Overview

Britain's most passionate Francophile takes us on a wonderfully rich, witty tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the life story of the pioneering surgeon Samuel Pozzi *SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARDS 2020* 'A bravura performance, highly entertaining' Evening Standard The Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending takes us on a rich, witty tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the life story of the pioneering surgeon Samuel Pozzi. In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent's greatest portraits. The commoner was Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker - a scientific man with a famously complicated private life. Pozzi's life played out against the backdrop of the Parisian Belle Epoque. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more often showed its ugly side- hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine. **SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2019**

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9781529112313

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Reviews

Julian Barnes's wonderful The Man in the Red Coat surges round Belle Epoque Paris... a story full of digressions, white peacocks, missing limbs, amusing adverbs and fantastic clothes. An absolute tonic for grey winter days. -- Claire Harman * Evening Standard *Books of the Year* * The Belle Epoque is brought to life through three colourful lives in this sparkling account stuffed with top fin-de-siecle tittle-tattle. -- Robbie Millen and James Marriott * The Times *The Best Books of 2019* * Do not google Samuel Jean Pozzi. If you want to enjoy Julian Barnes's The Man in the Red Coat - and believe me, it's teeming with delights - stay away from search engines and trust the author to tell the story in his own way... punctuated by the sound of gunshot...[this is a] brilliant, defiantly unconventional book. -- Adam Begley * Spectator * One of his best books, very handsomely published too... [The Man in the Red Coat is] a bravura performance, highly entertaining. -- David Sexton * Evening Standard, Book of the Week * What a deliciously intelligent entertainment this is, couched in a prose of enviable suppleness... a master is at work here. -- Rupert Christiansen * Daily Telegraph *

Author Information

Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and three books of non-fiction, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life and Nothing To Be Frightened Of, which won the 2021 Yasnaya Polyana Prize in Russia. In 2017 he was awarded the Legion d'honneur.

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