Synopses & Reviews
A sleek, stylish novel set in the sophisticated, dazzling New York of the 1940s, between the shock of Pearl Harbor and the first landing of American troops in Europe—a deft, romantic novel about a wartime triangle involving a twenty-two-year-old fashion designer poised to launch her promising career . . . the acclaimed French expatriate writer/war pilot, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who’s fled his Nazi-occupied country and come to Manhattan for a month, only to stay for two years . . . and his beautiful, estranged Salvadoran wife, the tempestuous, vain Consuelo, determined to win back her husband at all costs—and seductions.
With Paris under occupation by Hitler’s troops, New York’s Mayor La Guardia has vowed to turn his city into the new fashion capital of the world. A handful of American designers are set to become the industry’s first names, and Mignonne Lachapelle is determined to be among them. Her ambition and ethics are clear and uncomplicated, until she falls for the celebrated and tormented adventurer Captain Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who, six months after the surrender of France, has fled Europe’s ashen skies after flying near-suicidal reconnaissance missions for the French Air Force. In New York, he writes a new book on the fall of France, Flight to Arras (it becomes a number-one best seller) and collects (a year late) his 1939 National Book Award for his Wind, Sand and Stars, a poetic account of his flying escapades over North Africa and South America (by the time of his arrival in New York, in early 1941, the book has sold 250,000 copies). To distract himself from his malaise about France and at being in exile, and at his publisher’s offhand suggestion, he begins work on a children’s story about a “petit bonhomme” in the Sahara Desert . . .
Nothing about Mig’s relationship with Saint-Ex is simple, not his turmoil and unhappiness about being in New York and grounded from wartime skies, nor Mig’s tempestuous sexual encounter with Antoine and the blurring boundaries of their artistic pursuits, or Saint-Exupéry’s wife who insidiously entangles Mig in her schemes to reclaim her husband. The greatest complication of Mig’s bond with Saint-Exupéry comes in the form of a deceptively simple manuscript: Antoine’s work in progress about a little boy, a prince, who’s fallen to earth on a journey across the planets . . .
An irresistible novel that brings to life the complex, now almost mythic Saint-Exupéry and the glittering life of wartime New York.
Synopsis
A sleek, stylish novel set in the sophisticated, dazzling New York of the 1940s, between the shock of Pearl Harbor and the first landing of American troops in Europe—a deft, romantic novel about a wartime triangle involving a twenty-two-year-old fashion designer poised to launch her promising career . . . the acclaimed French expatriate writer/war pilot, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who’s fled his Nazi-occupied country and come to Manhattan for a month, only to stay for two years . . . and his beautiful, estranged Salvadoran wife, the tempestuous, vain Consuelo, determined to win back her husband at all costs—and seductions.
With Paris under occupation by Hitler’s troops, New York’s Mayor La Guardia has vowed to turn his city into the new fashion capital of the world. A handful of American designers are set to become the industry’s first names, and Mignonne Lachapelle is determined to be among them. Her ambition and ethics are clear and uncomplicated, until she falls for the celebrated and tormented adventurer Captain Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who, six months after the surrender of France, has fled Europe’s ashen skies after flying near-suicidal reconnaissance missions for the French Air Force. In New York, he writes a new book on the fall of France, Flight to Arras (it becomes a number-one best seller) and collects (a year late) his 1939 National Book Award for his Wind, Sand and Stars, a poetic account of his flying escapades over North Africa and South America (by the time of his arrival in New York, in early 1941, the book has sold 250,000 copies). To distract himself from his malaise about France and at being in exile, and at his publisher’s offhand suggestion, he begins work on a children’s story about a “petit bonhomme” in the Sahara Desert . . .
Nothing about Mig’s relationship with Saint-Ex is simple, not his turmoil and unhappiness about being in New York and grounded from wartime skies, nor Mig’s tempestuous sexual encounter with Antoine and the blurring boundaries of their artistic pursuits, or Saint-Exupéry’s wife who insidiously entangles Mig in her schemes to reclaim her husband. The greatest complication of Mig’s bond with Saint-Exupéry comes in the form of a deceptively simple manuscript: Antoine’s work in progress about a little boy, a prince, who’s fallen to earth on a journey across the planets . . .
An irresistible novel that brings to life the complex, now almost mythic Saint-Exupéry and the glittering life of wartime New York.
About the Author
Ania Szado graduated from the Ontario College of Art and the University of British Columbia. Her first novel,
Beginning of Was, was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Her writing has appeared in numerous periodicals, including
The Globe and Mail, Flare, and
This Magazine. She lives in Toronto.
Reading Group Guide
The introduction, discussion questions, and suggested further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of Ania Szado’s Studio Saint-Ex, a brilliant work of historical fiction based on the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the celebrated French author best known for the whimsical tale The Little Prince.
1. Why does Ania Szado choose to write Mignonne’s perspective in the first person, while Consuelo’s inner life is described in third person? How does this affect the reader’s understanding of the two women?
2. How do the attitudes and dynamics of the New York fashion world of World War II mirror the larger social and political forces at play, both within the city and on the global stage?
3. It can be argued that each character in Studio Saint-Ex is something of an opportunist. Consider Véra Fiche, Mignonne, Consuelo, Binty, Antoine: what did each character really want, and were they successful in achieving it?
4. In what ways are names important in the story, both as a literary device and as an indication of the social structures of the times?
5. Madame Fiche says to Mignonne: “People need a luxurious escape these days, no?” [p. 13]. What is the role of art and literature in a time of war? How does this theme play out in the novel?
6. How does the political dissention of their home country affect the French society in 1940s New York? What kind of social and political environment prevails at the Alliance Française? How are the novel’s characters influenced by the community’s turmoil?
7. What does Mignonne learn from her relationship with Véra Fiche? How do Mignonne’s designs reflect her unfolding as an artist and a woman?
8. The three main characters come from a multitude of cultural backgrounds. Where is home for Mignonne, Antoine, Consuelo?
9. What are the flaws and strengths of the artist’s nature, as expressed by Bernard Lamotte, Antoine, Consuelo, and Mignonne? What does the novel as a whole say about the artist?
10. Antoine says: “And then, in spite of my efforts to the contrary, I grew up. It is painful to grow up” [p. 192]. In what ways is Antoine still like a child? Does he continue to resist adulthood?
11. When asking Antoine about his marriage to Consuelo, Mignonne says, “Sacrament or sacrifice? You’re like a man who is offered a knife but insists on staying tied to his stake” [p. 157]. What truly binds Antoine to Consuelo? Does he in fact love her? Does he love Mignonne?
12. Mignonne and Consuelo are often compared to forces of nature throughout the novel. How do these descriptions serve to enrich the reader’s understanding of the similarities and differences between them? What is the significance of Antoine’s rose?
13. What did Consuelo hope to accomplish by going to a world’s fair so many years after her last encounter with Mignonne? What would have transpired if Mignonne had been able to attend the retrospective in person, as planned? How have both women been changed by the years?
14. Leo, Mignonne’s brother, tells her: “You were all swooning over [The Little Prince] like it’s a love story. Open your eyes, people. It isn’t a love story, it’s a war story. The prince goes back to his rose at the end. That’s his country. He signs up to die for his prickly, pretty France” [p. 327]. Is Leo right? Was Antoine’s death a senseless tragedy or did he die a hero? Is Studio Saint-Ex a love story or a war story or both?