La Passion des Femmes

By Sébastien Japrisot

Book Overview

Sebastien Japrisot is one of the most highly recognized French authors of his time, and his novels have achieved major international success. Set against the backdrop of World War II, Women in Evidence is one of his most breathtaking works to date.Marie Martine's lover is dead. After many years battling to clear his name of a heinous crime she knows he didn't commit, Marie has freed him, only to invite his demise from the most unexpected corner. His name was Christophe, and he had many lovers besides Marie: an actress, a school-teacher, a prostitute, a U.S. Army nurse, a gypsy. Though each has suffered grave hurt by his mercurial affections, their forgiving remembrances, captured by the loyal Marie, are what save him from certain doom in the jailer's noose. But which one could not forgive? Which one fired the shot that killed Christophe, leaving him to die on a deserted beach, only moments after his pardon? Japrisot expertly weaves the women's voices to piece together a story that, though distorted by the contradictions of memory, reveals valuable truths about love and human nature. Women in Evidence is a rich and tragic tale of the extraordinary resilience of the female heart that is sure to be welcomed warmly by American readers.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 051756940X
• ISBN13: 9780517569405
• Release Date: October 1990
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

"...the Seductive Soul of a Classic Noir Mystery......."

...The above quotation is from this novel's back cover and very suitable, this story seduces the reader as completely as the main character seduces the women he meets. "Women in Evidence" is an intriguing and original mystery opening with a young man dying on a beach from gunshot wounds in his chest, his true identity and killer is the puzzle that will keep you turning the pages of this very erotic adventure set during the 2nd World War. The story is told by 7 different narrators, all women with irresistible obsessions for him, each knows him by a different name & identity. Each writes a testimony of her experiences with "the man on the beach" at the behest of his lawyer, Marie-Martine Lepage, herself the 8th & final narrator in the book and also yet another lover from his past. The women's stories seem to contradict each other - Emma , Belinda, Zozo, Caroline, Frou-Frou, Yoko, Toledo, Marie-Martine give varied accounts of the same man, some wanting to save him, others to kill him. The reader is left to pass judgement on the character of Christophe (or whoever) as he escapes from prison and kidnaps a young bride on her wedding night then is shot on the beach for rejecting her, hidden in a brothel by prostitutes, escapes by sea with an actress after punishing a schoolteacher, shipwrecked on a desert island, recovers in an army hospital, captured & returned to France to face his original crimes of rape & murder. All along, he claims to have been falsely accused of the crimes he was charged with.The ending was a surprise and very appropriate.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Sebastien Japrisot is a world class writer who remains surprisingly unknown in the U.S. His works are usually-I think quite inappropriately-assigned to the Suspense genre. To say Japrisot is a suspense writer is akin to describing an aircraft carrier as a boat-it's technically correct but doesn't begin to fully communicate the reality of the situation.Women in evidence is a case in point. This is a novel of enormous complexity. At heart it is about loves as obsession-irrational, lustful, confining, explosive obsession. All of these facets of love as obsession are explored through a series of vignettes concerning-presumably, though one is never really certain-one man's relationships with a series of women as related by the women. We know that what is about to transpire will be highly charged and volatile as we met this fellow at to opening of the novel. He is running along a beach, bleeding profusely from a gun shot wound. Fallen on the beach, he reflects on his situation and how he got there-leading us into the stories that follow.Although all relatively short, the stories themselves are highly charged, compelling, consuming and sufficiently detailed and well constructed as to seems to be stand alone tales unrelated to one another-yet, there runs throughout the series tantalizing tidbits that seem to tie them all together as fragments of the same man's history. But are they? And if so, which one explains his extreme situation on the beach?This is one of the most original and complex novels I've ever read. I was completely absorbed and beguiled by it from cover to cover. Like Japrisot's other best works, reading Women in Evidence is physically and intellectually demanding experience, well worth the time and effort for those willing to take the plunge.Dive in and revel in the mystery.(In the interests of full disclosure, for those who think the title of this review seems familiar, it is a quote by Churchill. Once, when asked to explain Russia, he replied "One cannot. Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma".)

If you have any illusions about being a writer...

then read this book. Interesting weaving of plot among many different points of view. The book begins with a man on a beach with the tide coming in. He's laying there wondering if the tide will take his body out to sea after he dies. He can't remember exactly how he got here, and who it was that shot him.Chapter break to a desposition from a woman who tells us what she knows about this man. He's an escaped convict and her lover. Chapter break to another deposition: he wasn't the first woman's lover; he barely knew the first woman; he is this woman's lover. And so on.Japrisot does an excellent job of weaving the story and giving you just enough information to form the story in your mind of what really happened.Excellent read (as is A Very Long Engagement, also by Japrisot). Well worth the price.

Enough Evidence To Know What A Good Book This Is.

Women, a matter of importance in this world, the subject of this book. Allthough it's hidden in a very interesting plot (which I'd like to explain completely, but I cannot, for I'd be spoiling all the fun). It's about a woman searching for answers to her life and everything in it, specially about her lover, and who he was and what became of him, in the second World War. I am a man, a lover of women, and really feel like I got to know them by reading this wonderful novel. It reminds me of plays, like "The Blue Room", because of the importance of the charactersns: a lot of them are displayed so we can learn of ourselves and the world we live in. Buy it, read it. Enjoy it as I did.