{"product_id":"the-violins-of-saintjacques-isbn-9781590177822","title":"The Violins of Saint-Jacques","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Mr. Fermor's elegant rococo fantasy about a volcanic eruption on an imaginary Caribbean island is just close enough to reality to raise a genuine shiver—possibly even a genuine tear. In truth, it is a small timeless masterpiece.\" —Phoebe Lou Adams, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn NYRB Classics Original\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePatrick Leigh Fermor’s only novel displays the same lustrous way with words as his beloved travel trilogy (\u003ci\u003eA Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Broken Road\u003c\/i\u003e), the memoir of his youthful walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. This slim book starts with the meeting of an English traveler and an enigmatic elderly Frenchwoman on an Aegean island. He is captivated by her painting of a busy Caribbean port in the shadow of a volcano, which leads her to tell him the story of her childhood in that town back at the beginning of the twentieth century. The tale she unfolds, set in the tropical luxury of the island of Saint-Jacques, is one of romantic intrigue and decadence involving the descendants of slaves and a fading French aristocracy. Then, on the night of the annual Mardi Gras ball, a whole world comes to a catastrophic and haunting end.\"Mr. Fermor’s elegant rococo fantasy about a volcanic eruption on an   imaginary Caribbean island is just close enough to reality to raise a   genuine shiver—possibly even a genuine tear. In truth, it is a small   timeless masterpiece.\" —Phoebe Lou Adams, \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The only work of fiction by Patrick “Paddy” Leigh Fermor (the decorated  war hero, admired travel writer and stylist) is doubly a period piece.  Written and first published just over half a century ago, in 1953, its  main action is set another half-century before that, in 1902. It is  also, in its way, a masterpiece...There is more than a hint of mischief, and indeed humour, about Paddy’s  nostalgia for a lost world, and its ethereal afterglow that lives on in  the violins of the title.\" —Roderick Beaton, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A  sojourn in the Caribbean inspired a travel book and a novella, set  in  1902 on an island in the Antilles, about love and intrigue in the   over-blown and over-mannered society of the French aristocracy...\u003ci\u003eThe Violins of Saint-Jacques\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterpiece in the minor mode.\" —Brian Vintcent, \u003ci\u003eThe Globe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[\u003ci\u003eThe Violins of Saint-Jacques\u003c\/i\u003e]  brings alive the glamour and  the passions of the planters in their  heyday. This tale of a whole rich  island being destroyed by a volcanic  eruption in the middle of a  splendid planters’ ball is based on the  true story of the annihilation  in 1902.\" —Robin Hanbury-Tension, \u003ci\u003eThe Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Violins of Saint Jacques\u003c\/i\u003e, filled with lush imagery and elaborate historical reconstruction, deserves to be more widely known.\" —James Ferguson, \u003ci\u003eCaribbean Beat\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A  haunting threnody for a vanished world as the sole survivor  remembers  the glow and decadence of the Mardi Gras balls on the night  when her  Caribbean island was destroyed by a volcanic eruption.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003ePatrick Leigh Fermor \u003c\/b\u003e(1915–2011) was an intrepid traveler and a heroic  soldier who is widely considered to be one of the finest travel writers  of the twentieth century. After his stormy school days, followed by the  walk across Europe to Constantinople that begins in \u003ci\u003eA Time of Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e (1977) and continues through \u003ci\u003eBetween the Woods and the Water\u003c\/i\u003e (1986) and \u003ci\u003eThe Broken Road\u003c\/i\u003e (published posthumously in 2013), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek archipelago. His books \u003ci\u003eA Time to Keep Silence\u003c\/i\u003e (1957), \u003ci\u003eMani\u003c\/i\u003e (1958) and \u003ci\u003eRoumeli\u003c\/i\u003e (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. In  the Second World War he joined the Irish Guards, became a liaison  officer in Albania, and fought in Greece and Crete. He was awarded the  DSO and OBE. Leigh Fermor lived partly in Greece—in the house he  designed with his wife, Joan, in an olive grove in the Mani—and partly  in Worcestershire. In 2004 he was knighted for his services to  literature and to British–Greek relations. Artemis Cooper’s biography, \u003ci\u003ePatrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e, was published by New York Review Books in 2013.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJames Campbell\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of several works of nonfiction, including \u003ci\u003eInvisible Country: A Journey Through Scotland\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eExiled in Paris: Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Samuel Beckett and Others on the Left Bank\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eSyncopations: Beats, New Yorkers, and Writers in the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e. He writes the weekly NB column in the \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e under the pen name J.C.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303739019493,"sku":"NP9781590177822","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590177822.jpg?v=1767742089","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-violins-of-saintjacques-isbn-9781590177822","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}