the idea of love by louise dean

metro 20 august 2008

Louise Dean’s third novel focuses on a quartet of expats in the south of France. Richard, from England, has moved to a small French market town with his French wife Valerie and their teenage son Maxence.

Their neighbours and drinking partners are Jeff, an American cartoonist, and his English wife, Rachel, who have a daughter called Maud.

The adults are all unhappy and unlikeable, trying to hide their general dissatisfaction by knocking back the vin rouge.

Valerie and Jeff have an affair, while Richard becomes disenchanted with his job as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company and engages in desultory affairs with women he meets on business trips.

The plot only really comes to life when Richard loses his wife, his home and his job. He does, however, stumble upon some self-enlightenment.

‘The idea of love… is something worth dying for. Worth living for even.’

All of the main players have something to learn about love, yet these lessons feel hard to swallow, not least because the characters seem so undeserving of a second chance.

Nor does it help that Dean is so keen on self-consciously idiosyncratic vocabulary and imagery. Her characters’ journeys only serve to alienate her readers.