Giveaway and Review of From the Fifteenth District

Because as a lover of France and all things French, and because I've been reviewing books all my career as a librarian, I sometimes offer to highlight appealing titles on this blog. When I saw the evocative cover of From the Fifteenth District as a part of a Blog Tour organized by France Book Tours, I was hooked. I frequently do judge an unfamiliar book by its cover, and this one said, "Read me!" I didn't realize it's a collection of nine literary short stories, as I'm not usually attracted to that genre, but I'm glad the cover drew me in. Gallant is an elegant writer who deftly describes WWII Europe and its mostly English expatriate denizens. Gallant herself became a Canadian expatriate writer lived most of her life in Paris.

While not a "beach read," Gallant's prose is worthy of savoring and rereading. Her turn of phrase and diction echo times past and put you there, in that time and place of a Europe confused and altered by war.

If you are a fan of the quality short stories published in The New Yorker, you will enjoy this collection. The magazine published more than one hundred of Gallant's stories over the years.

Highly recommended and a five-star literary read.
(I received an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)

Author Mavis Gallant

on Tour

January 6-15, 2015

with

From the Fifteenth District
(short stories ñ literary fiction)

Release date: December 16, 2014
at Open Road Integrated Media

242 pages

ISBN: 978-1-4976-8507-9

Goodreads

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SYNOPSIS

Even as we grow and change, the consequences of what we have left behind often linger

Mavis Gallant has a unique talent for distilling the sense of otherness one feels abroad into something tangible and utterly understandable. In this collection, she relates the stories of those stranded in relationships, places, and even times in which they donít belong.

In The Moslem Wife a woman is entrusted to look after a hotel in France when her husband is trapped in America after the breakout of World War II. As the situation progresses, the two grow in surprising and profound ways. In another tale, a German prisoner of war is released from France and returns home to a mother whose personality has been as irrevocably changed by the war as his has. In one of the most poignant entries, Gallant follows the life of a Holocaust survivor, illustrating how his experiences tint his outlook on life forty years later.

With its wide breadth of subject matter and the author's characteristic way with nuance, From the Fifteenth District is classic Mavis Gallant. [provided by the publisher]

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PRAISE FOR
FROM THE FIFTEENTH DISTRICT

From the Fifteenth District] is a splendidly written work, full of nuance and personality and compellingly evocative detail.--Canadian Literature

A fine-tuned and elegant collection.--Kirkus Reviews

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In 1952 Mavis Gallant (1922-2014) left a successful career as a journalist in Montreal
to live independently as a writer of fiction in Europe.
She had gained international recognition in 1951
when she was published in the New Yorker,
which in subsequent years released over one hundred of her short stories,
most of which are set in European cities or Montreal.
Random House published twelve volumes of her work.
Gallant was awarded the 1981 Governor Generalís Award for Home Truths,
the 2002 Rea Award for the Short Story,
and the 2004 PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement.
She was a companion of the Order of Canada, the countryís highest honor.
After traveling widely in Europe, in 1960 Gallant settled in Paris, where she died in 2014.
The Journals of Mavis Gallant: 1952ñ1969 is tentatively scheduled for publication by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015.

See more books by Mavis Gallant.

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Click on Entry-Form to enter the giveaway:

Giveaway Entry-Form

Visit each blogger on the tour:
tweeting about the giveaway everyday of the Tour
will give you 5 extra entries each time!
[just follow the directions on the entry-form]

US only giveaway:
your choice of kindle/epub of this book

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