The carousel of desire

From the author of The Most Beautiful Book in the World, a literary tour de force of contemporary eroticism. "This message is just to say I love you. Signed: You know who." A love note is delivered anonymously to each inhabitant of Piazza Guy d'Arezzo in Brussels one morning, triggering a series of adventures and misadventures that, over 600 pages, develop into a sumptuous comedy of manners that is sexy, sensual, affecting, encyclopaedic, and unlike anything written previously by Schmitt. Employing a roving camera technique that recalls both the stylish cinematic tradition of French New Wave and the films by Fellini and Antonioni, The Carousel of Desire is a sexual and romantic saga told with a master storyteller's feel for character and plot, and a philosopher's abiding preoccupation with what makes life truly worthwhile. Schmitt tells a colourful tale about class and community, about the varieties of human experience. His love of coincidence and serendipity is surpassed only by his affection for his all-too-human characters: Zachary Bidermann, the powerful E.U. commissioner; Faustina, the fashionable book publicist; Franc¸ois-Maxime de Couvigne, the happily married banker with more than a few secrets; Marcelle, enamoured of a handsome illegal immigrant; and Miss Beauvert, who makes love with her parrot, Copernicus. These and many more unforgettable characters animate this story of simmering desire and mischievous Eros.