conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled The Last Rendezvous about Desbordes, French, Romantic with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the authors award-winning novel fictionalizes the life and loves of the French Romantic poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (17861859). The first-person narrative alternates between Desbordes as an aging, dispirited actress, growing ill at ease with her life on the stage, and as an adolescent who comes of age while forced to support her fragile mother and alcoholic father. Having suffered the death of her young child and her family members descent into addiction and mental illness, Desbordes is in her early thirties when she marries fellow actor, Prosper Valmore. In this union she hopes to find some relief from her troubled past. The peace she so desperately seeks, however, is thrown into question upon meeting the alluring Henri Latouche. As the two become involved in an affair, the relationship fuels a renewed motivation in Desbordes writing and life. the authors tale evokes a lush portrait of a spirited, talented woman navigating her role as mother, daughter, poet, and lover. The text also includes a selection of Desbordes verse, translated by the poet Louis Simpson. --Leah Strauss