The Lover
When Kate Collison, to help her ailing father, completes his portrait of the powerful Baron de Centeville, her only thought is to be a dutiful daughter. But when the Baron presents her to Parisian society as the painter, Kate finds herself basking in the recognition . . . until she discovers that the Baron has plans for her -- shocking plans that will change her life unless she can fight the Baron with his own weapons . . .
Where The Lover keeps showing up
Two of our editors' lists feature this novel.
What you might want to know about The Lover
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Marguerite Duras looks back on a French schoolgirl in 1929 colonial Indochina, fifteen and a half years old, who meets a wealthy older Chinese man on a Mekong ferry. The book follows their year-and-a-half affair in his shuttered Cholon room while her widowed mother and brothers sink into poverty.
The most commonly searched is The Lover by Marguerite Duras (L'Amant, 1984), a literary novel that won the Prix Goncourt. The metadata above lists Eleanor Burford (the real name behind several pseudonyms including Victoria Holt) in error.
Yes. The Lover is fictionalized memoir based on Marguerite Duras's relationship with a wealthy older Chinese man during her teenage years in 1929 French Indochina. She returned to the same material in her later novel The North China Lover.
The Lover is 377 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Lover takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
The Lover is a standalone novel by Eleanor Burford, not part of a series.
The Lover is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
