Book

The balcony / Jane Delury.

ISBN: 9780316554671 (hc)
ISBN: 0316554677
Physical Description: viii, 244 pages ; 22 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2018.
Copyright: &copy;2018.

Delury, Jane, 1972- (author.).

Summary:

What if our homes could tell the stories of others who lived there before us? Set in a small village near Paris, The Balcony follows the inhabitants of a single estate--including a manor and a servants' cottage--over the course of several generations, from the Belle Époque to the present day, introducing us to a fascinating cast of characters. A young American au pair develops a crush on her brilliant employer. An ex-courtesan shocks the servants, a Jewish couple in hiding from the Gestapo attract the curiosity of the neighbors, and a housewife begins an affair while renovating her downstairs. Rich and poor, young and old, powerful and persecuted, all of these people are seeking something: meaning, love, a new beginning, or merely survival. Throughout, cross-generational connections and troubled legacies haunt the same spaces, so that the rose garden, the forest pond, and the balcony off the manor's third floor bedroom become silent witnesses to a century of human drama.