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Clean Start
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About the Book“Australian writer Page knows her characters well and renders her setting—the last glow of Paris as an artists’s wonderland—with a few brief, but resoundingly bittersweet passages.” —Kirkus Reviews A remarkable novel—in paperback for the first time—with superb characterization and atmosphere and a story that will resonate with readers. Set in 1960s Paris where its storied Bohemia barely clings and the new wave of feminism has yet to take hold. Men flaunt their manhood, often indulged by their women. Jane, a young, insecure and unliberated Australian, goes too far in overlooking her English husband Tom’s blatantly philandering ways and his obsession with rating women’s legs: based on a scale of 100. One cold winter night in a café, a stunning woman sits down opposite the couple and reveals legs that immediately win Tom’s highest score. It turns out the stranger, Sally, is Australian, lonely and adrift. Jane invites her home to their dilapidated artist’s studio in Montparnasse where they discover how much of an outsider Sally really is. A bizarre relationship develops among the three. This is a gender-bending novel, filled with comic moments, which deals with problems of sexuality, married love, creativity, identity, and self-determination. Jane and Tom’s world is upended by Sally, and by turns the story is funny and sad. It shows the bittersweet quality of Jane and Tom’s relationship, a strong nostalgic picture of a Paris now vanished, and the misadventures of Sally, an extraordinary character who leads a hedonistic and transitory lifestyle. About the AuthorPatricia Margaret Page was born in Brisbane, and moved to Sydney and then the South Pacific where her family had plantations. After graduating from university she traveled to Europe twice. During the second trip, she visited Paris for a weekend and “stayed the rest of my life.” There she met and married Alan Page, an English poet. They have two daughters. |
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