
The Man in the Red Coat (Paperback)
Julian Barnes (author)- 10+ in stock

In this dazzling study of Belle Epoque Paris, Julian Barnes trains his novelist’s eye on the life of Samuel Pozzi – a maverick nineteenth-century surgeon, free-thinker and bon viveur.
Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Novel Award 2020
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 with an Italian name, 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 rational and 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, a time of rampant prejudice and blood-and-soil nativism, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine.
The Man in the Red Coat is at once a fresh and original portrait of the Belle Epoque - its heroes and villains, its writers, artists and thinkers - and a life of a man ahead of his time. Witty, surprising and deeply researched, the new book from Julian Barnes illuminates the fruitful and longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France, and makes a compelling case for keeping that exchange alive.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781529112313
Number of pages: 280
Weight: 449 g
Dimensions: 199 x 130 x 22 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'He paints a fin de siècle landscape of languid princesses, expensive whores, orgiastic balls…wit and a lot of gossip.' - The Times
'What a deliciously intelligent entertainment this is, couched in a prose of enviable suppleness... a master is at work here.' - Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph'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
'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
'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
'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
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