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THE YELLOW SUMMER by Suzanne Prou

THE YELLOW SUMMER

By

Pub Date: May 3rd, 1972
Publisher: Harper & Row

Mlle. Savelli (1971) appeared as a novel of suspense although Mme. Prou had an earlier Pr/x Femina. This is less than either subsisting on interior innuendos which sometimes veer to the right of obsession or the left of possession. At the Villa Blanche old friends -- Genevieve (the narrator), Etienne and Pauline (man and wife) -- meet each summer with Camille. She's a vexation they cosset, a little like a broken fingernail -- alluring, perverse, and extravagant. She's also the cynosure of their attentive and censorious speculations -- does she have a lover? where does she go in the afternoon? why did she once seduce Etienne? Finally Genevieve appropriates Camille's identity altogether (along with Etienne) or perhaps it's the other way around. Ali of it spirals off on a smoke ring of tapered conjecture -- it's just that insubstantial.