Villa America

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Their marriage, the deep-rooted love between them, is something to behold; and Klaussmann wisely avoids dissecting it too much.

Running parallel is the fictional story of the lonely but charismatic Owen Chambers who originates from a rural American island and whose life eventually becomes entwined with theirs. You can use the Special Requests box when booking, or contact the property directly with the contact details provided in your confirmation. In this gorgeous, glamorous, and affecting novel, Liza Klaussmann does for Sara and Gerald Murphy what Paula McLain and Michael Cunningham did for Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf in The Paris Wife and The Hours. The era is depicted well from the late 1800s when Gerald and Sara meet to the early 1900s when they've established themselves on the French Riviera.Liza Klausmann, bestselling author of TIGERS IN RED WEATHER, transcends the historical biographical novel to present a radiant, engrossing account of Gerald and Sara Murphy, real-life inspirations for the Divers in F. Framing their story through the fictional character of Owen Chambers, a pilot wounded in WWI, whose detachment toward the world hides a yearning to belong somewhere, helps the reader slip into the cocktail-drenched ambiance of this privileged couple, and their carousel friendships with unstable Scott and Zelda Fitgerald - portrayed here with sensitive pathos - virile but judgmental Hemingway and his unhappy wife, Hadley, Don dos Passos, Ellen Barry, and many luminaries of the era.

Suddenly a life in which everything has been considered and exquisitely planned becomes volatile, its safeties breached, the stakes incalculably high. Klaussmann references a few sources of inspiration for the book in the acknowledgments, including this 1962 piece from The New Yorker. Nonetheless, the creation of Owen enables Klaussmann to set up flying as a convincing thematic counterpoint to the more decadent fantasies enacted on the ground.Sara wafts about in a haze of fashion and perfume organising the most amazing parties for these fashionista friends. It’s tricky to create fictional characters out of real people–and well-documented real people, no less–but this book seems to honor them in a surprisingly profound, moving way. The members of the Bloomsbury Group, for example, or the bright young things who cavorted on the Côte d’Azur in the 1920s and 30s: Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, and the “lost generation”. The tragedy that ensues is all the more terrible because of its disturbing formal consonance with the story they have brought into being.