Volume 30, Number 19 · December 8, 1983
In the Family Way
By Mary McCarthy
Marthe
Editions du Seuil (Paris), 345 pp., 65F; 30F (paper)
This collection of family letters—found, we are told, in various château-attics—constitutes a family portrait that may be representative, though one hesitates to think so, of an entire social class and period. The exchange of letters covers ten years—1892 to 1902—and considerable territory, from Normandy across to Burgundy and down to the Alpes-Maritimes and the Hérault, but has a single, compelling center of interest, Marthe de Montbourg, the pathological 'case' who is causing so much ink to flow among her relations.
Review, 2105 words
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