The Beautiful American

By: Jeanne Mackin

Narrated by: Kate Reading

From Paris in the1920s to London after the Blitz, two women find that a secret from their past reverberates through years of joy and sorrow.

As recovery from World War II begins, expatriate American NoraTours travels from her home in southern France to London in search of her missing 16-year-old daughter. There she unexpectedly meets up with an oldacquaintance, famous model-turned-photographer Lee Miller. Neither has emergedfrom the war unscathed. Nora is racked with the fear that her efforts tosurvive under the Vichy regime may have cost her daughter's life. Lee suffersfrom what she witnessed as a war correspondent photographing the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.

Nora and Lee knew each other in the heady days of late 1920s Paris, when Nora was giddy with love for her childhood sweetheart, Lee became the celebrated mistress of the artist Man Ray, and Lee's magnetic beauty drew them all into the glamorous lives of famous artists and their wealthy patrons.

But Lee fails to realize that her friendship with Nora is even older, that it goes back to their days as children in Poughkeepsie, New York, when a devastating trauma marked Lee forever. Will Nora's reunion with Lee give them achance to forgive past betrayals and break years of silence to forge a meaningful connection as women who have shared the best and the worst that life can offer?

A novel of freedom and frailty, desire and daring, The Beautiful American portrays the extraordinary relationship between two passionate, unconventional women.

©2014 Jeanne Mackin (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks

Difficult to review

I found this book difficult to review because there were aspects that I loved and others that were plain annoying.
The good: an interesting view into pre war France with true to life characters who mingled with the fame of the day.
The not terrible but certainly not so good: the focus was so narrowly directed on the narrating protagonists it lost the opportunity to develop some very interesting support characters.
The biggest negative: the performance kept an unfaltering cadence with each sentence dropping to a droll. This is a technique that would have been very effective had it not been a drip drip drip The affect became just plain annoying.
All and all I enjoy the book but would not go out of my way to recommend it.

Beautiful story, beautifully read

This heartfelt novel of love, loss and the resilience of the soul had me from the first words. There is a missing daughter, romance in Paris, tragedy, death, war, remembrance and love regained. Underlying it all is the fragrance of perfume, unusual in a book, but there it is. Kate Reading is, as always, impeccible. The only thing I did not like about this book was that it had to end.

Decent

It took a long while to figure out what the plot was, like more than half the book. Then it got interesting. I would say this was a little better than average. it was really hard to tell who the protagonist was.

So beautiful

Intense, intimate, interesting. It’s been a long time since I’ve read such a well written novel in a modern work. It piqued my desire to delve into that history. How fascinating.

great story of World War II

the principal of this story gives great insight into the pre world war II Paris as expat Americans

Insightful food for thought

Wonderful insight on coping after tragedy from historical fiction . It's long so try to put yourself in both characters place and think about the time and social norms in America and Europe between 1929 and 1949.

Bereft

It has been a while since I felt bereft at the end of a book, but that’s exactly how I felt upon finishing “The Beautiful American.” I won’t get over this story and the characters for some time—and I don’t want to. I will carry them with me.

Excellent Story -- Narrator Okay

This story passes my personal "good book" test because I miss some of the characters now that I'm finished with it. The time period and geographical area covered is different from most books involving WWII, so that was also nice. The limited amount about the perfume trade was also interesting.

Wonderful Story

A very pleasant and engaging read. Loved the setting around World War II Paris involving the social life of the Expat artists. Good performance also.

Beautiful, enchanting

Loved it-took me away!
Sentimental and sometimes predictable, but the characters and history was pleasing and I found myself caring for the Nora.