Louis Begley

Albert Schmidt, a retired lawyer, copes with the boredom of retirement, the devastating loss of his wife, and his Ivy League daughter's fiance+a7, until an unexpected new love brings the promise of new life. Reprint.

About Schmidt

A haunting, unforgettable novel about an orphaned boy and his gallant aunt, and how, assuming false identities, they survive the horrors of war. Louis Begley's extraordinary novel is a work of wisdom and lyric power about the complex, terrifying process of growing up when the adult world has become insane.

Wartime Lies

Reconnecting with a vibrant woman from his past, Philip is shocked to learn that her seemingly charmed marriage ended in divorce and tragedy and that the woman regarded her ex as a monster, a revelation that compels him to investigate the truth.

Memories of a Marriage

Man Who Was Late, The

Beloved author Louis Begley returns to the monied halls of the Upper East Side with a sharp new comedy of manners. Divorced after decades of comfortable marriage, retired journalist Hugo Gardner sets out to explore paths not travelled. After four decades of what he believes to be a happy, healthy partnership, Hugo Gardner's world is overturned when he learns that his wife, Valerie, is not only requesting a divorce but has left him for a younger, more vital man. Hugo, an octogenarian political writer and retired journalist for Time, must rethink the way he's lived, and reassess how he'd like to spend his remaining years. Reconsidering past relationships in his mind, with years of distance, Hugo begins to see things in a new light: Valerie, whose youth and ambition eventually came between them; his children, whose support might be more financially than emotionally motivated; and his friends, who, like him are rapidly aging before his very eyes. With an ominous oncologist's report hanging over his head, Hugo decides to get away for a bit, to a conference in Paris. There, a new romance blooms and Hugo finds himself wondering if growing old in Paris might be the perfect antidote to the drama he left behind in New York. Unflinching, witty, and urbane as ever, Louis Begley delivers a spot-on satire of the world of New York's aging elite, and uncovers the unexpected delights a late-in-life change can offer.

A Novel

The New Life of Hugo Gardner

"Begley writes with a contemplative wisdom that permeates his work....[He] has captured some of the wispy melancholy of midcentury fiction, and this feat in itself is mellifluous to both ear and spirit." THE BOSTON GLOBE A man without a country or family, a Holocaust survivor, Ben long ago left the wreckage of Europe and recreated himself as a brilliant financier. He rejects the comforts of love and is shocked to discover Veronique--beautiful, unwisely married, and all that Ben suddenly knows he has always needed. In their stolen hours and weekends, their deep commitment to one another fills their lives as nothing ever has. But the question remains: Can Ben finally take what he has always denied himself...? From the author of WARTIME LIES. "From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Man Who Was Late

Schmidt struggles with doubts over his May-December romance after Carrie refuses his marriage proposals; his humorless daughter returns, jilted and asking for money; and he encounters a mysterious Egyptian billionaire who may hold the key to his ultimatefate.

Schmidt Delivered

Matters of Honor

Mistler's Exit

Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters

Killer's Choice

At Harvard in the 1950s, three mismatched freshmen are thrown together as roommates--Sam, an aristocratic Yankee; Archie, an affable Army brat; and Henry, a Polish refugee--in the story of their college years and their friendship.

Maciek, ein polnischer Junge aus gutsituierter jüdischer Arztfamilie, erlebt mit seinen Angehörigen die verheerenden Folgen des 2. Weltkriegs. Mit Hilfe seiner schönen, klugen Tante überlebt er die Jahre der Verfolgung und des Untertauchens.

Roman

Lügen in Zeiten des Krieges

über Franz Kafka

Die ungeheure Welt, die ich im Kopf habe

Albert Schmidt, a retired lawyer, copes with the boredom of retirement, the devastating loss of his wife, and his Ivy League daughter's new fiance, until an unexpected new love brings the promise of a new life

Poland, 1939. The comfortable, secure world of assimilated Jews is blown away by the invasion of the Third Reich. Maciek's father disappears into the war's vortex, leaving the orphaned child with his acerbic and beautiful Aunt Tania. It is her cool inventiveness, in their dramatic flight through a landscape of oppression, that will ensure their fragile survival.

As he tries to make his life habitable again--after the devastating loss of his wife--retired lawyer Albert Schmidt finds the possibility of regeneration in a new love the old "Schmidtie" would never have dreamt of. Set in the Hamptons and Mahnattan, and laced with black humor, About Schmidt casts a cold, pitiless eye on the eastern seaboard upper class, the last vestiges of once-ascendant WASPs, and the newcomers whose fortunes are rising. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Louis Begley's Memories of a Marriage.

Anka Muhlstein

With an unforgettable novella and brilliant essays, a writing couple delivers “a love letter to an ancient Italian city by the sea” (The Washington Post). Venice for Lovers is a memorable collaboration by two fine stylists who have fashioned their own personal homages to Venice, one with a novella, the other with a personal essay. Every year for all the thirty they have been married, Begley and Muhlstein have escaped to Venice to write. In her contribution to the book, Muhlstein charmingly describes how she and her husband dine at the same restaurant every night for years on end, and how becoming friends with restaurateurs has been an unsurpassed means of getting to know the city and its inhabitants, far from the tourists in San Marco Square. In his short novella, Begley writes a story of falling in love with and in Venice. His twenty-year-old protagonist, enamored with an older, far worldlier woman of twenty-seven, is lured by her to the City of Water, only to be unceremoniously dumped and left to fend for himself after a brief rendezvous. But he discovers a lasting love for Venice itself not an uncommon romance, as Begley’s brilliant literary essay on the city’s place within world literature demonstrates: Henry James, Marcel Proust, and Thomas Mann were all illustrious predecessors. “Refreshing and delightful. Begley and Muhlstein manage to combine in one volume the innocent ardor of a first-time visitor and the seasoned appreciation of longtime lovers.” —Don George, National Geographic Traveler

Louis Begley

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