MEN OF GOOD WILL

LES HOMMES DE BONNE VOLONTE has probably attracted more widespread attention than any other modern French work of fiction. The first two volumes of this stupendous work are here translated admirably and published in one volume of over 145,000 words. Book I -- The Sixth of October, takes the reader into the heart and soul of Paris in 1908, through cross-sectioning the panorama its varied types of society present. In this way the main characters are introduced, -- a wealthy bourgeois family, a Deputy and his mistress, a pretty actress, a school-master eager to plant the germs of present reality in the minds of his scholars, hesitant little Madame Juliette, the bookbinder, Quinette, who becomes inextricably involved in criminal procedures, and the apprentice, to whom the book of love is opened for the first time... Book II -- Quinette's Crime, draws the threads together, with a central motive which is the psychological study of murder. Each episode is packed with significance and drama, and the translator has succeeded in capturing the essence of the original, the flavor of Paris through the meticulous detail, introduced as an integral part of the whole. The characterizations are amazingly vivid. As a unified story, it seems to take over long to get under way, but the bypaths have a captivating charm of their own. Not an easy book to sell, but a book which should have a place with your discriminating clientele, and with those who enjoy savoring the foreigness of an authentic picture.