The Four Corners of the Heart

An Unfinished Novel

By: Françoise Sagan, Sophie R. Lewis - translator

Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt

Length: 4 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

From the internationally bestselling author of Bonjour Tristesse comes the surprise publication of a novel she never finished—and a story that evokes her greatest works.

French literary star Françoise Sagan was just eighteen when she published her first bestseller, Bonjour Tristesse, in 1954. Decades later, this short novel surfaced: an unfinished manuscript that wittily dissects the romantic lives of its bourgeois characters.

The glamorous Marie-Laure never expected her wealthy older husband to survive a devastating car accident that left him in a fragile mental and physical condition. But three years later, Ludovic Cresson returns home to the family estate and finds himself in the throes of a tumultuous marriage.

Overseeing this tense dynamic is Henri, the patriarch, who wants to see his son recover but detests various members of his own family. When Marie-Laure’s mother visits the estate, the family equilibrium falters spectacularly. As Ludovic’s virility returns, he cannot resist the charms of his mother-in-law—and neither can his father.

The story ends abruptly, but it offers a vivid, if open ended, look into some of Sagan’s final undiscovered characters.

©2019 Françoise Sagan. (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2023 by Sophie R. Lewis. Foreword © 2023 by Denis Westhoff.

Critic reviews

“Despite being unfinished, Sagan’s razor-sharp portrayal of the upper classes is on full display in this fine novel.”—Library Journal

“There’s a romantic charm, innocence and otherworldliness to this book of a kind unlikely to be found in a contemporary novel…a curiously pleasing reminder of what a one-off Françoise Sagan was.”—The Spectator