Praise for Chanel's Riviera:
"Intoxicating descriptions...of Chanel's life, specifically her fashion innovations and love affairs, are woven throughout the book...But glamour on the Riviera would soon give way to a fight for survival." —New York Times Book Review
“A history of the Cote d’Azur, from the frivolity and decadence of its post-Jazz Age heyday to the terror and desperation of World War II.” —Wall Street Journal
“De Courcy’s book is entertaining…a peek, at once envious and satisfyingly censorious, at the lifestyles of the rich and famous.” —The Washington Post
“Dishy and well-researched…this fluidly written history succeeds in capturing the era’s intoxicating mix of glitz and grit.” —Publishers Weekly
“De Courcy deploys gleaming, well-chosen details to make Chanel's Riviera as vivid and entertaining as a novel. Her careful research, coupled with her polished narrative style, illuminates an era of opulence and starvation, of heroes and collaborators, in a world that soared high and swiftly plummeted.” —Shelf Awareness
“De Courcy is adept at describing displays of opulence, and proves equally capable when portraying the deprivations and reversals of fortune occasioned by the onset of WWII…this will be popular with royal watchers, fashionistas, and readers who relish the international social scene.” —Booklist
“A gleaming social history of the French Riviera in the 1930s…[a] lovingly researched portrait of paradise.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Love a bit of real-life sex, disappointment and scandal from some of the 20th century’s biggest icons all set against an impossibly luxurious and elegant French backdrop? Then Anne De Courcy’s biography of a very select time and place is for you...You’ll come away from reading it both better informed and utterly transported.” —Stylist, Best Summer Books 2019 (UK)
“[A] sparkling, anecdote-rich narrative.” —The Times (UK)
“A well-researched and compelling story...Drawing on an immense volume of material, [de Courcy] has succeeded not only in constructing an intriguing portrait of Chanel herself but also in expertly conjuring the two very different worlds that then existed side by side.” —Selina Hastings, Literary Review (UK)
"[A] gripping, rousing study." —Daily Telegraph (UK)
'Entertaining...This book is stuffed with...bizarre anecdotes and gossip. Anne de Courcy makes a highly amusing guide to the shenanigans, foibles and affairs of the rich and famous." — Anne Sebba, History Today
Praise for The Husband Hunters:
“[The American heiresses] were just what was needed to shake the cocktail and bring some pizazz to the party. De Courcy conjures it all with skill.” —New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice
“A true account of the women who inspired Downton Abbey.”—Vanity Fair
"Witty and well researched, Anne de Courcy brings to colorful, dramatic life these dollar princesses whose vast fortunes propelled them to glittering trans-Atlantic marriages that captivated international society."—Daisy Goodwin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fortune Hunter
“Anglophiles fascinated by the intricate tribal codes of the British upper classes will find plenty to feed their interest.” —Boston Globe
“Vanderbilts, Astors, Churchills, Marlboroughs; diamonds, tiaras, yachts, mansions; all are documented in glorious detail and should satisfy those readers with insatiable thirst for all things peerage.”—Booklist
“Downton Abbey fans will swoon over this trip through the privileged turn-of-the-century world of cash, class, and coronets...De Courcy brings the Victorian and Edwardian eras vibrantly to life with her meticulously well-researched book, conveyed in an approachable prose style…A highly readable social history that contains all of the juicy drama of a prime-time soap opera.” –Kirkus Reviews
"Amusing [and] breezily readable." —Washington Times
12/02/2019
Journalist de Courcy (The Husband Hunters) portrays fashion designer Coco Chanel’s French Riviera milieu from 1930 through the end of WWII in this dishy and well-researched account. At a time when the Côte d’Azur had already become “the playground of the rich,” Chanel bought 12 acres above the village of Roquebrune and built a villa modeled after the convent where she’d spent her adolescence. Writers and artists including Colette, Aldous Huxley, and Pablo Picasso had homes in the region, and Winston Churchill, Vladimir Nabokov, and Chanel’s friend and lover Salvador Dalí visited during summers of “feverish gaiety, threaded through with rumor and suspicion” as the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. After the fall of France in 1940, British nationals fled the Riviera, and de Courcy frequently and deservedly shifts the spotlight from Chanel to historical figures including Australian socialite Enid Furness, who helped Allied prisoners escape from a detention camp near the village of Èze. De Courcy describes the impact of anti-Jewish laws and food shortages on those who remained in the region, but lets Chanel off the hook for her anti-Semitism and her affair with Nazi intelligence officer Hans von Dincklage, who helped to insulate the designer from wartime deprivations. Nevertheless, this fluidly written history succeeds in capturing the era’s intoxicating mix of glitz and grit. Agent: Isobel Dixon, The Blake Friedmann Literary Agency. (Feb.)
01/10/2020
De Courcy's (The Husband Hunters) social history considers Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's spiritual home, the French Riviera, where the iconic fashion designer built her estate La Pausa. Close to Paris and her couture brand, this residence offered space for Chanel simply to enjoy life. In the 1930s, the Riviera was an elitist playground, but in 1936 France granted all workers annual vacation, which meant more people had time to visit the coast. When Germany invaded France in 1940, although the Riviera was in the "free zone," it was not exempt from privation. Having closed her business in 1938, Chanel wasn't terribly worried about the fate of France or anyone persecuted under the Nazis—instead, she desired "to go on living as she wished." In 1945, when the war ended, she reopened her business and resumed her lifestyle. The central character of this book is the Riviera, and how it weathered World War II, with Chanel serving as a spirited, bit player who embodies the characteristics of the era. VERDICT More a regional history scrutinizing the intersection of wealth and war through the biography of a famous resident than a traditional treatment of Chanel's life. Those seeking the latter may prefer Caroline Young's Living with Coco Chanel.—Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH
Yesterday’s gossip is today’s history, a principle amply confirmed by this richly detailed audiobook chronicling the high life on the Riviera in the 1930s through WWII. Designer Coco Chanel is the focus of the narrative, and the thread that connects a wide cast of contemporaries ranging from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Marlene Dietrich, Picasso, Churchill, and H.G. Wells. Narrator Sophie Roberts’s strong, polished, highly sophisticated voice effectively conveys the aura of fashionable society but maintains a firm narrative objectivity. Droll, fascinating, full of memorable characters and anecdotes, here is a perspective on a world and time that moved from drawing-room comedy to the private dramas of war and occupation. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
2019-10-21
A gleaming social history of the French Riviera in the 1930s, "probably the heyday of the Riviera in its modern sense."
In her latest, De Courcy (The Husband Hunters: American Heiresses Who Married Into the British Aristocracy, 2018, etc.) delivers portraits of a variety of wealthy social circles with the voyeurism of a who's-who society column. The author portrays American vacationers and European artists, writers, socialites, intellectuals, and public figures, including the Prince of Wales, Wallis Simpson, Jean Cocteau, and Winston Churchill. Coco Chanel—who, according to De Courcy, embodied "France's prestige"—is an alluring if elusive narrative hook. Accounts of her La Pausa home, her lovers, and her stays at the Ritz in Paris punctuate the text, from which she's often absent. The author gives much attention to extramarital affairs, entertaining affectations, and opiate addictions. Quotations from period diaries and letters enliven the narrative, though the overall effect is light and gossipy. De Courcy's discussion of Chanel's fashion rival, Elsa Schiaparelli, briefly brings the focus back to the titular character. At times, the author fetishizes the bygone glamour that characterized the landscape; Marlene Dietrich, for example, is deemed "the blonde to end all blondes." The rise of the Nazis serves mostly as historical background, and the author offers a reasonable consideration of Chanel's anti-Semitism. Later sections about English expatriates' struggles to flee, deportations, and collaborators in France revisit horrors and miraculous survivals, showing a clear rift between the rich—who experienced minor deprivations yet carried on much as before—and the people who were severely impacted. The unavoidable disjuncture between Chanel's privileged world and the one just outside it leads to a somewhat uneven narrative that will turn off many readers but appeal to those fascinated by the rich and famous.
In its copious details, this lovingly researched portrait of paradise highlights the colorful glitz and too-familiar blindness of the ultrarich.
