Can I read Rousseau's Garden on EtoBox?

Rousseau's Garden by Ann Charney is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Rousseau's Garden about?

As this thoughtful but stilted novel begins, Claire Symons, a 37-year old photographer, is visiting Paris with her older husband, art historian Adrian Arensberg. While he researches French gardens, she investigates why her long-dead mother, Dolly, once a confident sculptor, sank into depression after a trip to Paris 25 years ago. Convinced that her recent panic attacks derive from this mystery, Claire interrogates the aging socialist comrades of her mother's youth. Her journey takes her to interesting places, including a hammam (Turkish bath) and the country estate of an elderly countess. It also brings personal and ethical dilemmas, including whether to break an agreement that she and Adrian not have children, and whether she is entitled to delve into her mother's secrets. A former journalist, Charney (Dobryd) has a good eye for details like the "deer heads and antlers, pheasants, rifles, whips" hung on the walls of the countess's chateau; however, her journalistic telling (as distinguished from showing) inhibits reader identification with Claire and her problems. Equally distancing are numerous odd locutions, clunky plot contrivances and interlarded details from the life of philo

Author

Ann Charney

Publisher

The Permenant Press

Published

2001

Language

EN

ISBN

9781579620332

Subjects

Fiction