But under the surface is what matters-fulfillment, self-expression, dynamism, sex-and that’s where Richard Coleman, though charming as fiancé, reveals himself to be old-fashioned, “ordinary,” even authoritarian as husband. Things aren’t going so well in Kitty and Richard Coleman’s marriage, though by appearances all’s fine: they’re a respectable couple in London’s middle-high society, live in a fine house, keep maid and cook, and remind readers of the upstairs family in, well, Upstairs, Downstairs. Chevalier’s enormous hit with Vermeer and the 17th century ( Girl With a Pearl Earring, 2000) is followed by a novel so familiar-the forces of change at 19th- century’s end put cracks in domestic life-that the hyperverisimilitude of its period-color seems almost done by number.
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