by Liza Klaussmann,
read by Jennifer Woodward
Liza Klaussmann's novel is about the real owners of the real Villa America in Antibes, a resort town between Cannes and Nice on the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur). Gerald and Sara Wiborg Murphy were fabulously wealthy expatriates who hosted such well-knowns as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter and Pablo Picasso at the home they built there, Villa America (which sadly, no longer seems to exist), in the 1920s.
Gerald had a brief career as a painter (I rather like his stuff), and apparently had bisexual tendencies. Klaussmann explores this with the one entirely fictional character in the book, another American ex-pat, a pilot she calls Owen Chambers. According to the author's note at the end, a (real) champagne-and-caviar party at Villa America in Hemingway's honor required that the caviar be flown in from the Caspian Sea - and that was the inspiration for Owen.
Ultimately, none of the characters in the book are particularly sympathetic - it's hard to feel sorry for people so well-off, even when they hit some hard times from 1929 on. The last part of the book zips through the years 1930 through 1937 almost entirely with letters between characters, as the dream world of Villa America is virtually gone.
However, it was nice to learn a little more about this couple who have appeared in other novels I've read in the past few years (such as The Paris Wife and Mrs. Hemingway). Actress Jennifer Woodward gives a very precise reading as the audiobook narrator.
© Amanda Pape - 2018
[The audiobook, and a print copy for reference, were borrowed from and returned to my local public library.]
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