William Abrahams Book
3 total works
“Funny, incisive, frightening and eminently skillful."—New York Times
The year is 1978, the tumultuous period leading up to the Iranian Revolution. While visiting Iran with her husband, Chloe Fowler is left to travel alone after he is summoned home. Much to her surprise, she finds herself drawn to the country, intoxicated by each unfamiliar sight that reminds her how far from home she really is, both comforted and unsettled by the group of foreign and Iranian physicians and their wives who take her in. However, her exhilaration crashes when odd, often frightening events begin to occur, exposing the darker side of this "colonial life." Chloe is about to be liberated from everything she has ever known—in a place where her ordinary notions of reason and reality will run headlong into a wall of intrigue, and where every idea she has about herself will be put to the test.
Persian Nights follows Chloe on a voyage through the seductively inexplicable, and has all the qualities one expects from the gifted author of Le Divorce—the quirky, vivid atmosphere; the intelligent, humane voice; the compelling narrative. Once again, Diane Johnson delivers an entertaining novel of an appealing woman caught up in a mysterious world of change and intrigue.
"If one were to cross Jane Austen and Henry James, the result would be Diane Johnson."—San Francisco Chronicle
The national bestseller and inspiration for the major motion picture starring Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson!
Called "stylish... refreshing... genuinely wise” by The New York Times Book Review, this delightful comedy of manners and morals, money, marriage, and murder follows smart, sexy, and impeccably dressed American Isabel Walker as she lands in Paris to visit her stepsister Roxy, a poet whose marriage to an aristocratic French painter has assured her a coveted place in Parisian society—until her husband leaves her for the wife of an American lawyer. Could "le divorce" be far behind? Can irrepressible Isabel keep her perspective (and her love life) intact as cultures and human passions collide?
"Social comedy at its best" (Los Angeles Times Book Review), Le Divorce is Diane Johnson at her most scintillating and sublime.
“A nearly flawless performance—a beautifully constructed, elegantly written book, delicate in its perceptions, powerful in its impact.”—New York Times
The riveting story of four crucial days in the lives of four people sharing a rambling Victorian house, "lying low" and harboring secrets not meant to be shared
Theo Wait, a middle-aged former ballet dancer, and her brother, Anton, have taken in two boarders: beautiful Lynn, who never receives mail or visitors; and energetic and effusive Ouida, a Brazilian student and illegal alien who won't let complicated bureaucratic wrangles and constant fear of deportation taint her vision of America as the land of opportunity.
A faked identity, a search for one of the FBI's most wanted escaped prison convicts, and a Brazilian feast that spins out of control kick the plot into high gear. While each of these characters has been plagued by a sense of impending disaster, the terrible thing they've all been fearing comes from an entirely unexpected direction, shattering all of their lives.