only impediments are the comic clashes of culture, age, and temperament. Before long, however, the past begins to catch up with them. In a desperate quest to save health and happiness, they move from Venice to Key West, from Montreal in the snow to Providence in the rain. But it is amid the bleak, baking sands of the Sahara that their love is pushed to its ultimate crisis.
Helen Manders manages the translation rights for The Married Man
[A] deeply moving story of human love and loss.
Deeply moving... White rings new changes on the old themes of mortality and forgiveness
The Married Man is Edmund White at his quintessential best
Poignant and challenging... Candid and often painfully personal... A love story, yet with an ambition and sweep that make it much more than that... subtle, complex, unsparing and profound
A potent mix of tragedy, romance, and cultural comedy.... The Married Man underscores White's reputation as a supremely gifted stylist.
Undoubtedly one of his best novels. The prose is lyrical... writing that is truly supple, adapting itself to comedy or tragedy as required
Written with the characteristic brilliance and the particular flair for poetic detail that so distinguishes his books, Edmund White's new novel is arguably his best to date... Heartbreakingly beautiful prose, so elegantly achieved it has the ring of a master... marvellously life-affirming... In short, nothing less than brilliant
A superb novel
Evening Standard