Volume 50, Number 20 · December 18, 2003
Vive la Différence
By Jennifer Schuessler
L'Affaire
by Diane Johnson
Dutton, 340 pp., $24.95
In 1999, when the French government passed its new civil union law, known as the Pacte civil de solidarité, or PACS, many of the legal benefits of marriage were extended to those linked in a whole new range of attachments: same-sex couples, elderly maiden sisters, even celibate priests and their housekeepers. But it turns out the law may yet have another, more unexpected class of beneficiaries: fans of Diane Johnson's breezy, knowing fictions of Americans abroad and the (mostly) French men and women entwined with them in bonds of bafflement, exasperation, and delight.
Review, 1638 words
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