Lovers and Tyrants

By Francine du Plessix Gray

Book Overview

Lovers and Tyrants is at once an erotic, urgent, and beautifully written novel that established Francine du Plessix Gray as one of the most brilliant and exuberant fiction talents to emerge in America's literary history. This is the story of Stephanie, whose life we follow from her extraordinary childhood in France, through her father's mysterious disappearance, her emigration with her mother to America, her private schooling in New York, her tempestuous sexual relationships with a European nobleman, her marriage to an American, her children, and ultimately, her self-liberation. Every phase of Stephanie's life illustrates our painful ambivalence toward the irreconcilable poles of love and liberation, security and freedom.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393305473
• ISBN13: 9780393305470
• Release Date: April 1988
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A woman's search for freedom

_Lovers and Tyrants_ follows the life of Stephanie from her childhood in France to her schooling in New York to her stint as a reporter in Paris to her very American marriage all the way through to her final attempt at being free. One of the interesting things about the book is the way the voice of the writers changes between the different sections-- from the precious voice of memoir in the childhood section to a kind of drunken free-flow in her days as a Paris reporter. Parts of the book *do* feel dated in an unpleasant sort of way because of the strong dependence on the sixties ethos, but the writing is good enough that this can generally be forgiven.