Becoming Strangers - Hardcover

Published in hardcover by Harcourt, 2006, 0-15-101174-5

"Becoming Strangers, British author Louise Dean's insightful debut, scrutinizes the crumbling marriage of a chic couple at a Carribean resort."—Vogue
 
After more than half a century of marriage, Dorothy and George are embarking on their first journey abroad together. Three decades younger, Jan and Annemieke are taking the last in their tumultuous union. At first the luxury of a Caribbean resort is no match for the habits of domestic life. Then the couples’ paths cross, and a series of surprises ensues—a disappearance and an assault, but also a teapot tempest of passions, slights, misunderstandings, and small awakenings that punctuate a week in which each pair struggles to come to terms with what’s been keeping them apart. Becoming Strangers is a different kind of love story—bittersweet, bitingly funny, and ultimately redeeming.
 
 
"Dean peels back the skin of these marriages with an unflinching lack of sentimentality and an immense talent for close observation and evocative, often poetic detail. She can reach straight into a character’s heart . . . The ending is unexpected, yet entirely deserved. Dean has produced an ideal novel right out of the box."—The Atlantic Monthly
 
"Dean handles the expanding roster of characters effortlessly . . . She seems to eye them all from a distance, waiting patiently for them to reveal themselves."—The New York Times Book Review
 
LOUISE DEAN lives in France. Becoming Strangers, long-listed for the 2004 Man Booker Prize and winner of the Betty Trask Prize and the 2006 Le Prince Maurice Prize, is her first book.
 
Reading Group Guide available at www.HarcourtBooks.com