Friday Freebie: Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose

Congratulations to Beverly Sizemore, winner of last week's Friday Freebie--a bundle of three novels: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer, and The Road From Gap Creek by Robert Morgan.

This week's book contest prize is Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose.  I have TWO brand-new hardback copies of the novel to give away to two lucky readers.  Here's more about the new prose from Prose:

A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself. Paris in the 1920s. It is a city of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the club's loyal denizens, including the rising photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol, and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine. As the years pass, their fortunes--and the world itself--evolve. Lou falls in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting portrait of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more sinister: collaboration with the Nazis. Told in a kaleidoscope of voices, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 evokes this incandescent city with brio, humor, and intimacy.

Gary Shteyngart, never one for a bland blurb, had this to say about the novel: “Prose’s latest book goes further in destroying the concept of a single truth than Rashomon.  It’s also an uproarious portrait of Paris from the mid-twenties to the Second World War.  Prose has always been adept at slaying sacred cows; in this book, she pretty much machine-guns them.”

If you’d like a chance at winning a copy of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on April 17, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on April 18.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.