The Pleasing Hour

Lily King's "The Pleasing Hour" is an amazing book. The sensitively drawn portraits of the protagonist and all the characters--including the children--cast light on individual and cultural difference, and on how one young American's ideas of identity and self-discovery contrast with the French family and environment in which she makes her new home. King captures these subtle differences in language, thought, and self-conception while telling an engaging, and at times harrowing, family story. There is a dash of humor, too, and just plain good writing. It's a fabulous read.

The Pleasing Hour is a magical mystery ride into the every-day dynamics of a French family's life on a house boat in Paris. The protagonist is attempting to escape from an inescapable experience after high school graduation in the United States. We see the beauty and etheral nature of Paris through her artist's eyes. We learn to live and love through her. I define a tour-de-force as a book that grabs hold of you with its language, its characters, its depiction of environment as an extention of the characters and plot. It describes a reader's ultimate joy: picking up a book and being totally transported into another, more powerful and meaningful reality. If Lily King never writes another book, it doesn't matter. This is a classic. It is a self-contained work of art/pleasure. Bravo.

Lily King's first novel opens up like a flower might in the southern town of Plaire where her first chapter is set. The rearrangements of time and place that King juggles allow for constantly changing points of view, until at the end of the short novel the reader sees below the surface of things. The prose is remarkable for its clarity and freshness. I look forward to reading it a second time and to introducing it to others.

It is a rare and gratifying feeling to be as transported by a book as I was by The Pleasing Hour. How lovingly and accurately Ms. King renders Paris as well as her characters. It seems hard to imagine that any demanding reader would not admire the poetic, honest language, the seductive and sad and ultimately liberating atmosphere of the story, the wonderful tale itself. This is a book to savor and reread.

Lily King's, The Pleasing Hour, brings you into a world that is at once familiar and compelling. The novel's subject, a young woman's struggle with her ties to her only family member (her older sister) and her personal and instinctive needs, covers many issues: infertility, adoption, marital dynamics, what we leave behind during the transition to adulthood. Rosie, the protagonist, is a complex character who is painted so completely in the novel that you can easily feel yourself inside her head. Ms. King perfectly captures the angst of the late teenage years, compounded by Rosie's unique situation. All of the characters are robust and interesting. Their voices are all believable and equally fascinating. I would have loved to read the story over from any character's perspective. The novel is written in a tight, beautiful prose. The descriptions are ones you want to read again and again, and the story flows easily through many twists. There is an exotic feel to the novel, which is set in Europe and moves from modern day to earlier in the century. I have not been so moved and transported by a novel in a long time. Ms. King is a talented storyteller. She provides the perfect balance of intimate details with a believable and compelling storyline. Her descriptions and characters remain in my head, and I look forward to reading more of her work.