De Potter Grand Tour A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Joanna Scott P J Ochlan Audible Studios Books
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A gripping novel about a seemingly charmed marriage and a mysterious disappearance at sea.
In 1905 a tourist agent and amateur antiques collector named Armand de Potter mysteriously disappears off the coast of Greece. His body is never recovered, and his wife is left to manage his affairs on her own. But as she starts to piece together his life, she realizes that everything was not as he had said.
Infused with details from letters and diary entries, the narrative twists forward and backward through time, revealing a lost world of fake identities, underground antiques networks, and a husband who wasn't what he seemed. Originally from Belgium, young Armand de Potter went to New York without a penny in his pocket. With cunning ambition, he quickly made a name for himself as both a worldwide travel guide and a trusted--if illegal--antiques dealer. After marrying he moved the family to a luxurious villa in Cannes and embraced an aristocratic life. But as he grew increasingly entangled in the antiques trade, and his touring business began to falter, Armand's control started to fray. As the world closed in, he believed he had only one option left.
Told with masterful narrative agility, De Potter's Grand Tour is a tale as grand as the tour guide at its center. Drawing on real letters, legal documents, and a trove of diaries only recently discovered, Joanna Scott points delicately toward the story's historical basis and unfolds a detective tale of the highest order.
De Potter Grand Tour A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Joanna Scott P J Ochlan Audible Studios Books
Joanna Scott (not to be confused with either the romance novelist OR Joanna C. Scott) delivers, in her new novel, a complex study of Armand de Potter -- a man who isn't who he says he is and cannot become what he aspires to be. Scott had access to diaries and letters to guide the broad outlines of her story, we're told, but I get the feeling that the de Potter of this novel is largely her own invention. She certainly uses him to her own ends.Descriptions of the European landmarks, to which the Grand Tour of the title takes us, are among the top reasons to read this book. De Potter is the perfect guide for the American tourist in Europe because he talks easily about everything he sees. His obsession, however, is Egyptian culture and he is ultimately willing to ruin his paying business to feed a fantasy about becoming a recognized authority on the bargain basement antiquities he so assiduously collects. This may be Scott's theme -- no one is who they seem to be, really. And this is the story of Armand de Potter's life.
I liked the real people who salt the pages of the novel at key moments. Scott describes an actual turn-of-the-last-century power at the University of Pennsylvania named Sara Stevenson. When Stevenson leaves the University of Pennsylvania (where de Potter has, gratis, housed his collection), she leaves de Potter's fate in the hands of a controversial figure, Dr. Hilbrecht, another real person who fits seamlessly into this story. De Potter hopes to impress Hilbrecht with the gift of a small male bronze, but Hilbrecht pressures de Potter into an on-the-spot analysis of another small antiquity and de Potter's "wrong" answer allows Hilbrecht to instantly label de Potter as a fraud. Unfortunately, he never learns that Hilbrecht's own reputation is questionable; de Potter is always too quick to believe that he's beaten. Eventually, he disappears altogether, an apparent suicide, but even that may be an illusion.
The unknowability of de Potter or his fate is the real point of the book, I think. Rather than a straightforward retelling of the known facts of his life, Scott writes a circular narrative that loops around and through, exposing de Potter's weaknesses, his vanities, and his lies. De Potter's inability to share the truth about himself is a tragic flaw in the classical sense. The novel has a contemporary feel, though, and photographs of the de Potters appear throughout the book. Each photo took me by surprise and I would interrupt my reading to peer at them. If there's a photo, then it's a true moment. Or does the photo of a fraud hold any truth at all? Is Scott revealing anything about de Potter's life or merely perpetuating his secrets? I think these are questions we're supposed to ask.
This is historical fiction in the broad sense, but read it mainly for the more enticing conclusions it draws about life and lies.
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De Potter Grand Tour A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Joanna Scott P J Ochlan Audible Studios Books Reviews
Good story, but a little hard to follow.
Reviews were more interesting than the book
Nicely written. Interesting historical facts within a fictional tale. I wish the author would have elaborated more on motives of Mr. De Potter
I found this to be an entertaining read, very engaging as I wanted to get back to the book! But don't expect a real climatic novel but certainly worth it.
I did not realize it until I had almost finished the book, but the story is based on events that happened in the author's family. I probably would have preferred a nonfiction approach written as a search for answers to a family mystery.
My Book Club would give it a single star. We all felt it was difficult to follow and we didn't really care about the characters. Everyone felt they had to push through to the finish and did not like the ending.
Armand was a self made man in the days before this was a compliment. He had come to America shedding his identity as the son of a "bastard" in the late 1800's. His name was changed immediately by an immigration officer's mangling of the original. He never used the name of his birth today. He became a collector and sold his imagined noble heritage as a calling card for selling and mentoring luxury tours through Europe and parts of Asia. His wife Aimee, christened by him from her name Amy, knew him only as a great man, a professor, a man of learning.
As his kingdom crumbles, he boards a boat and disappears. The book trace his life's roots and his present. The tawdriness of his collection comes to life. What happened to the man? Aimee is left to discover her future and to construct her new identity.
I am not a fan of Armand. His struggles to rationalize to himself are dreary. I believe he would irritate me in person. His pretensions are obnoxious. While many an anti hero rises from his lack of appeal in the books I read, this one did not. I found the book just so so. The settings of the tours had great potential for enriching the prose. While they are described, they are flat to the touch. This may have been a deliberate tool for the further revelation of De Potter's mediocre life, it deadens the writing. I was engrossed enough to pursue the ending, but even it did not satisfy.
Joanna Scott (not to be confused with either the romance novelist OR Joanna C. Scott) delivers, in her new novel, a complex study of Armand de Potter -- a man who isn't who he says he is and cannot become what he aspires to be. Scott had access to diaries and letters to guide the broad outlines of her story, we're told, but I get the feeling that the de Potter of this novel is largely her own invention. She certainly uses him to her own ends.
Descriptions of the European landmarks, to which the Grand Tour of the title takes us, are among the top reasons to read this book. De Potter is the perfect guide for the American tourist in Europe because he talks easily about everything he sees. His obsession, however, is Egyptian culture and he is ultimately willing to ruin his paying business to feed a fantasy about becoming a recognized authority on the bargain basement antiquities he so assiduously collects. This may be Scott's theme -- no one is who they seem to be, really. And this is the story of Armand de Potter's life.
I liked the real people who salt the pages of the novel at key moments. Scott describes an actual turn-of-the-last-century power at the University of Pennsylvania named Sara Stevenson. When Stevenson leaves the University of Pennsylvania (where de Potter has, gratis, housed his collection), she leaves de Potter's fate in the hands of a controversial figure, Dr. Hilbrecht, another real person who fits seamlessly into this story. De Potter hopes to impress Hilbrecht with the gift of a small male bronze, but Hilbrecht pressures de Potter into an on-the-spot analysis of another small antiquity and de Potter's "wrong" answer allows Hilbrecht to instantly label de Potter as a fraud. Unfortunately, he never learns that Hilbrecht's own reputation is questionable; de Potter is always too quick to believe that he's beaten. Eventually, he disappears altogether, an apparent suicide, but even that may be an illusion.
The unknowability of de Potter or his fate is the real point of the book, I think. Rather than a straightforward retelling of the known facts of his life, Scott writes a circular narrative that loops around and through, exposing de Potter's weaknesses, his vanities, and his lies. De Potter's inability to share the truth about himself is a tragic flaw in the classical sense. The novel has a contemporary feel, though, and photographs of the de Potters appear throughout the book. Each photo took me by surprise and I would interrupt my reading to peer at them. If there's a photo, then it's a true moment. Or does the photo of a fraud hold any truth at all? Is Scott revealing anything about de Potter's life or merely perpetuating his secrets? I think these are questions we're supposed to ask.
This is historical fiction in the broad sense, but read it mainly for the more enticing conclusions it draws about life and lies.
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