The Four Corners of the Heart: An Unfinished Novel

Summary

From the internationally bestselling author of Bonjour Tristesse comes the surprise publication of a novel she never finished―and a story that evokes her greatest works.

French literary star Françoise Sagan was just eighteen when she published her first bestseller, Bonjour Tristesse, in 1954. Decades later, this short novel surfaced: an unfinished manuscript that wittily dissects the romantic lives of its bourgeois characters.

The glamorous Marie-Laure never expected her wealthy older husband to survive a devastating car accident that left him in a fragile mental and physical condition. But three years later, Ludovic Cresson returns home to the family estate and finds himself in the throes of a tumultuous marriage.

Overseeing this tense dynamic is Henri, the patriarch, who wants to see his son recover but detests various members of his own family. When Marie-Laure’s mother visits the estate, the family equilibrium falters spectacularly. As Ludovic’s virility returns, he cannot resist the charms of his mother-in-law―and neither can his father.

The story ends abruptly, but it offers a vivid, if open ended, look into some of Sagan’s final undiscovered characters.