Unruly Passions of Eugenie R

"An unflinching portrait of love and loss against a landscape of Parisian decadence. ‘How does a woman learn to doubt herself? Eugénie R. wonders, but at the conclusion of this satisfying tale, she — and DeSanti — have won the reader's unwavering admiration." — Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches

“Epic times make for epic books … Wonderful, suspenseful reading.” — Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

“Second Empire Paris, greedy in peacetime and ravenous in war, is so richly and sensuously drawn one can almost feel it … Perhaps if her contemporary, Emma Bovary, had possessed the ingenuity, wit, and tenacity of Eugénie R., she wouldnt have had to take that arsenic.” — Valerie Martin, author of Property

“Against a carefully recreated landscape of France during the 1860s, with the Prussian army heading for Paris, DeSanti brings a twenty-first-century sensitivity for the plight and passions of women in her rendering of Eugénie.” — Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Dont Get Fat

"Against a carefully recreated landscape of France and the City of Lights during the 1860s, with the Prussian army heading for Paris, DeSanti brings a 21st-century sensitivity for the plight and passions of women in her rendering of Eugénie and the women and men she comes to travel (and drink) among."

-- Mireille Guiliano, internationally best-selling author of French Women Dont Get Fat   "Lord! This is a great piece of work. The heroine, Eugénie Rigault, is completely maddening, of course -- which makes for great plot. She lives up in her head even as her boots are in the mud of desperation, and her loves and lovers have layers on layers -- just as does the society DeSanti makes on the page. How beautifully this is written. How rare that is to discover on the page."   -- Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out Of Carolina   "Epic times make for epic books. The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. is both sweeping in scope and painstaking in detail. Eugénie R.'s story, from naive goosegirl to resilient survivor, makes for wonderful, suspenseful reading, but tumultuous Paris is equally compelling, laid out here by DeSanti in all her grisly or gorgeous glory. If you love a novel that brings a place and time alive again, this one is for you. If you love a novel of character and adversity, again, here it is."

-- Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

"A sweeping, fascinating epic full of drama and beauty."—Publishers Weekly

"The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. is as much a personal meditation on womens emotional and professional tradeoffs as it is a sweeping saga of the decadent Paris that spawned Madame Bovary.… Dont read this fiercely intelligent novel if you simply want a good love story dressed up in period clothes. Read it for the complex sexual politics, lush language, and mirror onto our own excessive, heedless times."—Sheri Holman, author of The Dress Lodger

"The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. is an arresting tale of what it meant to survive as a woman in 19th-century France. With spare, powerful prose Carole DeSanti's debut novel paints an unflinching portrait of love and loss against a landscape of Parisian decadence." — Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches

"Epic times make for epic books. The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. is both sweeping in scope and painstaking in detail. Eugénie R.'s story, from naive goosegirl to resilient survivor, makes for wonderful, suspenseful reading, but tumultuous Paris is equally compelling, laid out here by DeSanti in all her grisly or gorgeous glory." — Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

"Against a carefully recreated landscape of France and the City of Lights during the 1860s, with the Prussian army heading for Paris, DeSanti brings a 21st-century sensitivity for the plight and passions of women in her rendering of Eugénie and the women and men she comes to travel (and drink) among." —Mireille Guiliano, internationally best-selling author of French Women Dont Get Fat

"Reading The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. is like entering a lush dream filled with beauty and brutality. This astonishing debut is a panoramic story of war and peace, love and betrayal, innocence and hard-won wisdom, told through the eyes of a compelling woman who kept me at her side through it all." —Lauren Belfer, author of A Fierce Radiance

"So richly and sensuously drawn one can almost feel it . . . Perhaps if [Eugénie's] contemporary, Emma Bovary, had possessed the ingenuity, wit, and tenacity of Eugénie R., Madame B. wouldnt have had to take that arsenic." — Valerie Martin, author of The Confessions of Edward Day

"Lord! This is a great piece of work. How beautifully this is written. How rare that is to discover on the page." — Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out Of Carolina

"A magnificent novel in scope and achievement, powerfully written yet delicately evocative." — Fay Weldon

"Don't wait for the movie. Read The Crimson Petal and the White now, while it's still a living, laughing, sweating, coruscating mass of gorgeous words. . . . Words say things even bodies can't. And that's why a book like this is even better than sex."-Time

"A big, sexy, bravura novel that is destined to be surpassingly popular . . . Dear Reader, the author has unpretentiously revived the spirit of the [19th century's] broad, socially conscious narrative tableau."-Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Nothing could have prepared readers for the sweep and subtlety of The Crimson Petal and the White."-The New York Times Book Review

"A lasting love affair; the intimate relationship one develops with the characters after reading for 834 pages is much more satisfying than the mere one-night-stand promised by other novels."-People

"Cocky and brilliant, amused and angry, the author is rightfully earning comparisons to observer extraordinaire Charles Dickens. . . . It's hopeless to resist."-Entertainment Weekly

"This year's most entertaining novel."-The Boston Globe

"Michel Faber is a strong, moral voice, and this first novel promises great things for the future."--The Wall Street Journal

"A fascinating book . . . The fantastic is so nicely played against the day-to-day that one feels the strangeness of both. . . . Remarkable."--The New York Times Book Review

"An extraordinary book that touches on the most profound issues of the human condition."--The Times (London)

"Superb . . . A novel of real force, filled with unforgettable sights . . . A profoundly entertaining and intelligent book."--Elle

"[A] colorful romp of a novel . . . Impossible to resist. Donoghue paints a spirited picture. . . . Fabulous."--The New York Times Book Review

"Intelligent and mesmerizing."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This book rocks from the title on. A spectacular job."--USA Today

"What a great read this book is! Donoghue is a real writer, and she's elevated her racy story close to art."--The Washington Post Book World

"[A] transporting read."--Mademoiselle

What begins as an archetypal story of a lover's betrayal and a young woman's coming-of-age opens into a dramatic exploration of the contrary requirements of a woman's survivial. Along the way, Eugénie bears and abandons her illegitimate daughter, falls in love with a woman,and enlists the support of some savvy friends, who help her to recreate herself amidst the various impossibilities of that time. Set against the backdrop of war and social upheaval, the novel expores doubt, compromise, commerce and friendship. As Eugénie navigates conflicting love affairs and comes closer to reclaiming the daughter she gave up, she begins to understand her own powers and learns how to use them for what she genuinely desires.

   Eugénie R., born in Frances foie gras country, follows the man she loves to Paris, but soon finds herself marooned, pregnant, and penniless. She gives birth to a daughter she is forced to abandon and spends the next ten years fighting to get her back. An outcast, Eugénie takes to the streets, navigating her way up from ruin and charting the treacherous waters of sexual commerce. Along the way she falls in love with an artist, a woman, and a revolutionary. The capital, the gleaming center of art and civilization in Europe, is enjoying its final years of wanton prosperity before galloping headlong into the Franco-Prussian War. For Eugénie it is a conflicted landscape—grisly, evocative, and addictive. As the gates of the city close against the advancing army, Eugénie must make a decision between past and present—between the people she loves most.

   The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. is a testament to the power of love, friendship, and the art of self-creation.

Love and war converge in this lush, epic story of a young womans coming of age during and after Frances Second Empire (1860-1871), an era that was absinthe-soaked, fueled by railway money and prostitution, and transformed by cataclysmic social upheaval.

Eugénie R., born in foie gras country, follows the man she loves to Paris but soon finds herself marooned. An outcast, she charts the treacherous waters of sexual commerce on a journey through artists ateliers and pawnshops, zinc bars and luxurious bordellos. Giving birth to a daughter she is forced to abandon, Eugénie spends the next ten years fighting to get her back, falling in love along the way with an artist, a woman, and a revolutionary. Then, as the gates of the city close on the eve of the Siege of Paris, Eugénie comes face to face with her past. Drawn into a net of desire and need, promises and lies, she must make a choice and find her way to a life that she can call her own.

"Eugénie R.s story drops us into the dark velvety centers of sex, sin, and political intrigue, and takes us along on her own instinctive journey to modern womanhood." — Lynn Hunt, Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History, UCLA

"This astonishing debut is a panoramic story of war and peace, love and betrayal, innocence and hard-won wisdom." — Lauren Belfer, author of A Fierce Radiance

A young woman follows the man she loves to Paris and finds, amid the wildness of Second Empire luxury and treachery, many loves to win and lose. She must also find a way to a life she can truly call her own.

"An arresting tale of what it meant to survive as a woman . . . [and] an unflinching portrait of love and loss against a landscape of Parisian decadence.”—Deborah Harkness

“Epic times make for epic books . . . Wonderful, suspenseful reading.”—Karen Joy Fowler

"Eugénie R. is every girl in a daguerreotype looking over her shoulder, every woman with a baby hurrying away from you down a gas-lit street, and then too, she is the first of her kind, a woman who stands at her own barricades and fights a France determined to render her silent. I lost myself whole-heartedly in her story, and would have followed her down any narrow alley, into any candlelit room, just to know what happened, to stay back there and to delay coming home."—Sarah Blake

“Fiction in the grand tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy.”—Howard Frank Mosher

"Lord! How beautifully this is written. How rare that is to discover."—Dorothy Allison

Twenty years in its conception, research, and writing, The Crimson Petal and the White is teeming with life, rich in texture and incident, with characters breathtakingly real. In a class by itself, it's a big, juicy, must-read of a novel that will delight, enthrall, provoke, and entertain young and old, male and female.

Born to rough cloth in Hogarth's London, but longing for silk, Mary Saunders's eye for a shiny red ribbon leads her to prostitution at a young age. A dangerous misstep sends her fleeing to Monmouth, and the position of household seamstress, the ordinary life of an ordinary girl with no expectations. But Mary has known freedom, and having never known love, it is freedom that motivates her. Mary asks herself if the prostitute who hires out her body is more or less free than the "honest woman" locked into marriage, or the servant who runs a household not her own? And is either as free as a man? Ultimately, Mary remains true only to the three rules she learned on the streets: Never give up your liberty. Clothes make the woman. Clothes are the greatest lie ever told.

Emma Donoghue's daring, sensually charged prose casts a new sheen on the squalor and glamour of eighteenth-century England. Accurate, masterfully written, and infused with themes that still bedevil us today, Slammerkin is historical fiction for all readers.

PART 1: -The Streets

PART 2: -The House of Ill Repute

PART 3: -The Private Rooms and the

Public Haunts

PART 4: -The Bosom of the Family

PART 5: -The World at Large