Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20147 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'a sweet story' --Evening Standard

Tatler
'The author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin gives us and bittersweet love story set in Seventies London'

Daily Telegraph
'De Bernieres is a skilful writer, poetic but unforced'

Customer Reviews

an unusual one for de Bernieres
It is dificult to categorise this one. As with Red Dog[see my recent review] it is neither an epic historical novel per Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli nor a mythical romp per Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts and The Troublesome Offspring Of Cardinal Guzman. This book is on a much smaller scale , but none the less as enjoyable.
It is like eaves'dropping on an intimate conversation which is really none of our business. Perhaps this intimacy hightens the drama ,humour and urgency to finish the book in one sitting. The lives of the two narrators unfold:The lonely sexually frustrated middle aged man; the young Yugoslav of the title with her roller coaster background of romance, abuse and hurt. Through their conversations we watch their love develop but will it be consumated?
At the end we know who Chris is , but who is The Partisans Daughter?

Superb
I can't do justice to this book by reviewing it as I am not qualified. I can only say that I couldn't put it down, and that I was very moved by it. By way of information, I would add that one of the characters, The Bob Dylan Upstairs, is in fact Louis De Bernieres as a young man- who indeed did once work in a garage, and live upstairs in the same house as a Partisan's Daughter who told stories. Knowing this as I read, the book became so much more important and relevant to me. I loved and pitied Roza, I empathised with Chris, and I think I was like the BDU once.

A Partisan's Daughter left me deep in thought and ever since putting it down everything else has seemed dull. I would certainly recommend it, but a book is a very personal thing to experience and therefore I offer my opinion only; no critical analysis of style or prose.

Oh, and I only had to reach for the dictionary twice!

Uninvolving
As an avid reader and fan of just about everything that Louis de Bernières has written I was relishing the prospect of another broadly-painted and entertaining novel peopled with engaging characters. It was therefore disappointing to reach the end of A Partisan's Daughter feeling little in the way of involvement with the main characters and little sympathy with either of them. I agree with another reviewer that this book is really more of a long short story but it lacks the succinctness and directness that a well-written short story often so successfully conveys (see, for example, Adam Marek's Instruction Manual for Swallowing).