"A modern collision of French and American mores begins in near farce but ends in tragedy in Johnson's bright, unsparing novel... Johnson is especially good at catching the class-bound, cool, utter self- assurance of the French upper classes, and the determinedly frank, aggressive innocence of their American counterparts... A shrewd, carefully detailed portrait of the ways in which Americans and the French continue to romanticize, denigrate, and misapprehend each other, contained in a well-paced, believably dramatic narrative."--Kirkus Reviews

"Social comedy at its best."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"One savors each page... If one were to cross Jane Austen and Henry James, the result would be Diane Johnson."--San Francisco Chronicle