Louis Begley – författare

Poland, 1939. The comfortable, secure world of assimilated Jews is blown away by the invasion of the Third Reich. Maciek's father disappears into the war's vortex, leaving the orphaned child with his acerbic and beautiful Aunt Tania. It is her cool inventiveness, in their dramatic flight through a landscape of oppression, that will ensure their fragile survival.

Poland, 1939. The comfortable, secure world of assimilated Jews is blown away by the invasion of the Third Reich. Maciek's father disappears into the war's vortex, leaving the orphaned child with his acerbic and beautiful Aunt Tania. It is her cool inventiveness, in their dramatic flight through a landscape of oppression, that will ensure their fragile survival.

From the prize-winning author of Wartime Lies, an anatomy of the infamous prosecution of a Jewish officer attached to the French Army’s General Staff, with profound implications for our own time.In December 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a brilliant French artillery officer and a Jew of Alsatian descent, was court-martialed for selling secrets to the German military attaché in Paris based on perjured testimony and trumped-up evidence. The sentence was military degradation and life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a hellhole off the coast of French Guiana. Five years later, the case was overturned, and eventually Dreyfus was completely exonerated. Meanwhile, the Dreyfus Affair tore France apart, pitting Dreyfusards—committed to restoring freedom and honor to an innocent man convicted of a crime committed by another—against nationalists, anti-Semites, and militarists who preferred having an innocent man rot to exposing the crimes committed by ministers of war and the army’s top brass in order to secure Dreyfus’s conviction.Was the Dreyfus Affair merely another instance of the rise in France of a virulent form of anti-Semitism? In Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters, the acclaimed novelist draws upon his legal expertise to create a riveting account of the famously complex case, and to remind us of the interest each one of us has in the faithful execution of laws as the safeguard of our liberties and honor.

“Terrifically intelligent, moving, and entertaining.” –The New York Sun “With snappy dialogue [and] intelligent prose . . . Begley paints a memorable portrait of lasting friendship and of the strength required to step outside of the expectations that surround each of us.” –Rocky Mountain News At the beginning of the 1950s, three disparate young men are thrown together as roommates at Harvard College: Henry White, a Polish-Jewish refugee who survived World War II by hiding in Poland; Archibald P. Palmer III, an Army brat; and Sam Standish, ostensibly the scion of a fine New England family who has just learned that he was adopted at birth by parents he cannot respect. Each seeks to come to terms with his identity or to remake it altogether. Henry’s task is especially daunting: He is determined to live as an American, free of the shackles of his hideous past. But reinvention is a bargain with the devil, and over the years each will find that it comes at a high cost, challenging one’s honor and loyalty to parents, friends, and ultimately oneself. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage. “Absorbing . . . In full Henry James mode, Begley uses a lucid prose style to dispassionately eviscerate the upper classes even as he illuminates the true meaning of friendship.” –Booklist “The final moral crisis of Henry’s life [is] gorgeously evoked. . . . Begley’s analysis of class and anti-Semitism in America is often brilliant.” –The Washington Post Book World “A moving tale . . . [Begley’s] technique demands attention–and richly rewards it.” –The New York Observer “An elegant novel of enduring friendship.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A mesmerizing novel of deception and betrayal from the acclaimed author of Wartime Lies and About Schmidt. John North, a prize-winning American writer, is suddenly beset by dark suspicions about the real value of his work. Over endless hours and bottles of whiskey consumed in a mysterious café called L’Entre Deux Mondes, he recounts, in counterpoint to his doubts, the one story he has never told before, perhaps the only important one he will ever tell. North’s chosen interlocutor–who could be his doppelgänger–is transfixed by the revelations and becomes the narrator of North’s tale. North has always been faithful to his wife, Lydia, but when one of his novels achieves a special success, he allows himself a dalliance with Léa, a starstruck young journalist. Coolly planning to make sure that his life with Lydia will not be disturbed, North is taken off guard when Léa becomes obsessed with him and he with her elaborate erotic games. As the hypnotic and serpentine confession unfurls, we gradually discover the extraordinary lengths to which North has gone to indulge a powerful desire for self-destruction. Shipwreck is a daring parable of the contradictory impulses that can rend a single soul–narcissism and self-loathing, refinement and lust. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage.

Recently widowed, Albert Schmidt has triumphantly rediscovered domestic bliss in the Hamptons with Carrie, the Puerto Rican waitress who is younger than his daughter. Schmidt is content with keeping his own hours and steering his own course, even as he becomes entertained--and increasingly ensnared-- by the odd billionaire Michael Mansour. Among Schmidt''s other heartbreaks and delights is the scandal engulfing his detested son-in-law. Where will it all lead? Is Mansour a true friend or just a big cat playing with a WASP mouse? Can May and December remain on the same calendar as the sun sets? Through it all, one thing is clear: Schmidt has found a new life far beyond the deck chair. With the elegance and mordant wit readers have come to expect of him, Louis Begley has created a magnificent story of how virtue may be rewarded. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage.

As he tries to make his life habitable again--after the devastating loss of his wife--retired lawyer Albert Schmidt finds the possibility of regeneration in a new love the old "Schmidtie" would never have dreamt of. Set in the Hamptons and Mahnattan, and laced with black humor, About Schmidt casts a cold, pitiless eye on the eastern seaboard upper class, the last vestiges of once-ascendant WASPs, and the newcomers whose fortunes are rising.BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage.

"Begley writes with a contemplative wisdom that permeates his work....[He] has captured some of the wispy melancholy of midcentury fiction, and this feat in itself is mellifluous to both ear and spirit."THE BOSTON GLOBEA man without a country or family, a Holocaust survivor, Ben long ago left the wreckage of Europe and recreated himself as a brilliant financier. He rejects the comforts of love and is shocked to discover Veronique--beautiful, unwisely married, and all that Ben suddenly knows he has always needed. In their stolen hours and weekends, their deep commitment to one another fills their lives as nothing ever has. But the question remains: Can Ben finally take what he has always denied himself...? BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage.

Thomas Mistler has always thought himself "a happy man, as the world goes." A scion of old money, he made his own fortune in advertising and is now poised to sell the company he founded for a fabulous price. But when a medical examination reveals the presence in his liver of a fatal intruder, "preposterously, unmistakably, he begins to rejoice," with a feeling of having been set free. But free from what?He will seek the answer surreptitiously, without revealing his illness to his family, during a last reprieve, a moment of grace in "the one place on earth where nothing irritates him." But amidst the surreal beauties of Venice, he finds bitterness and chaos as he allows himself to drift for the first time. His halfhearted efforts to seize the day and its present pleasures--first with a striving young photographer and later with a love of his youth who never loved him--cannot compete with his need to commune with the living and the dead that crowd his life: his father and uncle, pillars of the Establishment, sources of the "genetic puritanism" he has never tried to resist; his son, Sam, whose love he has only barely salvaged; his wife, once perfectly "beautiful and suitable," now humiliated by him and half-scorned. And the one woman who embodies everything he might have wished for, a woman he "never had and never lost."Deeply poignant yet mordantly funny, Mistler''s Exit brilliantly discloses the pleasures and miseries of having it all. A masterly revelation of the complexities of the heart. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage.

"[A] perfectly constructed novel.... The time is 1974, and Max, who is fleeing from the wreckage of his first marriage, is a summer-house guest on Lake Como, where he encounters the two characters who will shape his life over the next 20 years: Charlie Swan, a Harvard classmate from the 1950s turned famous architect...and Toby, a poised and polymorphous teenager who is soon to become Charlie''s protege and lover."     --Time BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage.

“Tragic and redemptive . . . Updike had Rabbit, Roth has Zuckerman, Richard Ford has Bascombe and Begley has Schmidt. . . .  [Schmidt Steps Back] is the most ambitious novel [yet] in the Schmidt cycle.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)   Full of dark humor, compassion, and heart, Schmidt Steps Back is the most romantic installment yet of the drama that began with the acclaimed About Schmidt. Now seventy-eight, and just as passionate, sharp, and endearingly prickly as ever, Albert Schmidt faces a life alone, with only the crumbs of grandfatherly status and a less-than-demanding position at an international organization to sustain him. His only hope is Alice Verplanck, the French widow of a former partner, as elusive as she is beautiful. Whether his rusty seduction skills can lure her from Paris to the Hamptons won’t be known, though, until Schmidt endures one more ordeal by fire. Hilarious, engrossing, and deeply poignant, Schmidt Steps Back is Louis Begley’s finest novel yet.   Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley''s Memories of a Marriage.Praise for Schmidt Steps Back   “Engaging . . . Begley gets as close to Schmidt as a diarist, inhabiting this man who has been seasoned by a long life.”—The New York Times Book Review   “Begley gets inside Schmidt’s fertile WASP brain . . . with subtlety, intelligence, and wit.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer   “The novel grows in Begley’s excellent intricacy . . . to the level of art rather than manners. . . . One cannot read one of the Schmidt novels without laughing.”—San Francisco Chronicle      “Thoroughly absorbing . . . [a] cause for celebration.”—Salon   “[A] superb tragicomedy . . . seductive, subversive, and commanding.”—Booklist (starred review)

By the author of the beloved Schmidt series, Memories of a Marriage is a penetrating look at class and privilege, shifting from Paris to Manhattan, Long Island to Newport. Mourning his wife and daughter, and on the edge of old age, Philip reencounters an astonishing woman from his past: Lucy De Bourgh, an heiress who was once a passionate debutante and the intimate of many men, including Philip himself. As she reveals the startling details of her failed marriage to Thomas Snow—a townie turned powerful international banker, liked by many but to her a loathsome monster—Philip discovers a story that will challenge his assumptions about those he has known, admired, and desired. A triumph by an author expert in revealing the good breeding and bad behavior of the moneyed elite, Memories of a Marriage is an eloquent and irresistible book that explores all the varieties of love and the very concept of truth.   Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.   Praise for Memories of a Marriage   “Among contemporary novelists, [Begley] may be the wryest, most devastating critic of class in American society.”—The Washington Post   “Engrossing . . . Louis Begley gives us a chance to see into . . . the most private recesses of another couple’s marriage.”—The New York Times Book Review   “This delicious, dazzling novel about the rise and fall of a great American debutante kept me up all night.”—Susan Cheever   “A consummately constructed monument to human imperfection.”—San Francisco Chronicle   “[Begley is] an elegant stylist with a dry wit and a merciless eye.”—The Wall Street Journal   “A fiendishly clever, Fitzgeraldesque tale about marriage, friendship, gossip, and self-justification.”—BooklistFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

From the master observer of upper-crust New York life comes a taut thriller that takes readers from the office suites of Manhattan to the tidy elegance of Sag Harbor and the rough-and-tumble western plains of Brazil.Find your next book club pick, read special features, and more. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle. Jack Dana, a star student at Yale, joins the military after 9/11—only to have sniper fire cut short his career as a Marine Corps infantry officer. While recovering at Walter Reed Hospital, he begins to write a novel about his wartime experience. Jack’s uncle Harry, a surrogate father to him, as well as a partner at a leading New York law firm, helps Jack secure a publisher. Jack is thrilled when his book becomes a huge success, but after a celebratory trip to South America, Jack returns home to shocking news: Uncle Harry is dead, found hanged in his summer home. Horrified and incredulous, Jack digs into the facts surrounding the tragedy and comes to believe that his uncle’s death was no suicide. Delays of law are not for Jack, so he takes matters into his own hands—embarking on a dangerous journey of justice and revenge.  Praise for Killer, Come Hither“A stealthy, page-turning thriller.”—Booklist   “Louis Begley’s award-winning fiction usually takes on bad behavior among the well-bred and prosperous. Killer, Come Hither ratchets up the intrigue—and the evil.”—The Wall Street Journal   “Begley writes clean, crisp, graceful prose, the kind that’s always rare and ever a blessing.”—The Washington Post   “Killer, Come Hither beckons.”—Vanity Fair   “Combines unexpected plot twists and narrative tension with Begley’s trademark elegant prose.”—Shelf AwarenessFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

Master stylist Begley continues the story of Jack Dana, the former Marine Corps officer turned novelist whose quest to avenge his murdered uncle takes a new, more dangerous turn. The man who brutally murdered Uncle Harry is dead. In an effort to recover from the confrontation and collect himself, Jack takes refuge on Torcello, a small island in the Venetian lagoon, to return to his writing career. Even more urgently, he wants to win back Kerry, the beautiful lawyer who rejected him after the bloody episode with Harry''s assassin.But events beyond Jack''s control intervene: Kerry loses her life in circumstances that contradict everything Jack thinks he knew about her. Soon death begins to stalk Jack himself. It is impossible not to recognize in its drumbeat the machinations of Abner Brown, the man who orchestrated Harry''s demise.Jack fights back, driven by cold rage and determination to complete his revenge. At his side is Kerry''s best friend, the glamorous and enigmatic Heidi Krohn. Their quest will force Jack to plumb the abyss of depravity into which Kerry had sunk and face one of his fellow Marines who has embarked on a violent feud of his own. Reprising memorable characters from Killer, Come Hither and introducing dangerous new ones, Begley concludes Jack''s harrowing vendetta with one last shocking twist. Praise for Kill and Be Killed“[This] is delightfully sophisticated entertainment. After Begley’s 1996 novel ‘About Schmidt,’ Albert Schmidt returned for two more novels. Jack Dana deserves another encore.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[A] gripping thriller filled with tension, danger, and the unknown; and written in such graceful prose, it deserves to be called a literary thriller.”—The Huffington Post “[An] intriguing follow-up to Killer, Come Hither . . . Fans of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher should enjoy Jack Dana’s adventures.”—Publishers Weekly “Lovers of New York will enjoy the scenes of the city wonderfully portrayed by Begley. The characters are interesting and the lines between good and evil clearly marked. We know Jack will win, but occasionally he needs a little luck and help. Seeing the rich and famous get their comeuppance can be a guilty pleasure. While it appears that Jack has accomplished avenging the murders of his friends, one wonders if there are more of these adventures in Begley’s repertoire.”—Bookreporter “Kill and Be Killed is a humdinger. The final confrontation between Jack and Abner Brown is unforgettable.”—Southampton Press “Admirers of the City will love the scenes in this book! The location is fabulous and the details are perfectly written to make the reader feel as if they’re right by Jack’s side the whole time. A continuation of book one, Killer, Come Hither, the main characters are interesting, both good and evil, and the author has added some new, menacing ones to the fire.”—Suspense   “Begley remains one of America’s most able storytellers—reliably smart, naughty and wise.”—Toronto StarFrom the Hardcover edition.

Marine-turned-novelist Jack Dana is back in Louis Begley''s most intense, suspenseful, and deadly adventure yet.With the death of his nemesis, corrupt business mogul Abner Brown, retired Marine Jack Dana thought he could finally return to his peaceful career as a novelist. And after falling hard for Heidi Krohn, the glamorous high-powered lawyer who helped avenge his best friend''s death, Jack is beginning to dream of starting a family of his own.    But dark forces intervene to upend Jack''s comfortable new life. When two of his Uncle Harry''s closest friends are brutally murdered in their own home, Jack swears he will get to the bottom of what could have prompted such a vicious attack. The answers he begins to uncover are shocking. A career criminal, long hidden in the shadows of Abner Brown''s organization, has gone rogue after his benefactor''s death and has made it his mission to get even with the man who ruined Abner: Jack Dana. With the help of his old friends in the CIA, Jack scrambles to bring down this terrifying new threat, and when Heidi and her family are kidnapped, Jack is forced to make the most painful choice of all.     In Killer''s Choice, master stylist Louis Begley returns to Jack''s Upper East Side millieu in full force, reprising familiar characters and introducing memorable new faces, and concluding Jack''s chilling saga with his most violent crescendo to date.

Beloved author Louis Begley returns to the monied halls of the Upper East Side with a sharp new comedy of manners. Divorced after decades of comfortable marriage, retired journalist Hugo Gardner sets out to explore paths not travelled.After four decades of what he believes to be a happy, healthy partnership, Hugo Gardner''s world is overturned when he learns that his wife, Valerie, is not only requesting a divorce but has left him for a younger, more vital man. Hugo, an octogenarian political writer and retired journalist for Time, must rethink the way he''s lived, and reassess how he''d like to spend his remaining years.     Reconsidering past relationships in his mind, with years of distance, Hugo begins to see things in a new light: Valerie, whose youth and ambition eventually came between them; his children, whose support might be more financially than emotionally motivated; and his friends, who, like him are rapidly aging before his very eyes. With an ominous oncologist''s report hanging over his head, Hugo decides to get away for a bit, to a conference in Paris. There, a new romance blooms and Hugo finds himself wondering if growing old in Paris might be the perfect antidote to the drama he left behind in New York.      Unflinching, witty, and urbane as ever, Louis Begley delivers a spot-on satire of the world of New York''s aging elite, and uncovers the unexpected delights a late-in-life change can offer.

Venice for Lovers is a memorable collaboration by two fine stylists who have fashioned their own personal homages to Venice, one with a novella, the other with a personal essay. Every year for all the thirty they have been married, Begley and Muhlstein have escaped to Venice to write. In her contribution to the book, Muhlstein charmingly describes how she and her husband dine at the same restaurant every night for years on end, and how becoming friends with restaurateurs has been an unsurpassed means of getting to know the city and its inhabitants, far from the tourists in San Marco Square. In his short novella, Begley writes a story of falling in love with—and in—Venice. His twenty-year-old protagonist, enamored with an older, far worldlier woman of twenty-seven, is lured by her to the City of Water, only to be unceremoniously dumped and left to fend for himself after a brief rendezvous. But he discovers a lasting love for Venice itself—not an uncommon romance, as Begley’s brilliant literary essay on the city’s place within world literature demonstrates: Henry James, Marcel Proust, and Thomas Mann were all illustrious predecessors.