The Balcony

In this sophisticated and impressive first novel, the author deftly ties together seemingly unrelated stories, ranging back and forth in time, while bringing each of her characters to vivid life. In the first of her interconnected stories, a young American woman comes to work as an au pair for a family living on a French country estate on the Seine in 1992. This is not as glamorous as it sounds. The once grand house on the estate has long been in disrepair, and the local town, Benneville, is an unromantic industrial city with factories bordering the river. Other vignettes portray the various people who live in or visit the estate over the course of a century or so. While there is not exactly a curse on the house, each family that inhabits it is unhappy in its own way. In 1890, an aging courtesan who had married the son of the house when she was younger throws herself off the balcony. The war years of the 1940s are particularly grim, but each era presents its own challenges.