Coco and Igor

Chris Greenhalgh

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0755300866 ISBN 13: 9780755300860

Casa editrice: Headline Review, 2002

1913. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes premieres Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' in Paris. The infamous firstnight proves to be an electric experience for one member of the audience, the young couturiere Coco Chanel. When she and Stravinsky meet in 1920, both sense a charge, and the exiled composer hesitates over whether to accept the wealthy designer's offer to bring his family to summer at her villa. The Stravinsky entourage - ailing wife Catherine, and four children - arrive, and the composer enjoys a new burst of creative activity. Chanel, meanwhile, is hatching her plan to launch her classic fragrance, No.5. Soon she and her guest embark upon an affair which touches both deeply, but is complicated by their rigid devotion to their work, and Stravinsky's commitment to his family. As Catherine, now confined to her bed, comes to suspect what is happening around her, the two lovers must consider the depth of their feelings, and whether, with the autumn drawing in, theirs is a relationship that can survive.

Recensione:

Extraordinary... the author's descriptive powers are vivid (Midweek)

From the ephemeral liaison of the milliner and the musician, Greenhalgh has elicited a fine, entrancingly poetic novel (Peter Conrad, Observer)

'Chris Greenhaigh's impressively realised novel' Guardian

Chris Greenhalgh brilliantly conveys the atmosphere of tension and sultry passion (Sunday Telegraph)

'Greenhalgh writes convincingly, often sympathetically,about the sensual excitement that briefly unites the pair' Sunday Times

Impressively realised (Guardian)

'As an established poet Greenhalgh writes his debut novel with economy and precision' Guardian

'Chris Greenhalgh makes a remarkable job of spinning this emotional footnote into a plausible fiction' Guardian

Greenhalgh writes convincingly, often sympathetically, about the sensual excitement that briefly unites the pair (Sunday Times)

'An intense account of the brief, electric affair between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky... exquisitely drawn' Sydney Morning Herald

Descrizione del libro:

Perfume, music and passion combine in a portrait of the little-known affair of the century. A sophisticated must-read for aficionados of Chanel's style and Stravinsky's music, full of the romance of Paris and the more exotic appeal of Russia; the heady aroma of No. 5 perfume and the rhythms of the 'Rite of Spring'.