Liza Klaussmann's novel is about the real owners of the real Villa America in Antibes, a resort town between Cannes and Nice on the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur). Gerald and Sara Wiborg Murphy were fabulously wealthy expatriates who hosted such well-knowns as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter and Pablo Picasso at the home they built there, Villa America (which sadly, no longer seems to exist), in the 1920s.

Gerald had a brief career as a painter (I rather like his stuff), and apparently had bisexual tendencies. Klaussmann explores this with the one entirely fictional character in the book, another American ex-pat, a pilot she calls Owen Chambers. According to the author's note at the end, a (real) champagne-and-caviar party at Villa America in Hemingway's honor required that the caviar be flown in from the Caspian Sea - and that was the inspiration for Owen.

Ultimately, none of the characters in the book are particularly sympathetic - it's hard to feel sorry for people so well-off, even when they hit some hard times from 1929 on. The last part of the book zips through the years 1930 through 1937 almost entirely with letters between characters, as the dream world of Villa America is virtually gone.

However, it was nice to learn a little more about this couple who have appeared in other novels I've read in the past few years (such as The Paris Wife and Mrs. Hemingway). Actress Jennifer Woodward gives a very precise reading as the audiobook narrator.

© Amanda Pape - 2018

[The audiobook, and a print copy for reference, were borrowed from and returned to my local public library.] ( )

The Golden Age of 1920's cultural scene is well revealed in this novel with main characters Sara and Gerald Murphy whose friends include F.Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemmingway,. Wealth and it's lifestyle in France dominates this novel as does marriage, homosexuality, drinking and family.
I did find that the middle section dragged on and then at the end the conclusion is rushed as if the author quickly decided to finish it. ( )

Gave up. Predictable and wooden set up of london society and then WW2 links.

Am I the only one to find these "fascinating" characters less than fascinating? Aside from the circles in which they revolve, with the famous people they hobnob with, what's so interesting about them?

In addition, the characters and their conflicts I found irritating after a while. They have money, they have luxurious lifestyles, they paint, they bathe, they drink. I didn't find their crises, such as they were -- am I bisexual? I love my wife but I have to have my fling -- all that compelling. ( )

Best Bits of the Lost Generation

Liza Klaussmann has done a terrific job in concentrating the lives of Sara and Gerald Murphy into their most dramatic decade of the 1920's when they "invented" the Riviera and played host to everyone from Hadley, Pauline and Ernest Hemingway, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Olga and Pablo Picasso, Ada and Archibald MacLeish, John Dos Passos and many others.

Gerald's possible repressed bisexuality is given an invented character of pilot Owen Chambers to fall in love with. This serves to create an additional dramatic tension whereas otherwise the tale might focus too much on a life of "dinner-flowers-gala."

Klassmann has a lot of sources to choose from given how well documented Hemingway's and Fitzgerald's lives are. It was especially great to see Zelda's infamous one-line review of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: "a lot of bullfighting, bull slinging and bullshitting.”

Further recommended reading on the Murphys:
Living Well Is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins
Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story by Amanda Vaill ( )