A young schoolteacher in the Vendee in the 1890s, Victorine is married with two young children. But when she falls desperately in love with a customs officer she abandons her family for her lover and a new life in Indochina. On a single day in 1940, as Victorine reflects on her past, we travel back with her to that extraordinary period of her life - a remarkable story which explores a woman's struggle between duty and independence, tradition and freedom. This is a lush, lyrical and evocative novel that takes the reader from the willow-lined canals of Vendee to the sun-drenched days and languorous nights along the Mekong River at the dawn of the twentieth century.
- ISBN10 067091505X
- ISBN13 9780670915057
- Publish Date 15 July 2004 (first published 1 April 2004)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 4 April 2006
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Viking
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English