There were so many of us, children of these double families who dreamed
of the other side. That night, I fantasized about the separate spheres of
our lives colliding... Introspective and headstrong, and fueled by an
intensity she can't name, Margot Louve has lived as her parents' secret.
For seventeen years, her father - an influential French politician with
presidential ambitions - has led a double life, his only contact with
Margot and her mother in moments stolen from his wife and his official
duties. Margot's mother, Anouk - a charismatic and prominent stage actress
- constructs a private, shimmering world of secrecy around their hidden
family in their tiny Parisian apartment on the Left Bank. It is a carefully
constructed house of cards that Margot decides fatefully to tumble when one
evening, at the opening night of one of her mother's plays, she meets the
man who will set her plan in motion: the powerful and well-regarded
journalist David Perrin. The next day, the front pages of the morning
papers are emblazoned with news of the affair, and Margot finds herself
drawn into another marriage - that of David and his beguiling wife
Brigitte, each of whom want more from her than she is willing to give up.
In just one stunning revelation, Margot discovers how her impulsive
decision will change the contours of everyone's life around her in ways she
could never have imagined. In this simmering debut, Sanaë Lemoine exposes
the seams between private and public faces, truth and deceit, love and
persuasion. Insightful and moving, woven in sensuous prose, The Margot
Affair explores razor-sharp turns between women - from the bone-deep bond
between mothers and daughters to the devotion and betrayal of friendship -
and the dangers of pushing beyond the boundaries of a life lived in the
shadows--