Loving and the daring (The)

Loving and the daring (The)

The Illusionist

Le Rempart des Béguines

190 pages

18 cm

Hélène and Tamara meet at Tamara's apartment.

Damon, Gene. "The Illusionist." Ladder, vol. 2, no. 1, October 1957, p. 21.

An adolescent girl, in her need for companionship, turns to the charms of her father’s confidante. A more complex relationship ensues, ending with a surprising and ironic twist.

The Censorship Board of Ireland prohibited The Illusionist from 5 April 1957, and The Loving and the Daring from 29 July 1958.

"FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. 'Francoise Mallet, here tells the story of the first love affair of a girl of 15 in a French provincial town...The book centers in a relationship that must generally be considered unnatural and for Tamara is frankly perverse. Francoise Mallet writes about it with a directness and simplicity that few, I think, will find offensive and many, moving and enlightening.' -New York Herald Tribune. A taut, sensitively written novel of a strange emotional alliance that introduces a brilliant new fiction talent to American readers in 20-year-old Francoise Mallet - already a smash-hit in France."

To the left of the image, a woman, redhead, is shown descending the steps of a stone stairway with a wrought iron railing. She wears a green, knee-high skirt, an orange-red cardigan, and brown, high heel shoes. Her left hand is on the railing, her right arm is stretched over her right side. Her eyes are slightly closed and look toward another woman, whose face and shoulders are seen in the foreground, to the bottom-right of the image. She is a brunette with short, curly hair. Her face is heavily made up and partly faces the reader, slightly bent towards the right bottom corner of the image. Her eyes are slightly closed and look back toward the woman on the stairway but do not look straight at her. Her lips are slightly parted and her eyebrows appear raised. She seems to be wearing an off-shoulders gold and black-trimmed gown, and earrings. The scene is lit from the top left.