Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Victorine by Catherine Texier - Available

Victorine

by Catherine Texier
Josephine Bailey
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
In this lush, lyrical, and marvelously evocative novel, Catherine Texier takes a mystery from her family’s past and draws from it a portrait of a remarkable woman—her great-grandmother Victorine. A young schoolteacher in a quiet province in France, Victorine had married and had two children. But when she falls desperately in love, she makes a startling choice, leaving her family for her lover and a new life in Indochina.
On a single day in 1940, as Victorine reflects on her past, we travel back with her, from the willow-lined canals of her childhood home in Vendée to sun-drenched days and languorous nights along the Mekong River at the dawn of the twentieth century. Hers is an unforgettable story of adventure and self-discovery—of a woman’s struggle between duty and independence, tradition and freedom, longing and regret.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 8, 2004

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415951965
      • File size: 319085 KB
      • Duration: 11:04:45

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      As a child, Victorine meets a boy who returns each summer to the beach where her family vacations. As an adult, the man returns to her life, but she is married to another man and has two children. She leaves her responsibilities behind and travels to Indochina with her love--where her life takes on both pleasures and pressing guilt. This is where reader Josephine Bailey takes over and guides us through the Mekong Delta, Saigon, and the French colonization of that area before it became the battleground we remember. Bailey's French is impeccable, and her other accents and voices are also faultlessly spoken. She reads this story with such clarity that one can clearly understand the reasons the French wanted to control Vietnam. J.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 15, 2004
      Texier, author of the 1998 memoir Breakup
      and three previous novels (Panic Blood
      , etc.), spins a steely, delicate fictional tale of unaccounted-for years in the life of her own great-grandmother, Victorine, who was rumored to have run off with a customs officer in the late 1890s, leaving behind her husband and two children in Vendée, France. Victorine first met Antoine when she was 16; she was soon to become the youngest teacher in France, and he was intent on venturing to one of the French colonies. As Victorine settles into her work, she meets dark-eyed fellow teacher Armand Texier and pushes Antoine into the recesses of her memory. She and Armand marry in a hurry when Victorine becomes pregnant, but years later, Victorine meets Antoine again and plans rendezvous with him, feeling a "shameful pleasure at the idea that her secret evened out the power" between herself and her womanizing husband. After some deliberation, Victorine agrees to leave her family to move to Indochina with Antoine, where he guarantees to "show a world that will fall in love with." She leaves without confronting her husband or children, and immediately begins to feel regret. As she wrestles with the prospect of contacting her sister, who also lives in Indochina, or even her family back in Vendée, Victorine remains entrenched in a "split reality" where she must convince herself that the present can, in fact, always be reinvented. Texier offers seamless transitions between the past and present, and even the future as an older Victorine reflects upon her days in the Mekong Delta. Lurking questions of empire and expansion lend an extra dimension to this bittersweet romance, reminiscent both of Madame Bovary
      and Duras's The Lover
      , making plain the temptations and risks of expanding beyond one's borders. Agent, Joy Harris. (Apr. 20)

      Forecast:
      Texier is best known for her memoir of her breakup with her husband, with whom she co-edited the literary magazine
      Between C & D. This book should reach a broader readership than her previous novels, and give her a fresh start in the fiction arena.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Catherine Texier has taken a page from her family history to create a portrait of her great-grandmother, Victorine, as she leaves her husband and children to follow her lover to Indochina. Jurian Hughes runs with this lyrical novel and weaves a spell around the couple as they build a new life, all while conveying Victorine's anguish at leaving behind her family. Hughes's airy voice communicates clearly the struggles and passions the couple feel, the hardships they endure, and the conflicted feelings at the heart of the story. From the stifling household Victorine leaves behind to the equally stifling heat of Southeast Asia, Hughes is at home reading this Victorian love story. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading
Check Out What's Being Checked Out Right Now